This is a puzzle that many would say has no sense at all, unless one of the two people is hard of hearing or perhaps not a very good swimmer. A good guess, but not really close to the solution. In this paper, I am going to refer to this puzzle from time to time, hoping to give enough clues to reveal its meaning and the culture ‘bump’ behind it.

First, I will examine what role culture learning  plays and what weight it carries in foreign language education. I will focus on the context of a language class in a Hungarian school; that is, typically a monolingual group learning English in their own country with a non-native teacher. I will then go on to acculturation, which is the process that one has to go through when learning a new culture, and compare this to the experiences of straightforward language learners who do not necessarily have a cultural focus in their studies. I will argue that these two processes have a lot of things in common. In the course of acculturation, there are certain predictable phases, and learners will encounter a difficult stage, commonly called culture shock. In my experience, language learners, while discovering the world of the foreign language, go through a similar process, which I will call linguistic acculturation. Low achievers in the classroom may well be learners undergoing a prolonged linguistic culture shock. To be more proficient in the foreign language, these learners may well need guidance in getting past this cultural stage rather than straightforward language instruction. I will finish by looking at the responsibilities EFL teachers must be prepared to take on if they are to help learners through this critical stage of language development.
 

The first clue to the puzzle is also a cultural one: one of the swimmers in the story is a native speaker of English. The other is not

Culture learning in the language classroom

Culture became a buzz word in the field of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in the 1990s. Several projects were launched to promote cultural studies and to investigate cultural issues all over Europe (McGovern, 1995). Culture is also present at classroom level. There are textbooks specifically written for students who are required to learn about the civilisation of English-speaking countries as part of their language studies (Lavery, 1993; Sheerin, Seath & White, 1985). But even without such supplementary materials, most EFL coursebooks have a strong culture strand, either explicitly, in the form of a cultural syllabus, culture pages or culture corners within the units (Hopkins & Potter, 1994; Nolasco & Medgyes, 1990) or, less systematically, through some of the topics they handle or simply through the pictures they feature.

However, when we examine the professional literature, we find that most studies in this field focus on an ESL rather than an EFL learning context (Byram, 1989; Damen, 1987; Kaplan, 1966; Kramsch, 1993; Seelye, 1993; Valdes, 1986), simply because cultural issues are more obviously present if the language is learnt as a second language (ESL) in a multilingual, multicultural setting. In other words, it is more relevant for a Spanish-speaking immigrant in the USA or a German student studying in Britain to be familiar with the culture of the country they are actually living in than it is for the learners that teachers in Hungary meet. So here is our first dilemma: what is the role of cultural issues in our classrooms? How does the target culture  help our learners? After all, the typical situation they will have to use the language in is one of talking to other non-native speakers, even perhaps here in Hungary.

In the light of the above, all those lessons we teach about Henry VIII or the way the British celebrate Christmas, or the photographs of red double-deckers in London seem to be totally irrelevant. Some of these will be handled anyway in other lessons at school, such as History, Literature, Music or Art. Some others, like the red buses, have no practical value until the learner actually goes to London - which is not where all our learners will want to go. (By the way, if they do go to London, they will find that  some buses are no longer red. Some cultural information gets outdated much faster than EFL teachers think!)

If we choose the red buses as part of the curriculum, we are unfair in many ways. We are not fair to the taxis, the pillarboxes or the traffic wardens - why do they not get any attention? Most of all, we are being unfair to the cultures of other English-speaking countries. (New York taxis, Dublin buses, Canadian policemen or Australian traffic signs are not usually part of the lesson about “the street”.) Can we do this right?

A syllabus along a culture strand would be extremely difficult to design if it is to cover all aspects of the target culture without leaving out what is important, or without giving stereotypical images. But the more crucial question is whether it is worth even trying? How will our Hungarian learners, in Hungary, benefit from it? Yet, there must be some irresistible attraction to including culture in our teaching: all of us fall for it, not just in our day-to-day teaching but in what we choose for our undergraduate theses or for conference presentations. As language teachers, whether just beginning or as experienced, we have the feeling that culture should be part of our job. But how shall we approach it?

The other paradox of teaching culture is that, in our teaching situation, the teacher will unavoidably represent the target culture, even if she is a non-native-speaking teacher of English. As Damen (1987) puts it, “in adopting a communicative approach to second language learning, we, as teachers, have embraced several assumptions [...] concerning our pedagogical roles and goals as cultural guides” (p.212). However, teaching culture, I feel, very often has the function of providing the teacher a higher status in the classroom. The teacher is the one who knows. The one who has been there  (well, almost... at least she has seen a lot of pictures). In her function as a cultural guide, the teacher feels important. Where would our learners be without us? Some of them might get lost. A few might even drown due to a culture bump (or culture blurp?).

