Teaching Culture in a Multicultural Classroom: A Case Study of Indian Students
Keywords:
Multiculturalism, Multilingual Environment, Intercultural Competence, Cultural NeurolinguiticsAbstract
Learning a language, does not merely means learning sounds, alphabets and grammar, but it also means learning the customs, traditions and cultural norms of a community or country. As we all grow up in social circles, we informally learn how to use language expressions, gestures, tones and we also get to learn the acceptable behaviors or language use in our society. So we can say that language is what we are all speak and culture is what we all posses within us. Language expresses a particular meaning that represents the culture of a particular social group. We interact with a language and culture becomes its reference point.
Language and culture are complex, yet inseparable form of human interactions. Culture in its multifaceted form exists in various multilingual or bilingual environment. Cultural awareness and language competence becomes one of the most complex feature or designator of survival in such multicultural environment. Different languages have, over the ages, established different categories of cultural aspects, which reflect environments, usage of life and world view of people.
India, as a case study in this work, presents an interesting scenario in terms of multicultural classrooms. Learners with different backgrounds of language and culture, sit together to learn a foreign language. It has been observed that such multicultural complexity of different cultural patterns, reflect upon different learning strategies used by the learners.
This study deals with understanding these learning strategies of Indian learners learning a foreign culture in a multicultural Indian classroom. This study will also observe the characteristics of intercultural competence gained by these learners. As a part of this study, to observe the systematic cross-cultural variations and leanings in human brain network of languages, cultural neurolinguistic study shall be studied. This paper will make recommendations for effective culture education in foreign language classroom to develop intercultural competence.
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