FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIOCULTURAL DISTANCE

FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIOCULTURAL DISTANCE

Demont, Beatrice

During a research period in Japan I had the opportunity to follow a number of students learning the Italian language, both from Universities and private contexts. According to an anthropologic interpretation, meetings between cultures is based on practices that cannot be reduced to feelings or individual ideas; the sociocultural aspect is an open system, and not sheltered from external influences; so there is not a privileged point of view for a detached observation, because a meeting is equal and is an exchange of meanings produced from both the parts. Meeting another culture carries a number of differences that can be misunderstood. The singular knowledge of the foreign language, even if useful, does not constitute a guarantee to understand the culture of a society. Incomprehension of attitudes or an improper use of the language are maybe not sufficient to damage a relationship, but they have the ability to complicate it, and for the same reason stereotypes often block other possible interpretations. Teaching implies a bi-directional communication that needs to give an input to the student but also an understandable feedback for the teacher. The communicative exchange between two cultures is furthermore difficult when we try to understand the psychological influence of linguistic signals in verbal and non-verbal communication. In that way, the relationship between teacher and student is a delicate balance that can easily be upset, especially in cultures such as the Italian and Japanese ones which are very far from one another. I shall illustrate, in a summarised form, the description of the subjects under study by means of appropriate tables in this report, analyzing the oral production, the learning processes and the cultural differences that could create misunderstandings.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

35