In this essay, four teachers of English as a foreign language were interviewed about their conceptions of culture and language. The purpose was to investigate what they consider important to teach their students about culture and how they attempt to achieve this in practice. Furthermore, it was discussed whether the teaching of culture can be improved. The study was conducted through semi-structured interviews, using theory about culture taught from either a product perspective, as observable behaviors, facts and information, or from a process perspective, as values, attitudes and empathy with otherness. The results showed that the teachers generally aimed to teach culture from a process perspective, promoting empathy, deconstructing stereotypes and teaching about the students’ own culture as well as cultural features in other parts of the world. They also listed some methods of achieving this aim. However, many of the teaching methods were more centered around facts and information, particularly about national cultures. This suggested an approach more focused on culture as a product, which may be detrimental to the voiced goals of teaching culture as a process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hh-34249 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Carlsson, Nils |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för lärande, humaniora och samhälle |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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