And here is the second clue: You might actually drown if you go out when you should go in.

Social and cross-cultural psychologists have developed the model of cultural mediation (Bochner, 1981) to describe the process of creating bridges of understanding between persons of different cultures. Bochner defines a cultural mediator as “an individual who is multicultural, functions in a transnational role [...] and has a social network spanning many cultures” (1981, p. 7). McLeod (1981) adds to this that true mediators have to take on a teaching role. Similarly, culturally sensitive language teachers need to possess the characteristics of a mediator. Medgyes claims that “it is the responsibility of teacher education to train ambassadors of the English language” (1996, p. 20). All this says that language teachers have an extra responsibility which goes well beyond their traditionally understood duties, and which may be quite stressful, especially for a non-native-speaking teacher. How can teachers be guides, mediators, or ambassadors of something that is not really part of themselves? Is it the case of the blind (or almost blind) leading the blind? The fact that Medgyes (1996) talks about ambassadors of the English language and not of culture  takes some of the responsibilities away, but it may still make a non-native-speaking teacher feel uneasy.

This brings us to the third dilemma: where is the division between language and culture? In a language classroom, culture learning and language learning are inextricably linked. Some people go as far as saying that language learning and culture learning are the same. But even if we do not fully agree with this extreme position, it is obvious that language and culture learning go hand in hand, in whatever context learning takes place. 

This relationship is obvious, since culture, or cultural identity, is  partly expressed by language (e.g. greetings or politeness rituals, pronunciation that gives speakers away - you do not have to be a Professor Higgins to be able to decide which side of the Atlantic Ocean a person comes from.) At the same time, language is culturally loaded, very often more than we realise (e.g. the words English, tea  or house  can be extremely difficult for learners for cultural reasons). 
 

The third clue: the use of in and out  can be rather confusing ... as in cricket.

The fact that language itself can pose cultural challenges for the learner is true in an EFL context, as well. An additional link between language and culture is that a foreign language curriculum does not have a content in the sense that other subject areas do. An EFL textbook could be about virtually anything, from the Brown family to time travel or animal rights! Cultural topics lend themselves naturally to language studies; they serve as a link between subject content  and carrier content. 

There is also a pedagogical aspect to cultural studies. National curricula often go beyond linguistic objectives when defining general development objectives in a foreign language. In the Hungarian National Core Curriculum, it is required at Grade 10 that “students be given a demonstration of the culture, civilisation and unique values of the target country (countries), and by comparing these to their own culture, develop a more complex notion of Hungarian culture” and also that “students be able to establish new personal relationships through the foreign language, and appreciate the people and the culture of other countries” (Setényi, 1986, p. 69). These requirements clearly focus on social and cultural awareness and personality development, which open the window to a much wider pedagogical issue than foreign language education itself.

Acculturation 

An important aspect of culture learning is acculturation, the learning process leading to adjustment to non-native cultural patterns. Schumann (1978) defined acculturation as the social and psychological integration of the learner with the target group, which, again, presupposes a second language learning situation, thus making the concept largely irrelevant in the context of our Hungarian learners. Nevertheless, Schumann (1978) also said that lack of acculturation may lead to permanent ‘pidginized’ interlanguage, which relates to the main argument of my paper in many ways. It seems that in favourable circumstances (e.g. staying in a target culture country for a longer period) acculturation takes place even unaided. If it is facilitated, however, it is less painful and involves fewer conflicts. The culture strand in language courses (especially in an ESL setting) is designed to serve this purpose.

Studies on culture learning have identified predictable stages in the process of acculturation, and they have attached labels to them, although it is clear that the process is more like a continuum rather than a set of clearly separable stages. These studies have also traced the thought processes inside the learner and examined the cognitive, affective and behavioural characteristics of these stages; that is, they have described what learners know about the other culture, how they feel about it, and how they behave once they are immersed in it.

Figure 1 and the description of the stages of acculturation that follows, combines the various matrixes, charts and descriptions reviewed by Damen (1987).
 

In the following the individual stages of acculturation will be examined one by one. 

The traveller’s view

Before setting out

At the beginning of a cultural journey, people are ethnocentric. They know very little, and have mostly stereotypical images of the other culture. They have expectations rather than experiences. (Some might expect, having seen pictures of Manhattan, that any city with skyscrapers is New York.) These people would take pride in recognising the other culture when they see pictures, but perhaps would never actually set off to explore the country itself.

