Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

Culture and the classroom
Two links with other areas must be made. One concerns the individual in the class-
room, the other the classroom as part of the society. The individual’s attitudes to the
classroom form an important component in L2 learning. The student’s attitudes
towards the learning situation, as measured by feelings about the classroom teacher
and level of anxiety about the classroom, contribute to the student’s motivation.
This is also discussed in Chapter 8. But there may also be a sharp opposition
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between different types of teacher. Adrian Holliday (1994) describes the difference
between the social context of the expatriate EFL teacher and the non-native teacher
who lives in that country. These can have very different interpretations of the same
classroom, the one based on the West-dominated ‘professionalism’ of the EFL tradi-
tion, the other on the local educational system. Holliday tells of an encounter in
Egypt between Beatrice, an expatriate lecturer, and Dr Anwar, a local member of an
EFL project. To the expatriate it was a discussion among equals about their experi-
ences in the language laboratory; to Dr Anwar it was a waste of his expert time.
Teachers may then inhabit different cultures of their own, as well as the differences
between the cultures of the student and the target language. Differences between
native and non-native teachers are discussed in Chapter 10.
So far as the society is concerned, the expectations of the students and teachers
about the classroom depend on their culture. Margaret Mead (1970) makes a useful
division between postfigurative societies in which people learn from wise elders,
cofigurative societies in which they learn from their equals, and prefigurative
societies in which they learn from their juniors. Many cultures view education as
postfigurative. The classroom to them is a place in which the wise teacher imparts
knowledge to the students. Hence they naturally favour teaching methods that
transfer knowledge explicitly from the teacher to the student, such as academic
teaching methods. Other cultures see education cofiguratively. The teacher designs
opportunities for the students to learn from each other. Hence they prefer teaching
methods that encourage group work, pair work and task-based learning. Mead feels
that modern technological societies are often prefigurative, as witnessed by the
ease with which teenagers master computers compared to their parents. There is
not, to my knowledge, a language teaching parallel to the prefigurative type, unless
in certain ‘alternative’ methods in which the teacher is subordinated to the stu-
dents’ whims.
So certain teaching methods will be dangerous to handle in particular societies.
Whatever the merits of the communicative method, its attempts to promote non-
teacher-controlled activities in China were at first perceived as insults to the
Confucian ethos of the classroom, which emphasized the benefits of learning
texts by heart (Sampson, 1984). In Mead’s terms, a cofigurative method was being
used in a postfigurative classroom. A teaching method has to suit the beliefs of the
society about what activities are proper for classrooms. It is not usually part of the
language teacher’s brief to decide on the overall concept of the classroom in a
society. The different links between L2 learning and societies are followed up in
Chapter 10.
Classroom interaction and Conversation Analysis