Techniques Of The Cultural Input For The Achievement Of Cross-Cultural Understanding In Middle School English Teaching

This paper discusses the importance of cultural awareness in the process of learning a foreign language, and proposes a set of techniques for cultural input. It aims for different levels of culture to achieve cross-cultural understanding -awareness of their own culture as well as that of the target language. It also proposes ways to restructure high-school curriculum based on three different perspectives on culture: first, culture creates differences and tension, both of which propel learning; second, culture is not a fact but a process in learning; third, culture can be used in a monolingual/monocultural and multilingual/multicultural setting. The theoretical perspective explained here is grounded on the premise that knowledge, or meaning generation, is constructed as the result of a transaction between an individual's conception of the world (individual culture) and the world outside the individual (social culture). From this point of view, culture resides in, rather than being separated from each individual. This progressive theory of culture creates an environment that supports learning, integrates culture in the curriculum and allows us to restructure the high-school curriculum in ways that highlight learner participation, the importance of social transaction, and the role of tension in promoting learning. A series of activities are systematically designed to develop the students' cultural awareness, make the study of culture an integral part of every lesson and the structured practices a means of transforming students' cultural competence into cultural performance.