CCU 10

Making Culture Happen in the English Language Classroom
BY Yakup Dogana, Madina Ashirimbetova & Brent Davis

         The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of students towards using culture-based tasks, activities and the impact of these in foreign language teaching and learning performance. The results of the study confirm the idea that the usage of culture in foreign language teaching or teaching of a foreign language through culture facilitates and empowers language education and acquisition. The overall results indicate the usefulness of culture matters for the language learning groups as one of the leading ways of teaching a foreign language. In order to incorporate culture successfully in the foreign language classroom, teachers should be aware of diverse individual characteristics of the participants. Furthermore, teachers should keep in mind that cultural activities should be changed as some time passes and be organized accordingly to required situations.

During the study, it has been observed that culture-based exercises stimulate and improve students’ interaction skills and make them use the target language more efficiently. The results indicate the general interest of the students toward target culture and its comparison with the local culture which adds some more arguments to the debates concerning culturally-oriented classroom for benefit of proponents of the culture in the FLT.