Facing Foreign Culture Challenge in the Classroom

The relationship between teaching, culture and language is extremely complex for a teacher teaching foreign students in a foreign language, given the lack of the common frame of reference on which to rely as guidelines for the teaching process in terms of organization, methodology and desired outcomes. The assumption that the use of a common language (English) will solve the problem of communication and bridge possible differences is ungrounded since both teachers and students presuppose certain values and cherish expectations that are deeply culture-bound. The workshop addresses three issues: variations in perception and understanding of the teaching process across educational institutions seen as indexical to underlying cultural differences; varying expectations and attitudes to learning and patterns of students and teachers’ behaviour interpreted as reflecting the differing basic concepts of time, space, self and social relations acquired in the process of primary socialization; and foreign language (English) as representation of the world of secondary socialization through which cultural experience and knowledge are reorganized. Working on examples from different settings (including their own) the participants will consider their own assumptions and get aware of a number of sensitive issues that the teacher has to face. To solve those issues the teacher has to create “the third space”, where expression of differences may be welcome and creatively transformed through exchange of ideas, feelings and experiences allowing for a critical appraisal of native and other cultures alike and enabling a smooth transition between multiple identities that students are becoming aware of. The use of English restricted to “the code for communication” and void of its cultural baggage will not prevent the linguistic and cultural transfer between the languages and cultures of primary and secondary socialization, but can mitigate the cultural shock and anxiety caused by the uncertainty of a foreign environment