ipl-logo

Ethnocentric Attitudes Towards English

1179 Words5 Pages

Name: Ahmed Ouaben
Group: TESOL

Teaching cultural skills is considered to be an essential part of language teaching. It is even counted as a fifth skill in addition to listening, speaking, reading and writing. The relation between culture and language came to surface since the mid 1980s. In 1999, Krasen recognized the necessity for language learners to develop not only the linguistic competence but also an awareness of what is culturally appropriate in the target language. Some people argue that teaching British and American culture in ELT classrooms threatens the local culture and reinforces cultural hegemony. …show more content…

If the learners have negative attitudes towards English or towards its native speakers, they will not be motivated to learn it. The studies conducted on undergraduate students of English at the Universidad Popular Aut?noma del Estado de Puebla and the Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de M?xico show that the majority of students have negative attitudes towards English. Those attitudes are related to economic and political conflicts between US and Mexico. The American intervention in other countries and its attitudes towards immigrant workers from Mexico are some of the reasons lying behind those negative attitudes. Gardner and Lambert (1972) think that a foreign language, be it English or French, cannot be acquired if students hold ethnocentric views and hostile attitudes towards the speakers of the target language. By ?ethnocentric views?, he meant the use of the norms of one?s culture to judge the behavior of people from other …show more content…

In general, language is considered a means that facilitates communication between different cultures, civilizations and individuals. Most of the time, learning how to communicate effectively using the target language comes from listening or watching native speakers talk, interact and behave. This observation can be either direct or indirect. The direct observation involves face to face communication while the indirect one takes the form of watching American or British movies and TV shows or listening to English songs. The more the student is exposed to cultural input, the fluent speaker he becomes and the effective communicator he will be. Nelson Mandela once said: ?If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.? The language here is not limited to the linguistic competence, but it includes also what is appropriate and what is not in the culture of the language when it comes to communication. Therefore, learning the etiquettes and customs that characterize communicative situations in the culture of language is a must. The reason is because it will save the student from the conflicts, embarrassment, and misunderstanding that might be caused by ineffective communication with a native speaker of English. For example, while

Show More
Related

  • Language Barriers In The United States

    97 Words  | 1 Pages

    study in the United States can lead to negative emotions, academic difficulties, and higher levels of cultural stress. This is because language proficiency plays a critical role in transmission of information and regulation of cognitive processes. The language barrier can also lead to lack of confidence and poor social integration. Some of them may avoid communicating because of the fear of making mistakes. This contributes to the feeling of loneliness and homesickness because the students feel that they have no family to rely on.

    Read More

  • Multicultural Education In Preservice Teacher Education

    1821 Words  | 8 Pages

    Cultural Competence – Teachers must gain the ability to comfortably function in an environment where they interact harmoniously with people from different cultures. Teachers with cultural competence (a) cope effectively with the stress of dealing with the unfamiliar, (b) easily establish rapport with other, (c) sense and understand other’s feelings, (d) effectively communicate with people from diverse backgrounds, and (e) respond appropriately to miscommunication. These are complex skills that require both knowledge and experience in cross-cultural settings. (Zoch, 2017). Few education students report personal experience in culturally diverse settings.

    Read More

  • 2.1 Explain How To Adapt Communication With Children And Young People

    309 Words  | 2 Pages

    This could cause a barrier in communicating with each other if the other child or adult does not speak their language at all or not very well. Trying to translate to another language may be interpreted wrong or spoken incorrectly causing confusion in the communication.

    Read More

  • Michel Foucault Discipline And Punish Analysis

    1356 Words  | 6 Pages

    Thus it reflects that his notion was more than purely theoretical with various experiences and provided us a lot social facts to evaluate. Introduction

    Read More

  • The New Bathroom Policy At English High School, By Richard Rodriguez And Martin Espada

    806 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the essay, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School”, Espada witnesses the hostile actions thrown to students at school who speak a language other than English. The students have spoken in Spanish to each other and the lunch people overheard them and automatically assumed that the students were talking unpleasant thoughts about them. They told the principal of the school and she agreed to prohibit Spanish at lunchtime. This shows that people don’t have the freedom to be able to speak their second language in public without wondering constantly if there would be any hostile actions towards them. I also believe that people shouldn’t be forced to learn English and they should be able to learn English when they want to.

