Language and Culture in the Second Language Classroom

1. Language and Culture in the Second Language Classroom Anthony J. Liddicoat University of South Australia

2. Communication is an act of sociality. Language use is an act of social identity. Language learners are also language users. Second language communication is intercultural communication. Second language communication is bilingual. What is culture for communication? How can intercultural competence be taught? How is intercultural competence acquired? Starting points

3. Conceptualising language and culture for language teaching

4. Culture is dynamic • Culture as practice. • Culture learning as engagement with practices. • Cultural competence as intercultural behaviour.

5. Doing being ordinary • Identity as a socially constructed performance. • The individual as a semiotic. • Culture as a context for reading the individual.

6. Culture is variable • Culture varies with time, place, social category and for age, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexuality. • People participate in their own cultures in different ways. • People can resist/subvert/challenge cultural practices.

7. Points of articulation between culture and language

8. Aspects of intercultural competence • Accepting that behaviour is culturally determined. • Accepting that there is no one right way to do things. • Valuing one’s own culture and other cultures. • Using language to explore culture. • Finding personal solutions in intercultural interaction. • Using L1 culture as a resource to learn about L2 culture. • Finding an intercultural style and identity.

9. Teaching languages interculturally

10. Teaching approach 1. Awareness-raising phase 2. Skills development phase 3. Production phase 4. Feedback phase

11. Awareness raising • Reflecting how speakers use language in one’s own culture to do a particular action. • Listening to or viewing the same action being done by speakers of the target language. • Noticing differences.

12. Skills development phase • Students work with input (e.g. print, audio, video, multimedia) on the topic. • The main emphasis is on receptive skills. • Tasks provide input and direct students in noticing interactional features. • Students are introduced to vocabulary, gesture, etc which may be useful.

13. Production phase • Learners use target language cultural norms in their interaction (e.g. in role plays, writing tasks, etc.).

14. Feedback phase • Discussing the experience of using target language norms. • Allowing learners to express positive and negative feelings. • Reflecting on how learners felt about “acting differently”.

15. L2 cultural practices L1 cultural practices Inter-culture1 Inter-culture2 Inter-culturen Developing intercultural awareness

16. Noticing Reflection Reflection Noticing Output Developing intercultural awareness Input

17. Developing intercultural awareness • The development of intercultural competence does not appear to be linear or staged. • The development of intercultural competence is not necessarily ‘progressive’. More advanced states can be less target-like than less advanced states. • The development of intercultural competence is reflective and interactive.

18. Conclusions • Culture for communication is not a series of facts or rules for culturally appropriate communication. • Culture for communication is linguistically and interactionally realised by individuals in the act of communication. • Teaching culture for communication becomes a process of providing occasions for noticing, comparing and reflecting on acts of communication. • Learning culture for communication involves reflection on the culturally conditioned nature of social action.