Should Culture in ELT focus local culture?

Entity: Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)

Confidenciality: No

Education area(s): Ensenyament i Adquisició de l'Anglès com a Llengua Estrangera - Segona Llengua

Title in different languages: Should Culture in ELT focus local culture?

Abstract: Through this study, the importance and relevance of local culture regarding culture teaching in the ELT field will be addressed. Usually in ELT and ESL contexts, most of the target culture either in classroom materials such as textbooks or activities such as listening or speaking is Western Culture, more precisely the British or American, (The United States). However, is it necessary for the target culture to repose on one of these English-speaking countries or the study may focus on a specific wanted or preferred target that could be familiar and closer to both educators and students. This is when local culture teaching in ELT makes sense, it avoids many barriers or inconveniences that could impose the usual option such as religious, preferences, availability, understandability and familiarity. Meanwhile, this study also searches to check how the topic of Culture isn’t studied enough or minimally in the core of ELT. Additionally, studying local culture is potentially an option to foster motivation as a motivated learning process in their students in order to acquire their L2 more interestingly and dynamically. This is how we have tested our theory, presenting to a Spanish class of high school students both cultures so they are able and willing to compare, choose, and test how culture-themed classes are motivation triggering as more necessary in their classroom context. The results have shown that there isn’t usually one culture wanted to be studied above another but there is a major willingness to have Culture-related classes instead of Grammar-centered ones. This issue needs further investigation in academic systems contrasting the Spanish conventional language teaching system on middle and high school levels.

Subject: Ensenyament

Academic year: 2023-2024

Language: en

Work's public defense date: 2024-06-19

Subject areas: Philology

Student: Bousenine Nafei, Nadia

Department: Estudis Anglesos i Alemanys

Creation date in repository: 2024-07-05

TFM credits: 11

Keywords: ELT, Culture, Local Culture

Title in original language: Should Culture in ELT focus local culture?

Access Rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Project director: Bellot, Andrea Roxana