    Read More

  • Britishness, And Otherness: An Argument Analysis

    1822 Words  | 8 Pages

    There is an old saying about the British Empire. “The sun never sets on the British Empire”. A phrase originally meant for all the expansive European Empires, quickly became sinuous with only the British Empire. The British Empire has existed for centuries, spanning most of the continents around the globe. Hence the phrase since the British colonies were operational at all hours of the due to their varying locations around the world.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Cultural Legacies

    726 Words  | 3 Pages

    Due to the constant contact between various people of the nation, there is some kind adaptation of one kind of culture from other. The impact of such contribution of culture is known as the culture legacies. Each national history and culture unfolds in its own particular way. Sometimes it could be the explanation for people’s previously inexplicable behaviors. In Chapter six of Outliers, Gladwell claims that cultural legacies “play such a role in directing attitudes and behaviors that we cannot make sense of our world without them”(175).

    Read More

  • Arguments Against Cultural Relativism

    1020 Words  | 5 Pages

    Every society has its own unique cultures in which people will have different ideas of moral codes. The diversity of these cultures cannot be said to be correct or incorrect. Every society has independent standards of ethic within their society and these standards are culture-bound. Cultural Relativism has a perception in which rightness or wrongness of an action depends entirely within the bounds of the culture. This theory opposes the belief in the objectivity of moral truth.

    Read More

  • Young Immigrant Children

    1524 Words  | 7 Pages

    Everyday, people all around the world are migrating from their home country to a new first world country for a better life for themselves and their children. The reasons as to which they migrate can be classified as social, economic, or political issues that push them to seek a healthier environment. Although immigrants are finding new lives in other countries, it facilitates the loss of familiarity with their native culture. The young immigrant children that move or are born in their non-native countries sometimes never get the chance to experience the ethnic background that their parents grew up with. Therefore, the lack of familiarity with a child's native background fosters global social issues such as the negative impact it has on future

    Read More

  • Difference Between Max Weber And Emile Durkheim

    1740 Words  | 7 Pages

    He believed that individuals needed to be part of or integrated into a moral community and that if societies evolve too quickly, a situation in which he describes as anomie can occur, which is the breakdown of norms and values and the weakening of a community which results in disorder and

    Read More

  • Language Development In Multicultural Education

    9762 Words  | 40 Pages

    The students will develop pride in themselves and their heritage. Thus, the psychological and cognitive aspects involved in learning of two or more languages in an educational setting, the challenges of linguistic planning and the translation of information across languages is what we shall discuss elaborately in subsequent sections. I shall attempt to provide on the one hand an overview of L1 learning, and on the other hand some ways in which this relates to L2 learning in a

    Read More

  • Why Do Students Should Learn Foreign Language Essay

    903 Words  | 4 Pages

    TITLE: Each student should learn foreign language. GENERAL PURPOSE: To persuade SPECIFIC PURPOSE: To persuade people that each of student should learn foreign language MAIN IDEA: - learning foreign language enhance communication skills. - learning foreign language enhance job and career opportunities.

    Read More

  • Language In Society: The Relationship Between Language And Society

    1268 Words  | 6 Pages

    Language is an important part of our life. Language and communication cannot separate. People use the language as a means of communication to express their ideas and feelings. They communicate either with each other using language in every social interaction; communicate with others directly or indirectly in the spoken and written form. Therefore, language is an important thing of communication in social life.

    Read More

  • Language Acquisition Literature Review

    1000 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the English learning literature, the development of a positive attitude towards learning could be attributed to Integrativeness, or the genuine desire to learn a new language so that one can communicate with the members of the community who use the language as their medium of communication (Dörnyei, 1998). However, as the world has become more borderless as exemplified by the EU and the ASEAN, other attitudinal factors were conceptually included. The additions were attributed to the changing of concept from ‘English is a second language to learn’ to ‘English as an international language’(Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009). This resulted to the addition of other attitudinal factors that include Direct contact with English speakers (attitude towards actually meeting English speakers and travelling to their countries) ; Cultural interest (appreciation of cultural products from English speaking countries conveyed by the media); Miliu (the general perception of the importance of English in the learners’ friends and family) (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009). From the aforementioned attitudinal factors, the following hypotheses were

    Read More

  • Importance Of Learning Foreign Language Essay

    1736 Words  | 7 Pages

    It is encouraged for students to learn foreign languages as it has numerous benefits. Most countries have introduced foreign language starting from the early age. Today, the high school graduates are required to study foreign language in schools as it becomes a requirement for them to graduate from certain college with minimum of two years of learning foreign languages. Hence, the students are encouraged to learn on other language. Basically, foreign language is a native to another country and it is also a language which is not spoken in the native country of the person referred to.

    Read More

More about Ethnocentric Attitudes Towards English

Open Document