The Importance Of Communication And Cultural Awareness

Traditionally, most linguists and teachers alike thought that the best way to learn a new language was to get as familiar with it as possible. For that end, students who learn a foreign language need to learn not only the language -its structure and rules- but also the culture of the target language. Even though it is true that language is the carrier of culture, and that students should learn about it; this approach leaves out the learner’s own culture, background and values.

Regarding that matter, the Ecuadorian English curriculum that was implemented in 2016 added “Communication and Cultural Awareness” as one of its central axes for teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in primary and secondary school. The curriculum reads, “The

In the words of Uddin (2014): “learning a new language without familiarity with its culture remains incomplete”. Similarly, the field of sociolinguistics supports this statement. It is clear that cultural awareness plays a large role in helping learners to be confident and culture-wise appropriate, especially during one-on-one interaction with native speakers. If they are not aware of the implicit rules of politeness -for example- of that language, or if they do not know how language works in a specific culture, they will have several communication issues and the message mill not be conveyed

In a research led by Yilmaz (2007) at the Bogaziçi University of Turkey, he asked Turkish learners of English about their opinion on teaching the target language’s culture in EFL learning. Not surprisingly, the results showed that a large percentage of students did not support this practice. “As for the reasons why the participants disagreed on the teaching of the target language culture, the students stated ‘cultural imperialism’ and the importance of preserving their own identity and culture as the major reasons for their disagreement” (Yilmaz, 2007, p.