Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Language and Culture
2.1.3 Concept of Worldview
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Since overemphasizing on the generalized culture traits of a group is possible to sacrifice sub-group or individual factors within in. And some themes are verbalized principles and values while some may be elusive modes of thought or of feeling, expressed only in the presentational symbols of the imaginative arts. It is possible that students may put themselves “in a single explicit generalization about the foreign people’s value, or worldview, or strengths or weakness (Nostrand, 1956, pp.300).
Obstacles to Culture Teaching
Some obstacles may be encountered in culture teaching; for example, lack of methods preparation, unclear definition of cultural knowledge, the lack of emphasis on culture teaching, teachers’ limited foreign experiences, lack of time, teaching methods, and knowledge of the target culture, fear of controversy over teaching values and attitudes (Hunag, 1993; Tsou, 2001) are obstacles faced in culture teaching, and it might cause the problem that “culture continues to remain peripheral in both texts and
classroom instruction” (Bex, 1994; Mantle-Bromley, 1993; Fischer, 1996;
Crawford-Lange, 1987)
Also, there are some problems concerning the explicit teaching of culture.
Atkinson (1999) pointed out that the explicit teaching of culture often depends on stereotypes and ideologically fraught simplifications—or someone-in-particular’s notions of culture. And that “someone” usually is the curriculum designer, the teacher, or the textbook writer.
2.1.3 Concept of Worldview
Samovar and his colleagues (1981) define worldview as “a culture’s orientation toward such things as God, man and woman, nature, the universe, and the other
philosophical issues that are concerned with the concept of being.” Hanvey (1982) listed
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five dimensions of global perspectives: perspective consciousness, state of the planet awareness, cross-cultural awareness, knowledge of global dynamics, and awareness of human choices. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) published its position statement on global education, and stated that “the growing interrelatedness of life on the planet had increased the need for citizens to possess the knowledge and sensitivity required to comprehend the global dimensions of political, economic, and cultural phenomena”. Therefore, global education should emphasize the development of global perspective. Based on NCSS, “global perspective should permeate the whole spectrum of social studies education: goals, offerings, materials, and instructional strategies……A global perspective involves viewing the world and its people with understanding and concern. The perspective develops a sense of responsibility for the needs of all people and a commitment to finding just and peaceful solutions to global problems” (NCSS, 1982).
Despite the different points of views on global perspectives, most of the scholars agree that global perspective education is to help students develop their worldview.
In Toney and Morris’s (1972) research, they found that from seven to fourteen years old is the best period to develop international perspective. Sweeny and Zandan (1982) conducted survey on one thousand elementary school students in total from United States, Japan, and Thailand and compared their international knowledge and attitudes. They concluded that the students’ knowledge and attitudes toward global issues exceed the expectation of traditional curricular goals. Gilliom and Remy (1978) claimed that global education should be implemented from elementary level because middle childhood is the high time to develop knowledge, values, and attitudes toward foreign cultures. After the age, stereotypes may dominate their attitudes toward the world. Shen (1996) also claimed that it is positive to implement global perspective education, and its importance is without questions.
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Global education should include four areas according to Rockefeller study
commission in the curricula of the nation’s school: analysis of as a series of interrelated systems, perspective on the development of modern civilization, understanding of culture’s influence and structures, and knowledge sufficient to influence public policy responsibility.
Besides through global education, media plays an important role in providing world knowledge. In Huang’s (2008) study on high school students’ worldview, he found out that magazines are one of the main sources for getting world knowledge. He examined second grade students studying at Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and pointed out that 91.2% of students consider are the main source of acquiring world knowledge, followed by TV programs and news (85.7%), books and magazines (57.1%), and radio (20.2%). In the present study, magazines are selected as the media channel for providing English and cultural information. The researcher will try to explore what role does English learning magazines play while presenting the issue of different cultural themes.
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2.2 Culture and Children’s English Teaching and Learning
In the section, previous researches on culture and children’s English teaching and learning will be included. In the first part, the researcher will focus on teaching culture in English learning arena; while in the second section, the researcher will move from English teachers’ perspectives and roles to children’s learning condition, aiming at children’s learning of culture.
