What Nonnative English Teachers Should Do in Teaching Cross Cultural Understanding

 

 

Ika Lestari Damayanti

 

 

Many experts believe that language and culture are intertwined. No one will acquire a language appropriately if s(he) does not understand its culture. Therefore, as Brown (2001) has suggested, in language teaching, the teacher does not only teach the linguistic aspects but also how it operates in the real life. To know how to use the language appropriately in the society, we should know the rules of the game and how we play the language. These rules are embedded in the culture. This is our job as a language teacher, then, to include the teaching of target language culture, in this case, English culture.

 

Somehow, as nonnative English teachers we deal with many problems, one of them is the varieties of English as there are many English-speaking countries in the world such as America, England, Australia, etc. We cannot generalize the English culture only from the reflections of America or England because every culture brings its own uniqueness. These distinctions must strike us with the awareness that there exist different rules of how to use English in those countries. Another problem is that nonnative English teachers in Indonesia do not have enough exposure to the use of English. In this paper, therefore, I would like to offer some aspects that nonnative teachers of English should do in teaching cross-cultural understanding.

 

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Damayanti, I. L. (2003, October). What nonnative English teachers should do in teaching cross cultural understanding. Paper presented at the 51^st TEFLIN International Conference, Bandung, Indonesia.

 

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