Most EFL teachers accept that language and culture cannot be separated. Still, the performance of language users and the difficulties they experience are proof that the teaching of culture is often a wish and not a reality in the English classroom. A frequent and seemingly plausible excuse for omitting this component is that the allotted time and the most immediate purpose of the class restrict the scope of English lessons. A teacher who is preparing a group for an exam or who is anxious to finish the coursebook in time certainly finds it difficult to fit elements of culture into his or her lesson plans. However, in what follows, we hope to illustrate that teaching culture can be fully embedded into teaching language, and while lesson preparation may require a little more time, the classroom activities themselves do not necessarily take up extra time. 

The principles of content-based language teaching can be used to integrate the teaching of language and culture. Though ‘proper’ content-based courses were originally devised for English as a second language courses, specially selected materials (worksheets, newspaper & magazine articles, handbooks, EFL books with a cultural focus and videos, etc.) that supplement the regular coursebook can give the course content a cultural focus. Modifying, emphasising or adding to the themes of the coursebook can provide an opportunity to exploit specific topics, while the language focus and exercise types can remain the same as in the coursebook. The selected topics might be the following: countries, social issues, cultural/artistic issues, political issues, current events, and values. Teaching culture, however, does not only mean teaching “civilisation”. Speech and behaviour patterns as well as characteristics of discourse are culture-bound and are reflected in language use. Therefore, these features also have to be taught. Topic-based classes can be varied by focussing on language skills that are   connected with the main theme, such as essay/composition writing, public speaking, debating, negotiating, socialising, etc. 

We would strongly emphasise that while the content of integrated language and culture classes has to be carefully planned or revised for this purpose, the language input can follow a previously designed curriculum, which means that many regular coursebooks can remain the core material for such courses. There are a large number of tasks and activities that can be used equally well for language and culture teaching purposes. The following are only sample activity types that go beyond comprehension and basic reproduction tasks: role play, summarising, interpreting (hidden) meaning, formal and informal speaking and writing, discussions, socio-cultural comparison, personalisation. The two latter activity types are especially important for developing a growing awareness of the students’ own culture (personal, local and national or ethnic) as a relative set of values and concepts in comparison with the target culture. Another reason why it is important to deal with the students’ own culture is that this is a topic of conversation that naturally arises between representatives of different cultures, and it is also the primary source of the ideas that one communicates. In the next section a number of sample activities are provided to show how elements of language and culture can be taught together.

Examining an issue from a perspective that is familiar and meaningful for learners can help them gain a better understanding of new phenomena. This is not only valid for the comparison of particular cultural issues and concepts but also for analysing text structure, behaviour patterns and communication styles or strategies. In these cases a discussion, a summary task or an occasional translation may be used successfully if the activity has a set language focus, but its topic offers a conscious cultural comparison.

It is quite obvious that, since the list of important elements of culture is endless, it is impossible to equip language learners with everything they need. It is therefore essential to supplement the teaching of facts with the conscious development of certain skills that help improve the learner’s ability to learn, understand and adapt to new situations. This ability is usually referred to as cultural awareness – a concept that is inseparable from teaching and learning culture - and can be enhanced by developing the learners’ skills of observation, interpretation, empathy, acceptance, tolerance, adaptability and comparison. These skills do not only contribute to personal growth but are easy to incorporate into language learning activities.
 

A selection of activities

The following activities can be used in class either as they stand or in a way that is more suited to the interests of the particular students and the syllabus. They also aim to provide ideas for developing further activities. It is very important, however, that these activities do not frustrate students by presenting them with a large number of unknown words or new grammatical structures. The tasks should always be tailored to the students’ level of English.
 

Cultural encounters
 

Cultural focus:	Observing features of other cultures, experiencing different social customs, and recognising underlying values
Language focus:	Functions: socialising; Vocabulary: talking about set topics; Grammar: narrating past events; Speaking skills: discussion, etc.
Level:	Lower-intermediate and up for role play; intermediate and up for discussion
Group size:	3-15 (others can be observers)
Age group:	From young teenagers to adults
Preparation:	Make or copy role-cards, buy ribbons, copy set of questions (see below)
Accessories:	Role-cards, blue, red and white ribbons, questions
Room arrangement:	Enough room in the middle for walking around
Time:	6-10 minutes (plus 15-20 minutes for the follow-up discussion)

 

Procedure: 