2.2.1 Teaching Culture in English
The Role of English Teachers on Culture Teaching
Mantle-Bromley (1993) listed eight elements that teachers believed and agreed on to be most important to successful culture learning: lesson goals, objectives, and evaluation methods should be clearly stated, topics and activities should reflect students’ needs and interests, make sure the teaching steps are progressive, i.e., students are ready for the next step, activities should include comparing cultural similarities, and students should actively participate in the lesson. When it comes to lesson design, it should be
multi-modal, which means to reflect the various aspects of culture, integrate rather than separate language and culture, and increase awareness of students’ own cultures.
Teachers should provide opportunities for students to compare and contrast their own related actions with those of other cultures, and help students extend their knowledge by looking for other ways that these cultural differences may manifest themselves (Mantle-Bromley, 1993). In brief, culture should be taught at a level above that of mere recall and comprehension. Moreover, teachers can help students acquire multicultural skills by combining language and culture instruction because cultural learned behaviors often communicate at the same time as spoken language.
In decision of whether to use English or the native language for the teaching of culture should depend upon the situation and the students’ linguistic levels and
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experiences. However, Lapkin, Harley and Taylor (1993), Sadow (1987), and Seelye (1984) suggest that language teachers should feel free to teach culture in the first language on the issue about what language should be used while giving culture instruction.
Culture teaching is complicated. English teachers should carefully select their teaching materials for their culture instruction in the language classroom. The major considerations include “who is mirroring whose culture to whom, and why and how”
(Lin, 2005). The language teacher must communicate to his/her students that the study of language is also a study of people and cultures, because language is an integral part of a culture (Cem & Alptekin, 1993; Flwelling, 1994; Kramsch, 1993; Schleppegrell, 1995). Teachers are facing the difficulties in implementing culture in their classes, which includes the limitation of foreign experiences, lack of culture knowledge, preparation methods, time, and fear of controversy over teaching values and attitudes.
(Damen 1987; Hadley, 1993; Mantle-Bromley, 1993; Arries, 1994). Wallach, M.
Kaarsberg’s (1973) research showed that teachers of foreign language and literature acknowledge that an understanding of culture makes language and literature study more meaningful.
All in all, English teachers’ role in teaching culture plays an essential part. As McDonough and Shaw (1993) pointed out that because the EFL teachers use published course materials, “the ability to evaluate teaching materials effectively is a very
important professional activity for all EFL teachers (pp. 62). Gray (2002) indicated the importance of teachers’ evaluation on teaching cultural materials. “Given that
coursebooks are written primarily with teachers in mind, their views are surely an important element in any discussion about coursebook content”.
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Successful Case in Children’s English and Culture Teaching
The “Junior Liberal Education Seminar” in University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has made culture part of its language curriculum and offered students to participate in actual cross-cultural experience such as a one-month field trip to Europe. This project proved to help motivate students’ motivation of language learning. (Wallach, M. Kaarsberg, 1973)
Many English teachers hold the positive attitude toward foreign culture teaching and agree with the importance of culture teaching. In order to understand a foreign language, the first step is to understand the differences between the cultures, that is, people and their traditions, customs, environments, characteristics, and ways of thinking in the society where the language is spoken (Rowan, 2001).
In M. Elieen’s (2006) research on the cultural package of second language reading, she concluded that cultural familiarity with the texts or content schemata had a greater effect on reading comprehension than did formal organization of the text. Moreover, it assisted students more with their comprehension of the texts than did linguistic
competency.
Evaluation/Assessment on Culture Learning
In order to examine the effect of culture teaching, teachers can use the following methods to evaluate and assess students’ feedback on culture teaching. Students can write self-report, or various types of self-assessment such as checklist about attitudes, case studies, and discussion. Teachers can check the enactment of culture teaching by asking students to demonstrate what they have learned through role-plays, and
simulation, to come up with production of concrete product such as a report or essay, and to make observation by both teacher and peers.
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2.2.2 Children’s English and Culture Learning
Children normally mean people at the age around twelve years old. There is significant difference after reaching this age on the aspect of language learning. Meanwhile, the different extent of cognitive competence may influence children’ English learning process and learning experience (Chang, 2000). In elementary level, it is not appropriate to teach the pragmatic language usage of culture; however, teachers can focus on the behavioral and traditional culture differences and help students to build the basic ideas of different cultures.
