English Language Culture

This essay discusses the importance of teaching local culture in English language classes and the steps that should be taken in order to achieve this and to make sure that students learn language in the most meaningful way. Learning a language doesn’t mean to only learn the grammatical rules of a language, but also habits and customs of people, their history and culture in general. Language and culture should be taught together since they are related to each other, and students can better learn the nature of a language by integrating culture and language together when designing the course syllabus. The key aspects that will be discussed in this essay are: the relation between language and culture, the importance of culture in the process of

Language and culture are bonded with each other and as such should be taught and learned together in language classrooms. Samovar (1981), stated that ‘Culture and communication are inseparable because culture and communication go along, and communication is not possible without a language’. Teachers spend most of their time in language classes teaching vocabulary, grammar and other parts of the language, but ignore culture and the significance it has in the process of second language learning. With regard to the relationship between language and culture Fuller & Wardhaugh (2014), concluded that there are some relations between culture and language. One relation can be that the social structure may influence linguistic behaviour. While the second probable relation is the opposite to the first one which means that linguistic behaviour may influence social structure. The

Linguists have constantly pointed out the importance of incorporating culture in second language teaching and learning (e.g., Lafayett, 1988; Moorjani & Field, 1988; Robinson, 1985; etc.). This significance comes from the fact that linguistic competence alone does not guarantee successful language users. ( Alptekin, 1993 ; Beamer, 1992) agreed that " Cultural competency " helps to improve communication skills and maintain linguistic competence as well. Culture together with it`s importance has influence directly in the language, on vocabulary, on the four skills of the language and on translation as well. As an example of cultures` influence on vocabulary is that of cultural connotations; words that in another language have completely different meaning. And that meaning is the result of the persons` experience with that word, in the cultural setting he was grown up. For instance, the white color in Kosovo`s cultural setting associates with purity and nobility, and that’s why the bride dresses in white during the wedding. Nonetheless this is not the same in China, where the bride wears in red according to Chinese culture, since based on that culture the red color represents “happiness and good luck”, while the white color means “weak, pale and with no validity” (Jiying, 2012). Researchers in ELT drawed attention to the need