1. Explain that the students will play the role of guests from three different countries at a reception (or a freshmen’s party, a business meeting or a prom depending on your students’ interests and age) as detailed on their role cards.
2. All they have to do is get to know one another a little by talking briefly to as many people as possible.
3. Students without role cards should be asked to observe the players closely so they can even eavesdrop on some of the conversations. (You can prepare role cards for the observers, too.)
4. Distribute role cards and matching ribbons and let students stand up, walk around and get to know one another. (The red, blue and white ribbons worn as ties or necklaces help students identify who is from which country during and after the game.) 
5. After about 6-10 minutes of conversation (less if you have few students), they should be asked to sit down in groups of four or five, preferably so that there are people from Blueland, Whiteland and Redland in each group as well as one or two observers.
6. Distribute a set of questions (such as the ones below) for discussion and let them answer the questions and discuss the issues in their groups. 
What did we learn about the three different cultures? (Redland; Blueland; Whiteland)
What is the role of physical contact?
What caused (or could have caused) conflicts?
How did participants avoid/solve conflicts?
Are there any similarities between your culture and any of these three cultures?
What are some of the differences?
Which culture did you find the strangest of all?
What else would you like to learn about these cultures?
How did you feel while you were participating in the game? 
What did you notice when you were observing the role play?
7. Bring the whole class together and elicit some of their answers and final conclusions so you can evaluate the experience of cultural encounters together. 

Comments: If your students are not used to role play or if you feel they will not be “brave” enough to play these roles, you could introduce the whole game with a mini-presentation on (or even a demonstration of) different greeting customs in the world. Of course, as with any role play, some students will act out their roles better than others, but both the role play and the follow-up discussion will be entertaining and informative even if some students are unable to keep to the roles allocated to them. In fact, this could provide another interesting issue for discussion: Why is it so strange for us to avoid eye-contact or pull earlobes when we talk to people? This can lead to an awareness-raising discussion on the different meanings  the same behaviour has in different cultures.

Aside from its obvious language development merits, this role play also helps students to recognise and observe features of other cultures. By playing set roles in unfamiliar social and cultural situations, students have a chance to experience different behaviours and recognise the different values behind them. This is especially useful, because as long as our students are never exposed to foreign social customs and cultural values, they will not know how to react in intercultural settings, which may lead them to judgmental opinions about other people simply because they have never seen anything different from Hungarian norms and standards. This is probably a good time to ask your students if they have ever had intercultural misunderstandings with people from other cultures or for you to tell them about your own related experiences. You could also ask them whether they have ever been excluded from anywhere and how that felt. Another, perhaps more difficult issue that could be discussed is whether your students avoid or exclude any group of people on any basis.

Sample role-cards

Variations: Depending on your students’ level of English, age and interests, as well as your language teaching focus, you may want to change the character description on each role card (See text in italics on the cards). These examples come from a set which was prepared with a group of adult learners in mind. You could use these topics, alter them (Try talking about the weather/shopping/sports) or leave blank spaces for the students to decide what they want to talk about at the party or reception.
Steps 6 and 7 can be done together as a whole class activity if you think that the whole discussion should be controlled or if the group is too small to split up.

2. What did they have for breakfast?
 

Cultural focus:	Making judgements, evaluating stereotypes, learning about different cultures in the world
Language focus:	Grammar: tenses, conditionals; Vocabulary: describing people and situations; Speaking and listening skills: discussion
Level:	Lower-intermediate and upwards
Group size:	Any
Age group:	Any
Preparation:	Collect 4-5 pictures of people from different continents, write questions
Accessories:	Pictures, blutack, questions (on handout, poster or transparency)
Room arrangement:	Any
Time:	15 minutes

Procedure:

1. Explain to your students that you will display photos of people from all over the world and they will have to guess who these people are.
2. Put the pictures up on the wall, hand out a set of questions such as the ones below, or display them on the blackboard or OHP.
 What did s/he have for breakfast?
 What do you think this person’s job is?
 What sort of house does s/he live in?
 What is s/he going to have for dinner?
 What does s/he think about pollution?
 Does s/he pollute the environment in any way? If yes, how?
3.  Tell students to work in pairs or small groups, to choose one picture and answer the questions on the basis of that one picture.
4. Let them think about and discuss their answers for about 2-3 minutes.
5. Elicit and compare each pair’s or group’s answers.
6. If you have photos of people whose stories are documented, let your students read the original texts that accompany the pictures. 
7. Discuss the positive and negative effects of making judgements and stereotyping.

 You can discuss with your students that we often make judgements about people at first sight. We are almost sure that we can even tell what sort of clothes they like to wear on Saturday and where they go on holiday. There is of course nothing wrong with this as long as we do not become prejudiced against people without really knowing them. 

This activity is an excellent opportunity to bring the world into the classroom and raise students’ awareness of different cultural customs and values. As a follow-up activity or homework assignment, students could look up the countries represented by the pictures at home and bring in more pictures or information about these cultures.

Variations: You can obviously change the questions, especially the last two, to suit your students’ interests or the vocabulary you want them to practise. 