Therefore, cultural instruction should be stated early, not later than age of ten.
Rosenbusch (1992) examined children’s view of foreign people and concluded that 14-year-olds were less receptive to learn about foreign people than were 10-year-olds, who are more open-minded and friendly toward people viewed as dissimilar to them.
For the beginning students, they should be aware of basic aspects of the foreign culture including holidays, customs, common foods, leisure activities, and selected artistic forms (music, dance, graphic arts). Also able to compare and contrast aspects of the native and target language culture. Ex: the identification of major holidays and
celebrations; the distinction of appropriate topics of humor in Anglo-American culture;
the identification of patriotic or folklore characters or symbols as illustrated through Anglo-American literature (Lafayette, 1978; Shanahan, 1997)
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2.3 Children’s English Learning Materials in Taiwan
English learning materials are textbook, coursebooks, and other published works such as magazines and journals. In the following section, forms of cultural information, and how can English learning materials aid teaching will be discussed.
Forms of Cultural Information
Cultural information can be communicated and represented in many forms; Adaaskou, Britten, and Fashi (1990) provided the following list to show different forms of cultural information: informative or descriptive text materials; texts presenting foreign attitudes and opinions; human-interest texts including dialogues, authentic or fictitious, with details of everyday life; questionnaires, contextualized practice activities, and writing tasks; in lexis such as particularly idioms and unfamiliar collocations, which involve alien concepts, the exponents of a communicative function; realia, or pseudo-realia;
illustrations in the student’s book and other visuals; and sound recordings. In other words, almost everything in a language course is capable of carrying a cultural load of some sort.
In Taiwan, most elementary school English textbooks contain information about Anglo-American cultures especially American culture; topics such as holidays and festivals, food and drink, clothing, places, sports and hobbies, countries and flags, money (currency), size and measurement (inch, pound), transportation, and house (yard, garage) are presented. In other words, culture with small c is most presented in cultural teaching materials and some only include holiday celebrations and food themes
(Chuang, 2002).
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Teaching Materials to Aid Culture Teaching
Supplemental materials is important in overcoming shortages in teaching cultural authenticity (Cook, 1983). By using them, the elimination of cultural stereotypes can be achieved (Valdes, 1989) and can help supplement the textbook with authentic materials taken from the newspaper, magazines, and other mass media. Teachers can assign materials from magazines and newspaper to be read as homework, and also assign listening to the radio and watching TV program, when they are available. Do not generalize very much about the culture, but rather present evidences and let students draw their own conclusions.
Use of pictures can be an effective way to aid culture teaching. Pictures can go a long way toward suggesting and acting as surrogate for such details of the target culture.
Pictures have been widely used in presenting literature and fine arts. But if pictures are to be effective in culture, i.e., patterns for living, they must in every case related to cultural configuration to individual participation (Brooks, 1968). Grittner (1996) suggested adopting authentic materials in the culture-teaching classroom as the culture evolved elements of the target culture and language were hidden on the texts.
Cortazzi and Jin (1995, pp. 210) declared that using textbooks is the most explicit way to impart knowledge of target cultures to foreign language learners for target cultures are embedded in textbook materials. They examined a range of textbooks around the world and categorized the cultural materials as content into six different types along with their goals: to enable learners to talk to English speaking visitors, to reinforce learner’s own identity directly, to develop knowledge and awareness of other cultures, to develop intercultural skills and explicit intercultural skills, to understand others’ interpretations, and to involve learners in problems, cases, role plays, culture assimilators.
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2.3.1 Introduction of Children’s English Learning Materials in Taiwan
English Textbook
Textbooks can also be called as coursebooks, and in Chen’s (2001) study, it was defined as “a set of systematically organized books that teachers and students have for language teaching and learning”. Gray (2002) pointed that ‘coursebooks are
commodities to be traded, but they contain the result of the interplay between
contradictory commercial, pedagogic and ethical interests”. However, “ELT publishers may be said to present a vision of world in the texts they produce”. In order to find out whether the contents in coursebooks are informative and educative rather than cultural imperial and commercialized, it is important to take a closer look at how different cultures were represented in coursebooks.
