The Importance of Language and Culture in the L2 Classroom

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, , language: English, abstract: Being able to understand another person's viewpoint is essential for effective communication. As the perceptions of most human beings are shaped by culture, the most important contribution intercultural communication studies have made for second language teaching is to increase the instructor's awawreness of the intricacies of managing a multicultural or a monolingual classroom in a foreign learning context, improving teaching and classroom quality for second language students. In support of this argument, this paper presents a brief background on the influence of culture on language, the benefits of studying L2 for cultural acquisition, the importance of recognizing different cultural motivations for L2 acquisition, intercultural differences that lead to misunderstandings and poor learning/teaching, the prevalence of ethnocentrism, and lastly, methods and approaches that may be useful in second language teaching.

I am an English-speaking Canadian, who has been teaching for the past 20 years, 16 of which have been in Japan. After receiving a B.A. from the University of Toronto (1994), I obtained a TESL certificate (1995) and a Masters in Applied Linguistics (2005). I have taught at a wide variety of businesses, jr. and sr. high schools, vocational colleges and universities in the Tokyo area. I have extensive experience teaching conversation; from absolute beginners to advanced levels, as well as listening and academic writing. I also have experience teaching Business English as well as TOEFL, TOEIC and SAT. My teaching style is based on the communicative approach to L2 instruction.