TEACHING STUDENTS TO SHARE THEIR CULTURE

TESOL SUBJECT

MARIA L.SUPARTI

P0600112027

“ TEACHING STUDENTS TO SHARE THEIR CULTURE”

“One of the primary function of English as is the case with any international language, is to enable speakers to share their ideas and cultures”(Sandra Lee Mckay,page81,2nd paragraph)”

INTRODUCTION

I would like to choose this statement(above) because it is relate to the duty of a teacher  to teach the  students about culture and it has corelation to my experience. As we know, that learning language can be  meant  learning the culture itself  because language is important part of a culture .Then learning culture is “very important” to do, either  formal or informal way.It is a social process. In learning culture,there are two items related to the culture.They are target culture & resouce culture. *What are they?

Based on Sandra Lee Mckay(above),there is  a question *”how to teach/help students(speakers) to have communicative & knowledge competence in sharing their culture”........THE TWO QUESTIONS(*) WILL  BE DISCUSSED BELOW.

DISCUSSION

Talking English,it  can’t be separated to the culture of where English is spoken,as mother tongue & as lingua franca. It can be UK(europe) or USA  as standart.So in using English as international language has involved cross culture understanding between interlocutor. The culture of UK  and the culture of America are target cultures because the two countries are the owners of the language, then the culture of(here) teacher  &  the culture of student are resoure cultures, in this case the teacher and the students have different  background culture.

In teaching English as foreing language,it’s always commenced by using the tradition of where English is spoken, such as  how  introducing  ourselves will be done,how to respond someone when they  greet us and so on. There are two iteims that shall be used to help the students in sharing their culture:

The first  “how to get the students speak up”:

a. If the main aim of the course is oral fluency,we have to organize lesson so that the students speak ‘English as much as possible’.

b. Speaking time can be be vastly increased by chorus work and pair work,but there are other possibilities from the moment the student enter the class:

-talk to the students as they come in. Don’t let  five minutes go by, waiting for whole class to arrive.

-provide interesting things for them to talk about, for exmple, a colourful picture/poster, a bunch of keys.

-insist that they talk to each other in English and not in their native language(s).

-encourage them to help and correct each other, rather than always asking you, the teacher, to help.

 c. Students will be more willing to speak if:

                -they have something interesting to talk about.

                -they feel that  you are genuinely interested in them as people.

- the aim of speaking is real communication, in other words,the students will be more interested in replying to a question to which they think you do not know the answer.For example, “where is your friend today,Maria?” is better  than a mechanical  question like “ what is on the desk?”.

d. Correcting your students’speech

There are no hard and fast rules but, generally:

- correct them when they make a mistake over some specific language point which they are currently learning, or are supposed to know.

- do not  correct them if they are engaged in general conversation,as long as what they are trying to communicate is clear. We should make a note of their errors and bring in the necessary revision as soon as possible.

Then, we need to make seating arrangements,chorus work and pair work ,asking and answering question,and dialogues course appropriately.(TEFL. A Practical Guide by COLIN DAWSON,p 9-14).

The second “how to teach vocabulary well”

In general prosedure, there are some steps for teaching vocabulary,as follow:

                -select the new word/phrase(relate to the topic-culture)

                -explain it  carefully by clear demonstration/pronunciation

                -ask the student to repeat it for sound

                -dictate it in context

                -use it in another context and another sentence

                -give the student meaning  and ask them for the word/phrase

                -set exercises, home work, and some sentences using the vocabulary

                -ask the student to write  it down in their notebook

It is clear enough of how to teach vocabulary.

In talking  about how to get the student speak up and  how to teach vocabulary,the aim is to make student enable to share their culture.We make the students/learners to reflect on their own culture in relation  to use English as media.

This  is the example of Torajanesse student talks about  RAMBU SOLO’ :

“Rambu Solo”  is the funeral  ceremony of Tana Toraja.Rambu  means smoke of fire, and solo’ means go down.It is deals with the sun which begins to go down after noon. The funeral ceremony is called Rambu Solo’ because all activities,including making fire for cooking and baking slaugtered animals,can only be held after twelve o’clock. The ceremony takes place for more than one day.It depends on the social status of the dead.The higher social status,the longer the time will be and more pigs and buffaloes are slaughtered.During the ceremony,many mourners come and go.They come in groups and are welcomed by the relatives of the dead. The mourners are entertained with mourning dances and music played from  bamboo instruments.The common dancers perfomed are”ma’badong”,mostly played by men,and “ma’katia” played only by women. The traditional coffin of the dead is not made of wool. It is made of layers of cloth.The body is wrapped with these thick layers and it looks like a bolster. Then it is decorated with golden and red cloth.When the ceremony at home is over,the dead is carried by about 10 men to family grave.In the past,most graves carved in the rock but nowdays most graves are built from brick and cement and they look like small houses.The Toraja people believe that although the dead has been buried,her/his soul is still around her/his home.So,her/his relatives often take some food,tobacco,cigarette and the dead’s passession to the grave.(Corneliss Tato, Seminary-SMA Katolik Cenderawasih Makassar, May 5th ,2012. 09.30AM)

CONCLUSSION.  At last,make sure that the learners can speak up and have much more vocabularies to talk about their ideas.Then they need to be given  time as much as possible to talk.

Teaching culture is important because of common use of English as international language,culture is an intereting topic to be talked, and the ability to speak about culture is achiving in a variety of communicative goals.In the discuss above, the two questions are answered clearly.