Many researches have examined and evaluated textbooks in different ways. In Ho’s (2004) study, she aimed to provide a better understanding of the characteristics of textbooks of instruction guides i.e. teacher’s manuals in elementary and junior high school textbook sets that contain distinct instruction types, and tried to find out the potential influence on students’ English proficiency and the overall distribution of instruction types and their subtypes in elementary and junior high school textbook sets, including basic and supplementary instruction units. In addition, she tried to compare exported elementary English learning materials with local English learning textbooks and found that exported English materials use higher percentage of communicative language teaching approach (CA) than local textbooks. Chen’s (2001) study also showed that by examining 5 coursebook sets; she found the imported coursebooks appear to have a higher degree of communicative activities and contextualization than the local coursebooks.
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English Learning Magazines
English learning magazines share high rate of market occupation among different types of magazines such as technology, fashion, and music. In Lin’s (2000) study, she claimed that the release numbers of English learning magazines in Taiwan have been rapidly increased since 1999. Currently, there are more than twenty different English learning magazines sold in bookstores, which includes learning magazines including children English learning magazines, GEPT (General English Proficiency Test) preparation magazines, and reading comprehension practice English magazines. The following list is a brief introduction of English magazines currently sold at market, and it is classified according to its publisher:
(1). Studio Classroom: The publisher was founded in 1962 by Doris Brougham. It is the English learning magazines that owns longest history in Taiwan. Now, there are three English learning magazines targeting at different English level being published:
“Let’s Talk in English”, “Studio Classroom”, and “Advanced”.
(2). LIVE ABC Interactive English teacher group (Hebron publisher): It was established in 2000 in Taipei. There are five monthly English learning magazines published:
ABC interactive, LIVE interactive, All Plus interactive, BIZ interactive, and CNN interactive English magazines. All the magazines put emphasis on interactive and situational learning.
(3). Ivy League Analytical English Publisher: It was founded by Professor Peter Lai in 1988. There are two monthly English learning magazines, Ivy League Analytical English and Enjoy English.
(4). American Magazine Center (AMC): It was established by Peter Hsu in 1979.
Currently, AMC produces monthly publications that consist of
high-intermediate learning (English Digest), intermediate learning (English 4U), and elementary levels (A+ English), which are all based on GEPT
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standards.
(5). Global Village Organization: This organization is mostly known as English and Japanese learning center. However, it produces abundant language teaching materials. For their monthly publication, there are two English learning magazines: Global Talk (地球村生活美語) and Global Voice (地球 村時尚美語).
(6). EZ Talk (Keliopolis Culture Group 日月文化集團): This publisher
produces many educational books and the only English learning magazine it publishes until now is EZ Talk.
Most of the English learning magazines differentiate their target readers by using GEPT (General English Proficiency Test) as the standard (See Table 2-1-1).
Table 2-1-1 the English level requirement for each English learning magazine Name of the magazine Readers’ English level (GEPT level)
1. Let’s Talk in English Basic level 2. Studio Classroom Intermediate level
3. Advanced High-intermediate to advanced level
4. ABC interactive English Basic level 5. Live interactive English Intermediate level 6. All plus interactive English Advanced level 7. BIZ interactive English Office English 8. CNN interactive English News English
9. Ivy League Analytical English Intermediate to high-intermediate level 10. Enjoy English. Basic to intermediate level
11. English Digest high-intermediate level
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12. English 4U intermediate level
13. A+ English elementary level
14. Global Talk (地球村生活美語) Basic to intermediate level 15. Global Voice (地球村時尚美語 ). Advanced level and above
16. EZ Talk 美語會話誌 Intermediate to high-intermediate level
Among the seventeen monthly published English learning magazines, only three are triggered at basic level English learners: “Let’s Talk in English”, “ABC Interactive English Magazine”, and “A+ English”. In the present study, the researcher chose two English learning magazines from three. “Let’s Talk in English” and “ ABC Interactive English Magazines” were selected because both of them have won thirty-one times as outstanding publishing by Government Information Office in the year of 2009. And both magazines have great selling numbers at market; the monthly average numbers are two hundred and ninety thousand for “Let’s Talk in English”, and one hundred thousand for “ABC Interactive English Magazine” (Magazine Business Association of Taipei website).
Cultural Imperialism in Coursebooks
Cultural Imperialism in Coursebooks