We are now living in the globalized world where we should interact people from all parts of the globe. English is by far the most widely used language to communicate internationally. In this manner, the primary goal of learning English should be to at...
We are now living in the globalized world where we should interact people from all parts of the globe. English is by far the most widely used language to communicate internationally. In this manner, the primary goal of learning English should be to attain the ability to communicate fluently in English. Successful communication skills in English cannot be acquired without understanding its culture. The evitable relationship between culture and language learning has been already discussed in many aspects. Along with this, the 7th National curriculum of English revised in 2006 also emphasizes that understanding foreign culture is indispensible to communicative competence in foreign language and sets a new goal of learning English as becoming ‘intercultural speaker’.
The purpose of this study is to develop a model of English material for middle school students which integrates language and culture as a way of making the best of culture education in Korean English education circumstance. The English materials previously used have mainly focused on linguistic aspect and underestimated the importance of cultural contents essential to improve language skills and communicative competence. Learning about culture, however, helps students enrich their cultural understanding and develop the ability to use English socioculturally and to recognize the world internationally. The revised curriculum also writes that culture contents should be included in the language material and vocabularies related to culture be expanded. Suggesting culture should be discussed more and effectively in English materials, this study designed a new model for English material in which cultural contents are fused into language learning. The idea of integrating language and culture in English materials corresponds with what Byram(1991) and Kramsch(1993) insisted about foreign language learning.
To actualize this idea, the literature on culture teaching and material development was reviewed and the textbooks were analyzed in terms of the principles described in the national curriculum. Teachers and students were surveyed to obtain information perception on and need for culture learning and materials in English lessons. With all the factors considered, the syllabus for one lesson was organized and the material was planned to integrate language and culture based on the theme-based language learning principle. As Lafayette(1978) suggested that cultural contents be naturally incorporated with every language skill, the cultural content was broadly used as a subject or background in all the language activities in the material through communicative skill, language structure, vocabulary, and grammar. The developed material was then corrected by a native speaker or English and evaluated by teachers and students. After the initial revision was done according to the evaluation results, the material was implemented as a pilot lesson to verify its effectiveness.
In conclusion, this study aims to complement shortcomings found in English materials organized language-centered and to pursue a desirable approach to deal with culture in English learning. As a result, this study presents a model of English material where cultural contents are merged on the basis of theme-based language learning. It also proves the effectiveness of this integrated material in terms of both linguistic and cultural learning and the feasibility of the material to be implemented in English classroom.
The suggestions derived from this study results for culture education in English classroom and development of English materials are as follow: First, an independent English curriculum for teaching culture should be established. Once cultural objectives and contents according to students’ cognitive and linguistic level are set up in the national curriculum, development of materials will be more systematic and of a good quality. Second, more activities adequate to culture learning should be actively invented and applied to materials. Third, more research are needed investigating different ways of integrating culture and language and presenting cultural aspects effectively in English materials.