Challenging the concept of ‘culture’ in teaching

Please watch this video called Culture: tishrab ahwa? (Would you like a coffee?), taken from a coursebook called Alif-Ba, to teach Arabic to beginners...

After that, consider this statement and your position about it.

“Ideally, language learning should function as a multicultural discourse in which the ‘strange’ and ‘foreign’ become more familiar, and in which the participants learn new questions, new perspectives relating to the object of their study, thereby gaining an increased awareness of their own attitudes and perhaps develop a more critical consciousness of themselves and their motivation with regard to the subject they have chosen to learn.” (Attar, 1988, p. 9)

I strongly agree with the above statement... and you? Now, in the light of that video and statement, consider the following questions:

-        As an Arab (if you are one), do you think that the video represents the ‘culture of coffee’ in the Arab world?
-        Imagine that you are a beginner student of Arabic. What would you get from that video?
-        Do you think that video is consistent with the previous statement?
-        What is its purpose? Does it provide the learner with any new value/knowledge?

My answer is that the video only oversimplifies the reality which, in fact, is much more multi-faceted, and contributes to foster useless stereotypes. Working as a teacher of Arabic and Italian as foreign languages, I have been noticing more and more how much some coursebooks contribute to foster this kind of stereotypes. Their attempt to give the students a simplified taste of cultures impoverishes the latters and holds them up to ridicules. In my opinion, a teacher should always consider the perspective she/he is presenting to the students, having a constant critical look at her/his practice and - when dealing with language and culture - always considering the socio-historical aspects, avoiding simplification and thinking about what can foster a better intercultural communication, starting from the language itself.

You could be willing to ask yourself some questions, such as: 

a) Is it possible to represent a culture in a simplified way?

b) What is the relationship between representation and power?

c) How can we deal with complexity when teaching language and culture?

d) Is culture something separated from language or are they tightly interconnected?

c) Is it enough, when learning a new language to have a superficial idea and ‘ready to use’ information or is it necessary to follow a more complex path that pushes the learner to look at both the other and him/herself from a new standpoint?

d) Shall we challenge students to be open to negotiate their identity and beliefs?

As for myself, I relate the role of a teacher to a transformative intellectual whose primary goal is to raise awareness and critical reflection. Therefore, I believe that a greater task for a language teacher is to help building bridges and facilitating mutual social, political and historical understanding between nations.

I also believe that learning a language should help to dip ourselves in a new dimension. I suggest we think, here, of Gulliver (in the famous novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift). During his journey, Gulliver modifies his perspective, starting to see others’ customs, laws and lifestyle from a new angle and, in order to do so, he feels the need to learn other people’s languages. He learns to listen to other points of view, to welcome them and, in some cases, to agree with them.

The concept of culture can be interpreted in several ways. Generalisation should be discouraged.

“Cultures are not monolithic and a variety of successful behaviors are possible for any type of interaction in any particular culture.” (Peterson and Coltrane, 2003).

P. Casola