| The inclusion of culture among foreign language proficiency standards in Oregon and elsewhere invites the investigation of foreign language teachers' role in the transmission of cultural information. Specifically, it suggests the exploration of foreign language teachers' views on the nature and teachability of culture, as well as their perceptions on what the teaching of culture entails. Such were the issues this study sought to elicit and understand.; Data were obtained through observations and interviews. To carry out the former, I borrowed and adapted a checklist suggested by Merriam (1988), while the latter followed the spirit of Seidman's (1991) model. Analysis unfolded in the interactive, on-going manner described and advocated by Erlandson, Harris, Skipper, and Allen (1993).; The teachers in this study all subscribed to the inseparableness of language and culture. However, not all were at ease defining culture or the goals of culture teaching. Explicit definitions included "a set of rules and personal behavior", and "beliefs and practices". Implicit definitions centered around culture as "core values"---industriousness, honesty, ethics, etc.; Teachers agreed that the target culture cannot be taught in the foreign language classroom and that cultural proficiency is an unattainable proposition. The goal of culture teaching should be the creation of "an awareness of difference". Because their goal was to sensitize students to the target culture, the teachers in this study preferred to address cultural issues in the first language. Finally, I found that the teachers interviewed favored the teaching of a "general" variety of their target languages, one in which students could be understood virtually anywhere. They favored the language variety they themselves were most familiar with.; An emerging explanation of teachers' perspectives is put forth based on "lacunae" (Kaplan, 1997), equivocality (Schuchalter, forthcoming in Kaplan 1997), and gauchism. Suggestions for further study include the exploration of issues of language and culture proficiency among faculty themselves; the politics of native-ness in language immersion schools; the articulation of culture teaching goals across elementary, middle and high school lines; and the dynamics between one's personal culture, and the acquisition of a target culture. |
