Cultural components in the teaching of Asian languages

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 153-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Asian Languages ◽  
Cultural Components ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Asian Language

Abstract The importance of understanding target cultures is an increasingly acknowledged aspect in the teaching of Asian languages. Yet how to incorporate the teaching of cultures with languages remains controversial. This paper will discuss a number of main paradigms of teaching target culture employed in Asian language programs and propose a concept of capacity which relates target cultures with the language learners’ own culture.

scholarly journals HAMBATAN SEMANTIK DAN BUDAYA DALAM PROSES TRANSFER IDE OLEH MAHASISWA JURUSAN NON BAHASA INGGRIS DALAM PENULISAN PARAGRAF

Edulib ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doddy Rusmono ◽  
Susanti Agustina
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Good Writing ◽  
The One ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

Abstrak. Proses transfer ide dalam bentuk tulisan yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa jurusan ilmu perpustakaan dan informasi sebagai mahasiswa jurusan non Bahasa Inggris (SNED) yang mempelajari Bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing (EFL) perlu diinvestigasi. Ketidakmampuan untuk menjembatani kesenjangan antara ide dalam bahasa ibu (Bahasa Inggris) dengan ide dalam bahasa pembaca (Bahasa Inggris) menghambat pemahaman pembaca, khususnya pembaca yang merupakan penutur asli Bahasa Inggris. Paragraf yang ditulis oleh mahasiswa SNED sebagai pembelajar Bahasa Inggris tidak dapat dipahami karena hambatan linguistik dan budaya. Sejumlah kecil mahasiswa yang membuat tulisan Bahasa Inggris dalam ujian tengah semester memperlihatkan gambaran ketidaktepatan dalam hal menyusun kalimat sehingga Bahasa Inggris mereka pada tingkatan tertentu terdengar seperti Bahasa Indonesia. Dalam hal ini kemampuan mereka untuk menggunakan Bahasa Inggris seperti layaknya bahasa Indonesia terbukti sangat rendah sehingga seorang penutur asli Bahasa Inggris yang mencoba untuk memahami ide mereka bisa salah memahaminya. Seorang pembelajar Bahasa Inggris harus memiliki kosakata yang cukup banyak dan setidaknya mengetahui aturan gramatikal seperti formulasi 9BP+3CC (Cd,Cx,Cdx) dan PoS misalnya, untuk melengkapi pemahaman sebelum benar-benar dapat mengekspresikan ide dalam tulisan Bahasa Inggris yang dapat dipahami. Selain itu, pengetahuan mahasiswa tentang budaya penutur Bahasa Inggris memainkan peranan yang sangat penting untuk menghasilkan tulisan yang bagus, sebagaimana yang diungkapkan oleh seorang ahli bahasa bahwa seringkali seorang pembelajar bahasa mengetahui aturan tata bahasa tetapi tidak memiliki pengetahuan yang cukup tentang budaya penutur asli. Mahasiswa mengalami kesulitan dalam mengkomunikasikan idenya dikarenakan ekspresi suatu ide terikat oleh budaya yang merupakan entitas independen. Budaya penutur asli mempengaruhi dan membentuk perasaan, sikap, dan respons terhadap pengalaman dan interaksi seorang pembelajar bahasa dengan yang lain. Oleh karena itu, upaya fasilitator untuk memperbaiki kemampuan menulis mahasiswa mungkin untuk dilakukan.Kata kunci: Penulisan paragraf, Bahasa, Kultur , Constraint, Betterment,  SNED. Abstract. Ideas transferred in the written form by Library and Information Science students as SNED (Students of Non-English Department)learning English in the environments of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) need investigating. Inability of bridging the gap between the ideas in their native language (Indonesian language) and the audience language (English language)hampers understanding on the readers' part, as especially a native speaker of English language. Paragraphs written by the SNED as English Language Learners (ELLs) are incomprehensible due to linguistic and cultural constraints. Quite a small number of students  willing to write in English in their Mid-term Examination give some picture of inappropriateness in terms of sentence structuring resulting in their English being “Indonesian” to some extent. Their “at-homeness”, in this case, proves to be so low that a native speaker of English trying to understand their ideas put into a paragraph will be more than likely misled. ELLs should have vocabularies in a sufficient number and know grammatical rules such as the one formulated as 9BP+3CC (Cd,Cx,Cdx) and the PoS at least, for instance, to equip themselves with before actually expressing their ideas in comprehensible English writing mode. Other than that, ELLs' knowledge of target culture (English, that is) plays a great role in producing a good writing as coined by a linguist: Most frequently confronted that students to a great extent know the rules of language, but are not knowledgeable enough about the target culture. In communicating their ideas, students found it difficult to do due to a culture-bound independent entity of idea expressions. The target culture influences and shape the ELLs' feelings, attitudes, and responses to the ELLs' experiences and interactions with others. It is indicated that any facilitator's efforts towards betterments in terms of writing better paragraphs by the ELLs should be a possibility.Key words: paragraph writing, linguistic, cultural, constraint, betterment, SNED.