 Another question you may wish to ask your students at the end of the activity is whether they would know what to say to the person in the picture. What would they talk about if they met without being judgmental about the person’s beliefs, values and social habits?

 Instead of pictures of people, you can use pictures of clothes, houses or dogs or you can bring in various kinds of realia and ask your students who they belong to and what the owners are like.

3. Strange dialogues
 

Cultural focus:	Choosing conversational topics, speech and behaviour patterns appropriate to the target culture
Language focus:	Writing and translation skills: analysing difficulties in the translation of everyday dialogues
Level:	Intermediate and upwards
Group size:	Any
Age group:	From young teenagers to adults
Preparation:	Make copies of the dialogue(s) or write your own ones
Accessories:	Copies of the dialogue(s) for everyone
Room arrangement:	Any
Time:	10-15 minutes/dialogue

Procedure:

1. Have two students read out the first dialogue in Hungarian. 
2. Ask the class if they could imagine the same conversation in English. They will probably say yes. (If they say no, go to step 5.)
3. Go through the text and try to translate it together orally. Accept several versions if they are good grammatically and lexically.
4. Tell your students that what you have just translated together would still sound strange to a native speaker of English. Ask them if they have any ideas why. 
5. Help your students notice some of the Hungarian traits in the way the speakers talk and discuss the differences between English and Hungarian speech and behaviour patterns (e.g. directness, even bluntness, a more negative attitude, complaining, criticising, etc. versus English speakers’ indirectness, politeness and more positive attitude).

Comments: It is essential that you do not introduce and treat the activity as a conventional translation task. The students would be frustrated if they had to work alone, writing down the sentences in English only to find out that there is no really good solution to the task. In fact, regardless of the linguistic quality of the translation, these dialogues cannot be taken as acceptable English. Nevertheless, it is a very useful exercise both linguistically and culturally. Discussing how polite conversations go in English and learning how to choose culturally appropriate conversational topics, speech and behaviour patterns are all very important for language learners. 

 Dialogue 2 provides an opportunity to discuss the differences between “typically” English and “typically” Hungarian conversations between friends, students and teachers. As the dialogue has been translated from English into Hungarian, it probably does not sound Hungarian enough. 

Variation: As an alternative approach to the problem, you could translate one of the dialogues yourself and then ask your students what is wrong with it. This way you can still discuss other possible translations of the sentences in the text, but you may have more time for the discussion on differences in conversational topics and behaviour patterns.

Sample texts

1.Két kolléga beszélget

- Szia Mari, hogy vagy?
- Szia Panna. Jaj rémesen. Azt hiszem megfázhattam. Fáj a fejem és az orrom is bedugult.
- Van nálam Lemsip. Kérsz egyet? Nekem mindig beválik. Remekül tisztítja a légzést.
- Kösz, de ha lehet, nem szedek gyógyszert. Inkább egy hársfateát innék.
- Igen, sokan hisznek benne. Lehet, hogy ettõl mûködik. A szomszédasszonyomnak is mindenre van egy  teája, de egyszer az egyiktõl  még betegebb lettem, mint voltam és azóta inkább gyógyszert szedek. Tényleg nem kérsz?
- Nem, kösz.
- No akkor lássuk, mibõl élünk, hol vannak a dolgozatok?

2. Két kolléga beszélget

- Szia. Kérsz egy teát? Épp most fõztem.
- Kösz, igen. Jól fog esni. Van tej is?
- Nem tudom, én citrommal iszom, de nézd meg a hûtõben.
- Aha, itt van. De jó ez a tea. Milyen fajta?
- Semmi különös, de fontos, hogy elõmelegített csészét használjunk.
- Igen, mindenkinek megvan a saját trükkje. Tudtad, hogy Gizi például soha nem használ filteres teát?
- Nahát, ez ma igazán ritkaság. Mint az egyik nagynéném, aki még ma is maga készíti a száraztésztát.
- Hát, nem kis munka. Na, mi se lustálkodjunk. Itt vannak a dolgozatok?
- Igen, lássunk hozzá!

Conclusion

If a foreign language user is fluent in several aspects of the language, s/he is expected to behave in a culturally appropriate way, as well. With the world-wide spread of English, native speakers of the language – and perhaps of some other major languages - often do not have the experience of mastering other languages and cultural norms, and they may not realise that problems in communication are not necessarily due to the unpleasant personality traits of their non-native partners but to cultural differences. What also follows from this is, that in order to behave appropriately  and to avoid awkward situations of being misinterpreted, it is vitally important to accept that as speakers of a minor language, Hungarians have to adapt as much as possible to the cultural expectations of the native speakers of the target language. The way language teachers can best help students understand and achieve this is to develop their learners’ awareness of cultural differences. 
 

Notes

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