Students of English as a foreign language

Question

To what extent should students of, say, English as a foreign language, be encouraged to 'be' English in the behaviour and viewpoints that underpin language? Where does this place their mother tongue and mother culture? Is there ever in this situation a potential for 'cultural imperialism' (see Rogers 1982 and Alptekin 1990)?

Enoon · Accepted Answer

It comes with the territory. If you want to speak a language like a native, you have to think like a native to some extent. For example, in speaking French, an American won't do the lilt unless he Frenches himself up some.

It's a sacrifice you make, if you see it that way. Maybe instead of playing the victim all the time with the tired old "imperialism" schtick, you could see it as expanding yourself for world citizenship. Native English speakers themselves have a certain amount of cephalo-rectal extrication to do, too, before they can truly join the party. I'll see you there.

Whatever culture grows dominant has earned that position on its merits. There is no organized effort to strip others of their culture—it just happens when a superior way comes along. And anyway, look over your shoulder and see the real salesmen and soldiers sneaking up on you while you're defending your shamans and your sayings in cyberspace.

My two cents.

Cool Breeze · Answer

AnonymousTo what extent should students of, say, English as a foreign language, be encouraged to 'be' English in the behaviour and viewpoints that underpin language?

I see no reason for this. I certainly never try be English when I speak or write English. On the contrary, I often use expressions that natives don't use as I am used to a larger variety of options in my native language. Languages are means for communication, not for meticulously aping other people and conforming to their standards and mannerisms.

AnonymousWhere does this place their mother tongue and mother culture? Is there ever in this situation a potential for 'cultural imperialism' (see Rogers 1982 and Alptekin 1990)?

When I speak a foreign language, I never think of 'cultural imperialism'. The idea seems totally alien to me. I cannot speak for others, of course. For me, to think that there might be some kind of cultural imperialism in the foreign language I use would mean that I consider that language and its native speakers somehow superior to me and my native language.

Of course there are reasons why some languages have become more widely spoken than others, and many of these reasons are nothing to brag about. However, if everybody in this world were monolingual, how could we communicate? We have to be pragmatic! An old teacher of mine said: "It's easy to speak English badly." We should be happy that such a language has become a world language.

Anonymous · Answer

They shouldn't be encouraged to "be" English. They perhaps maybe should be encouraged to think in English, at least when speaking English or when communicating with other English speakers, but they are not English and they should not be expected to "be" English in the same way that I, an Englishman in Japan, am not expected to be Japanese. I am expected to try my best at communicating in Japanese but I am English. There's nothing I can do about that, nor they.
Now, if you were intending to speak English at a native level or even a "second" language you may modify your position slightly to more attune yourself to that language, but as an English language assistant teaching English as a foreign language I would not expect any of my pupils to try and change their behaviour to match that of an English person. They're Japanese and its great that they are even trying to speak English, they do not have to "be" English to do that.

Tjan09 · Answer

AnonymousTo what extent should students of, say, English as a foreign language, be encouraged to 'be' English in the behaviour and viewpoints that underpin language? Where does this place their mother tongue and mother culture? Is there ever in this situation a potential for 'cultural imperialism' (see Rogers 1982 and Alptekin 1990)?

What does "being English" entail? Cultivating a stiff upper lip? Being chivalrous? Wearing tweed? Gosh, that does bring me back to my EFL classes more than twenty years ago, being introduced to the tweed-wearing, lamb-chop-eating Arthur. I'd have been grateful for more in-depth discussions on the cultural references back then.

My issue with the question is twofold:
1) There is a large gap between say, explaining what the cultural norms in England are vs. encouraging students to adopt them
2) The English language does not belong to any specific culture anymore - what about EFL teachers from the American continent and the rest of the world?

My take is that it is certainly possible (and perhaps even desirable, to avoid the dreaded cultural imperialism, oh, the horrors!) to teach English sufficiently well without encouraging the behaviour and viewpoints prevalent in the culture where that language originated.

ESL teachers, on the other hand, have a more solid rationale in helping their students understand enough of the cultural norms where the second language will be used. Understand, but not necessarily adopt.

Anonymous · Answer

Hey guys!I am a filipina though I can't tell more about my country but I would say our culture is easy to adopt and English learning is quite fast for us to communicate other foreign people. My bf is polish and now to be honest I quickly adopted his traditional food and humble to say as my bf told me I'm fluent in their language for six months...

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