The tourist’s view

Tourists have a brief experience and some knowledge of the other culture, but they are mostly aware of its exotic features. In this perspective, everything is new, fresh and attractive. Tourists have a positive image of the culture they have encountered, even if they lack the necessary language, and they have not made any real contacts yet. The red double-deckers look nice, though ... These tourists may never go back to this particular foreign country, but will tell stories and show off photographs of their stay.

The survivor’s stage

The survivor has more contact with and knowledge about the other culture, is aware of the differences, and gets disoriented. Survivors in a culture speak the language well enough to be able to survive, but they rarely understand the cultural implications or the undertones of the language. They experience the conflict between their own and the foreign culture, which feels unwelcoming or even hostile. Travellers become homesick and often wish they had never set out on their journey. For them, the home culture seems to be the norm, and when their journey finishes, they rarely have the desire to return. This stage is one of conflicts which build into  culture shock - the state resulting from anxiety due to the loss of the signs and symbols which guide a person in their home culture. Culture shock can be serious, affecting physical well-being or the ability to work.

The immigrant’s stage

Immigrants who successfully overcome culture shock, are aware of both the differences and similarities, between the foreign culture and their own. They are able to make sense of, and understand why, things are the way they are and do not respond emotionally to surprising differences. They speak the language at a level where they are both communicatively and culturally competent. These travellers often decide to return to the foreign country, or may decide to stay.

The citizen’s status

Citizens in a foreign culture have a deep insight and understanding of cultural issues. They do not only speak the language at a near-native level, but possess much of the body- and meta-language of the natives, as well. They internalise the local value system and probably find it difficult to understand why foreigners find the culture so strange. These travellers will probably go back regularly to stay in the foreign country, some will decide to stay permanently and go native. 

The language learner’s view

Above I have described the stages of culture learning which bona fide travellers go through on their cultural journey. How does this compare to the experiences of our learners in an EFL classroom? Language learners, just like travellers, find themselves surrounded by strange patterns, but for learners they are the foreign language itself. They also have to learn how to adjust themselves and find their way in this world of the unknown. I suggest that language learners go through a process very similar to that of acculturation as far as their cognitive, affective and behavioural characteristics are concerned. I will call this process linguistic acculturation, because it is brought about by exposure to the foreign language and because, as we will see, it resembles in many ways the acculturation process described above. Let us look at linguistic acculturation in more detail, comparing the process to the stages that we have used for describing acculturation.

Before setting out

At the complete beginner stage, learners are confined to their mother tongue. They know very little of the foreign language, but they recognise it when spoken by others. Some of them can sing along with pop singers, making up nonsense words that fit in with their image of the language. These learners are proud to be able to recognise English words around them; they are often unaware of the differences between various parts of the English speaking world (i.e. everyone is ‘English’ who speaks English). 

The tourist’s view

The initial phase of language learning opens up the tourist’s perspective of the language. Learners become aware of the strange, exotic features and usually respond to these positively (“How great that you can call everyone you in English! It is true that the spelling is totally illogical, but there are no declensions!”) These learners often have an over-optimistic view of their command of English. They proudly tell their friends that they are now learning English, and that English is ‘dead easy’. Contemporary methodologies often reinforce this feeling by emphasising and building on the international elements in the foreign language.

The survivor’s stage

This is the critical stage in a language learner’s career. The easy game is over. As learners acquire more knowledge in the language, they realise that it does not build up into a system that follows the logic of their mother tongue. They instinctively try to apply the rules of their first language to English, and it just does not work. The foreign language seems confused and confusing. The typical question at this stage is “Why is X like that in English?” (meaning that “It is not the same in Hungarian, so it cannot be right”, or “The English invented it just to annoy us”). This is the stage where many language learners give up. 
 

The fourth clue (or another puzzle?) is a conversation on the beach: “Mummy, mummy, can I go in?” “Yes, dear, but don’t go too far out!”

There is an obvious conflict between the philosophy, the system, the rules or, to put it simply, the culture  of the learner’s first language and that of the foreign language. Failing to find one-to-one correspondences between languages and being unable to use the routines of their mother tongue results in the same stress and anxiety that brings about culture shock in travellers. For this kind of linguistic culture shock, the learners do not even need to leave the classroom. Yet it can be equally harmful.

The immigrant’s stage

Once they have overcome the linguistic culture shock, learners begin to be aware of and accept the inner logic of the foreign language. They do not panic easily if there are differences between the systems of English and Hungarian; they tend to fit the newly learnt language into the system of the foreign language rather than make comparisons with the mother tongue. If learners realise and accept, for example, that the sky and trees are three-dimensional in English, they will be less tempted to make a mistake in their use of prepositions because of the interference of Hungarian. Similarly, if they are aware of the concept of time in the English language, it is much easier to decide whether or not to apply time-shift in Reported Speech. It is important to realise that the feeling of security and comfort in using the foreign language is the result of language awareness, a deeper understanding of  ‘culture’ rather than simply being more accurate. This is the stage where learners do not resort to translation back into or from the mother tongue all the time, but begin to think in English. 

