Teach English in Sanquan Zhen - Yuncheng Shi

We are living in an open world with less and less uncharted territories and countries and insurmountable borders. And so, this openness gives us a great opportunity to meet different people and cultures, to become a man of the world, to establish ties with others, a kind of “Communication sans frontiers!” And cultural awareness helps to turn this opportunity into a reality. But how teaching language might be involved with the culture and cultural issues? The answer is simple – teaching language is not just about grammar, words and sentences. Through language teachers present to students a whole new world of foreign country, people, culture and traditions. The teacher helps with greater understanding of foreign life and mentality, to be open to the new. And only this way students will get the real sense of language, will like learning, will love the new language. I hold on to the idea of importance of cultural aspect of language and its influence on the teaching process, because just knowing grammar and a lot of words won’t make you able to communicate right way, if you won’t be aware of cultural aspect using particular language. Here is just a simple example from everyday life. Imagine you at the café or restaurant paying a bill by cash. You will say thank you, handing in the money and the bill to a waiter, and then will wait for your change. In an English speaking country you will get, sooner or later, your change and the bill, but being in the post-soviet countries which use Russian, and saying «Спасибо!» - thank you, in Russian, when you handing in the money to the waiter, in most of the cases forget about your change and probably the bill as well, not because they are stupid, greedy or want to trick foreigners, no. Just because in this particular situation in these particular countries your «Спасибо!» will mean «Thank you, change is not needed, keep it as a tip». In more important situations, say, involving business or politics, the lack of cultural awareness or translation without keeping in mind the specifics of the country may lead to disastrous outcomes, financial, diplomatic or reputational. I like the article of Milton J. Bennett about intercultural sensitivity*, where he shows and explains the stages of the intercultural sensitivity development, its gradual evolution. Such a great source for thoughts, if you would like to implement cultural aspects into the teaching process. * https://www.idrinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/FILE_Documento_Bennett_DMIS_12pp_quotes_rev_2011.pdf Learning new languages, especially for adults, always is very challenging and difficult, as they already formed their outlook on the world and life, and as well as anything new would be considered as dangerous and will naturally cause internal resistance. Showing them that they are already familiar with some part of the new phenomena (language), will help them to reduce stress and facilitate learning process, not saying about the fear to lose face not knowing something or making mistakes (especially applies to the people of high managerial positions). Introducing students to the literature, arts, music, films, history and traditions, related to the studied language, will not only help adult students to remove barriers, but also give teacher the endless source of materials for lessons and enrich class curriculum tremendously. Another side of cultural awareness is to consider all the time the background of the students and avoid culturally sensitive topics, words, situations, dresses and even gestures, so not to offend them unintentionally. Student will notice and appreciate that. And, apart from the acquiring new language, they, of course, will learn from you how to be culturally open, sensitive and sensible, how to understand and respect others despite their differences, will improve their communicative abilities and, finally, may help to come to the mutual understanding worldwide.