Understanding the nature of performance

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Scrimgeour
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Test Procedures ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
The Impact ◽  
At Home

While Chinese language learning in Australian schools is characterised by predominantly second language programs for learners who have had no prior exposure to the target language, there is increasing participation by Australian-born children who speak Putonghua (Mandarin) or another dialect at home. Curriculum and assessment frameworks and syllabuses at senior secondary level have responded to the diversity in learner background through the provision of separate curricula and assessment schemes for different learner groups based on country of birth, prior educational experience and languages used at home. However the impact of learner background on learning and achievement as learners progress through Chinese language programs both in primary and secondary school remains under-researched. In particular, evidence of how the performance of second language learners differs from that of learners who a) speak the language at home and b) may have substantial community schooling experience beyond the school classroom, or c) were born and initially educated in Chinese, is very limited. This paper reports on the results of the Student Achievement in Asian Languages Education (SAALE) Project (Scarino et al., 2011; Scarino, this issue and Elder, Kim & Knoch, this issue) with regard to student achievement in Chinese. It focuses on the writing performance of Year 10 learners of Chinese and considers specifically the impact of language background by comparing performances between Australian-born students who do and do not speak Chinese at home. Scores assigned to students’ writing gathered on common test procedures confirms the expectation that background language learners perform at significantly higher levels and suggests that the two groups also differ in the nature of that performance. The implications of this data for the teaching, learning and assessment of Chinese in schools, and for the appropriate provision of programs for these different groups of learners is discussed.

scholarly journals Assessment in Spanish heritage language programs

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
Clara Burgo
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Heritage Language Learners ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Language Brokers ◽  
Variation Assessment

Spanish heritage language learners (HLLs) are heterogeneous in nature. Thus, how can we assess these students? Most of the literature on this has been on placement exams (Polinsky & Kagan, 2017, among others), but the focus of this article is on assessment in Spanish heritage courses. Placement test results should be indicators of what should be included in the curriculum. One of the main challenges is the lack of the following components: specific proficiency indicators for HLLs, consensus in defining key concepts, understanding dialect variation, assessment for measuring linguistic skills, and finally research on HLLs’ assessment (Malone, Kreeft Peyton, & Kim, 2014). Thus, assessment is the biggest challenge in HL education due to the dominant monolingual ideologies, so formative assessment practices are recommended to confront them by allowing HLLs to negotiate their linguistic identities via multilingual perspectives (King, Liu, & Schwedhelm, 2018). What are specific tools or activities to negotiate these? Personal narratives of US Latinos were collected by Carreira and Beeman (2014) for the sake of reflections of HLLs as language brokers. González-Davies (2004, 2018) also mentions the importance of peer-to-peer strategies for translation competence. These projects can also become group projects, like the manifestos implemented by Moreno and MacGregor-Mendoza (2019) in a course in which language, culture, and community are the goals. All these activities are examples of the kinds of assessment that may be effective in the heritage classroom and may guide their instructors. The goal of this article is to suggest activities to connect HLLs with their communities at the same time that their learning gains are assessed in terms of language proficiency.

scholarly journals Achieving academic control in two languages: Drawing on the psychology of language learning in considering the past, the present, and prospects for the future

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-345
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Program ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dual Language Program ◽  
Program Language ◽  
Academic Control

This paper first considers what it means to become truly proficient in a language other than the native one. It then looks briefly at the evolution of dual language programs. Next, it focuses on the issue of whether the first language (L1) or the second language (L2) serves as the language of mediation. Other dual language program issues are then discussed, such as how proficient learners actually become in academic and social language in the L2, their proficiency in grammar and pronunciation, and possible administrative constraints in the design and execution of such programs. Finally, attention is given to a guidebook written directly for dual language learners and for their teachers in which learners are encouraged to take a proactive role to ensure that they make the most of their dual program language learning and use experiences.

scholarly journals Broadening Minds: Exploring Intercultural Understanding in Adult EFL Learners

2011 ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Ferney Cruz Arcila
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Target Culture

Our current globalized world has become a space where many cultures are in permanent contact. Now, we are living in an interconnected world that requires us to be tolerant with others. This article describes some processes through which adult EFL learners developed intercultural understanding. This research aimed to provide clear examples of how significant and necessary it is to give foreign language learners the chance to become aware of the foreign culture while they are becoming proficient in the target language. In addition, this paper also accounts for some kinds of intercultural connections the students make between their native culture and the target one. Through a careful analysis of the data collected, this qualitative case study shows that by implementing different types of pedagogical strategies the students are able to go beyond superficial ideas about the target culture which help them become more open-minded towards other forms of perceiving reality.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Language Learning in a Web-Based Distance Learning Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 311-334
Author(s):  
Naiyi Xie Fincham ◽  
Guofang Li
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Metacognitive Knowledge ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Online Distance

This chapter reported on the construction and development of the metacognitive knowledge (MCK) about web-based distance language learning of two adult English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China. Drawing upon theories and research in metacognition, self-regulated second/foreign language learning, and distance language learning, the authors investigated adult Chinese EFL learners' knowledge about themselves as online distance language learners, the nature and demands of online distance English learning, and how to best approach their learning in this program. They identified changes in these learners' MCK over the 16 week semester and discussed how a number of contextual factors, including the pre-determined learning structure, teacher-led instructional sessions, and peer interaction opportunities, were significant in shaping and influencing learners' adjustments and revisions of their MCK about online distance language learning. Findings from this study have important implications for the design and implementation of web-based distance language programs for adult learners.

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