Critical Language Awareness, a path to self-discovery and
The role of language and culture in EFL learning context
For many decades, EFL teaching has placed its emphasis solely on the language, thus promoting the mastery of linguistic structures and the acquisition of a discrete set of skills directed at problem-solving but not at contemplation or reflection. In this context, becoming a competent language user entails achieving fluency and accuracy in the L2 and learning the target culture is only subsidiary to it.
However, if language is to be perceived as a social and cultural construct that frames individuals in the same way as they use language to shape reality (Foucault, 1972), then the purpose of EFL curriculum cannot merely be to gain expertise in language structures or to achieve communicative goals; rather the aim of L2 teaching should be to guide learners towards self-knowledge that implies a search for a new state of mind, or a new sense of self, rooted in critical reflection on their own culture and on the target culture, as well. Therefore, culture is not just an element of language but a goal in itself since it fosters an exploration of the social and cultural implications of language use. As Kramsch (1993:8) states, “cultural awareness must then be viewed both as enabling language proficiency and as being the outcome of reflection on language proficiency”.
In this line of thought Moran (2001:118) refers to a “language-and-culture learner” who is able to analyse, integrate and interpret the cultural knowledge acquired through self-awareness, or more specifically, personal competence.
Hence, achieving competency as a language-and-culture learner entails developing personal competence. In this sense, the student needs to develop linguistic competence and communicative competence along with personal competence. Self-awareness enables students to discern what knowledge, attitudes and strategies are appropriate in a given situation. Language proficiency allows learners to develop not only communicative competence but cultural and intercultural competence, as well (2001:119). This sense of culture highlights the relevance of intercultural communication, understood as the ability to interact appropriately and accurately with another culture. Culture is, then, regarded as a process involving people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours that stem from the attempt to succeed in cross-cultural communication.
However, without denying the value of language as a tool for communication we deem necessary to go beyond this conception of language and to adhere to
Gadamer's (2006) notion of communicative competence, not just as the ability to achieve communicative goals, but as the willingness to take the other into account, specially if our interlocutor is radically different. Those that prompt us to reflect and who think differently are at the beginning of a dialogue not at the end of it.
They make us contemplate our viewpoints in order to provide arguments for our perspectives and probably question them. Our meeting with reality is articulated in linguistic communication. The fact that subjects move in a linguistic world and that they are immersed in the world through linguistic experience do not prevent them from the possibility of critique. On the contrary, by approaching intercultural relations from a critical standpoint and new experiences in dialogue with others, individuals have the opportunity to revise and challenge their social norms and conventions along with their pre-structured experiences (2006:199). Thus, in his view, linguistic competence is neither defined as the capacity to apply rules nor as the correct use of language. He conceives it as resulting from a process of a more or less free linguistic exercise through which the individuals are able to discern, on account of their own competence, what is sensible (2006:13). The perception of culture underlying these assumptions, and the one we feel identified with, is that of culture as a “dynamic construction between and among people, consisting of the values, meanings, or beliefs that they create in their unique social circumstances”. EFL learning is, hence, conceived as the exploration of social and cultural implications of language use and cross-cultural competence is based on
“paradox and conflict and often on irreducible ways of viewing the world”
(Kramsch, 1993:240).
The philosophical and linguistic framework described above, requires the EFL curriculum to trigger not only language awareness but also critical language awareness since both learners and teachers are exposed not only to the target language but to the social and cultural background that constructs it. Developing or raising critical language awareness in this theoretical construct supposes being able to adopt a stance after revisiting one's vision of the world in the light of others'. As Gadamer (2006) maintains, it implies taking distance from oneself, thinking with another and perceiving oneself as someone different. Therefore, self-knowledge and cultural sensibility are closely intertwined. This correlation is vital to reach a new frame of mind, or a “third place”, as defined by Kramsch (1993).
In this context, critique entails reflexivity, that is, a turning inward in order to be
aware of our own constructs, which helps us to be open to an exploration and acceptance of difference.
EFL Curriculum in the context of critical language- and-culture learning
In order to translate these underpinnings into action in the classroom, van Lier (1996) considers three concepts to be the essence of language teaching and learning, namely, awareness, autonomy and authenticity. Concerning awareness, as aforementioned, EFL learning should activate language awareness so that students can achieve a depth and quality of noticing that involves more than knowledge of the target language structures and their functions; it aims to help learners engage in a critical approach to language, which entails enhancing understanding about the social and cultural implications of language use, thus enabling students to become responsive to culture and to commit themselves to the views they express. In this way, critical language awareness allows learners to increase their confidence as language users, which leads them to become autonomous. Through autonomy students feel competent to make decisions and assume responsibility for them. They are also motivated to search for intellectual independence as active participants in the interpretation of the world, that is, in the creation of meaning: “Learning a foreign language offers the opportunity for personal meanings, pleasures, and power. From the clash between the familiar meanings of the native culture and the unexpected meanings of the target culture, meanings that were taken for granted are suddenly questioned, challenged, problematized. Learners have to construct their personal meanings at the boundaries between the native speaker's meanings and their own every day life”
(Kramsch, 1993: 238).