The citizen’s status

Citizens in a foreign language have a native-like competence, which includes an awareness of the language system and an understanding of the culture expressed through the language. Because of this, they do not depend on a language teacher, and their further development is largely their own business. These ‘learners’ probably find it difficult to understand why the there is/there are structure is so difficult for beginners, and have long forgotten their own struggles with the Present Perfect. Teachers of English are an exception, of course, but they are trained to have better memories about their initial difficulties.

To sum up, language learning can be viewed as a journey into the land of the foreign language. As such, the stages of development a language learner goes through are very similar to the ones that await a traveller. Acculturation to the target culture and target language are parallel processes, and present the same difficulties for the learner. Teaching English is not simply preparing learners linguistically for the intercultural experience. Meeting the foreign language is in itself an intercultural experience, for which you do not actually have to leave your classroom. Nor should we forget that some of our students will not find themselves in a ‘real’ intercultural situation. They may only be exposed to the target culture in language lessons at school - or at least during the years when they attend school. 

In this light the current fashion in EFL, the practice of teaching culture through language, does not seem to be the only way of developing cultural learning, and indeed not even the best way in some contexts. Culture learning can also take place through linguistic acculturation, which I take as a pre-requisite of language development and not one of its results. In other words, our weakest learners might just be unable to overcome the linguistic culture shock. Those students who desperately try to find one-to-one correspondences between languages need to be helped through this cultural stage if they are to develop further linguistically.

Our responsibilities as teachers

I started this paper with three dilemmas concerning the role of culture in the classroom, the role of the non-native-speaking teacher and the connection between language and culture. As we have seen, language need not,  indeed cannot, be separated from culture, even if the ‘only’ representation of a culture strand in the foreign language curriculum is the foreign language itself.

So let us not worry too much about the cultural content of the course we teach. It is the textbook writer’s or the curriculum designer’s responsibility what cultural components make their way into the curriculum, but it is the teacher’s duty to decide how much these opportunities are exploited. Native teachers would definitely have an advantage and more credibility in the areas traditionally understood as ‘culture’. But since language itself has a cultural aspect, we have a lot to work with, even if other cultural issues are not exploited to the full. And this is where non-native speaking teachers of English have an advantage: they have gone through the same process as their learners are struggling with; moreover, they are likely to predict accurately where the language learning difficulties, or culture bumps, are going to be.

We need to be aware of our learners’ needs at different stages of linguistic acculturation: while ‘tourists’ need to be supported and guided, ‘citizens’ can be given independence (not that we meet too many of them in a school situation). The most crucial role of a teacher, however, is to help learners go beyond the ‘survivor’ stage and get over the linguistic culture shock  on their journey into the world of the English language.

It is not easy to assign language levels to the stages of linguistic acculturation or predict when learners will face a critical stage in their studies. Some of them are less resiliant, and the linguistic culture shock comes as early as, say, Unit 3 with the names of the letters G, J and H. Others only start panicking when they arrive at the there is/there are structure. Others are more persistent, but the Present Perfect usually poses problems for every Hungarian learner of English. The teacher needs to keep an eye open for signs of despair in the classroom, with these signs  coming at different times for different students.

The most important message to give to learners at this critical stage is not to look for one-to-one correspondences in the two languages (whether in spelling, vocabulary or structure) and to be adventurous enough to leave the signposts of the mother tongue behind. If learners do not  expect the foreign language (or in any other intercultural experience, for that matter) to accord in every respect  with their first language, they are less liable to be disappointed later on. This message can, in fact, be reinforced in learners from the very beginning of their studies. It may also be important for learners to know that linguistic culture shock (just like culture shock itself) is a natural phenomenon, which they should not feel guilty about but try to overcome, preferably without losing any self-respect.

We have to realise that linguistic acculturation can foster culture learning and language learning at the same time and, as such, it has a more immediate relevance to our learners in an EFL classroom than culture learning itself. To return to my earlier example, the red double-decker is not always indispensable, but it is extremely useful to know which way is in and which way is out. After all, it is our responsibility not to let our learners drown...
 

The final clue: “Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much farther out than you thought And not waving but drowning.”        (Stevie Smith)

Notes

1. This paper was originally delivered at the 9th  IATEFL-Hungary Conference in Gyõr, October 1999.(back)

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