The construction of meaning leads students towards autonomy, which gives them a sense of achievement and hence enables them to experience authenticity.
An authentic action results from the individuals' intrinsic motivation to engage in learning experiences and reflect teachers and learners' identities and actions when interacting for learning purposes. In this sense, authenticity is related to the integrity and social commitment displayed in interpersonal relationships. It is rooted in “self-determination (knowing-what-you-are-doing), a commitment to understanding and to purpose, and transparency in interaction” (van Lier,
1996:128).
Foreign language curriculum based on awareness, autonomy and authenticity emphasises the relevance of the social nature of the learning process. As such, it prompts learners to examine how knowledge is constructed by the sociocultural context, which refers to “the synchronic (social, societal) and the diachronic (historical) contexts of language use” (Kramsch, 1998,131). In this respect, culture is manifested by and, at the same time, manifests itself in actual language use.
Thus, language and culture are mutually connected. Due to this interdependence, culture learning should be explicit and systematic.
Culture learning as a pedagogical project
For the purpose of teaching culture, Moran (2001) presents an approach predicated on students' purposeful involvement in learning culture. His model is developed on the basis of two key assumptions: students learn through experiences, and learning entails a cycle of sequential stages, namely, 1) participation or concrete experience; 2) description or reflective observation; 3) interpretation or abstract conceptualisation and 4) response or active experimentation. In the first three stages students centre on culture, whereas in response attention is directed to self. Each stage of this experiential learning cycle serves a well-defined pedagogical purpose as they relate to four interrelated learning interactions:
a) participation focuses on knowing how, that is, acquiring knowledge on cultural practices (behaviours, actions, skills);
b) description is connected to knowing about, which implies gathering cultural information about the target culture and language, students' own culture or about other cultures in general;
c) interpretation is related to knowing why, understanding and explaining cultural perspectives, i.e. viewpoints, perceptions, morals, beliefs and attitudes permeating a given culture;
d) response emphasises on knowing oneself, which engages students in the exploration of their innermost with the aim to gain insights of their constructs, values, feelings and reactions. (2001:18-19).
Learning culture is a personal experience, unique for each individual. Hence, in
this framework of cultural knowings, self-awareness is the core dimension, as each learner determines the extent to which they commit themselves to a critical approach to language-and-culture. Raising critical language awareness enables foreign language students to construct a new identity, a new cultural self, lying at the boundaries between the target cultural reality and their own. This new cultural identity is not definite or stable; it is constantly changing as learners engage in an exploration of new cultural meanings and in a critical revisiting of the already assigned meanings. This requires learners to consciously move back and forth from emic perspectives (interpretations based on their own worldview) to etic perspectives (interpretations made from the point of view of the target culture) and to juxtapose these perspectives in order to gain understanding of the similarities and differences between cultures (2001:149).
The development of self-knowledge can be accomplished through a syllabus design that rests on awareness, autonomy and authenticity. A conscious, autonomous and authentic learner is likely to experience a sense of achievement and self-fulfilment, which strengthens their intrinsic motivation. Therefore, student's needs for learning the foreign language-and-culture are transformed into goals. In so doing, they assume responsibility for their own learning since goals are intrinsically engendered while needs results from external factors. The learning process, then, becomes meaningful and purposeful.
Conclusions
Foreign language learning entails an encounter with the values, ideas, beliefs and practices constitutive of the target culture. Therefore, becoming a competent language user requires more than the mastery of linguistic structures and strategies; it demands, above all, the exploration and contemplation of the social and cultural meanings of language use. In this respect, language is conceived as social practice, while culture is viewed as a dynamic process predicated on a dialectical relationship among individuals.
Such postulates imply that foreign language learners should not only reflect on the production of reality in the target culture but also on their own constructs. In order to encourage reflection, EFL teaching should centre on students' development of personal competence, that is, knowing oneself, which allows
students to become more insightful in their responses to their own culture as well as to the foreign culture. In turn, cross-cultural competence enriches learners' interpretation of the world.
Self-awareness and cultural sensibility are achieved through critical language awareness, which leads students to revise their own viewpoints in the light of other cultural perspectives. This entails accepting differences but not necessarily adhering to them. In so doing, they not only strengthen their knowledge of the world but of the language used to construct it. Thus, learners that seek to become critical language users feel committed to reflexivity as the means to form ethical and discerning judgments. This commitment is fulfilled through autonomy and authenticity. The former promotes decision-making and determination to assume responsibility for one's choices; the latter involves readiness to develop understanding and reflects one's genuine feelings and beliefs.
Despite the manifold reasons and purposes that motivate individuals to study or teach a foreign language and despite the benefits it may bring to their personal, professional and social experiences, those involved in foreign language teaching and learning should be aware that language learning is within a wider, lifelong educational project whose moral aim is personal growth and self-realization, the foundation for a more judicious, sensible and civilised society.
References
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