EFL FRAMEWORKS FOR CULTURE TEACHING AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Abstract

This study analyses how culture is covered in English as a Foreign Language classes but also in the teaching materials. There is also a continuous parallelism regarding the aspects of cultural relativism in English language teaching. The study analyses cases from the publisher of English language teaching materials (EFL) and reflects on how this concept is this perceived among scholars in England, Japan and North Macedonia.A list of precautions are suggested which aim to serve as an example of the need that native cultures have to protect themselves from global (or sometimes the popular) culture. It is realistic to expect that globalization can and will impact even the most isolated culture, but it also becomes the responsibility of the popular or global culture (in this case, the English Language) and the designers of the Teaching Materials(TM) in the Foreign Language to take into consideration local/native cultural specifics. This alertness would not only protect the native or L1 language, but it would add more value to the teaching materials since it is not as superficial as are present materials. The incorporation of many national and even local elements increases the effectiveness of the teaching materials and, through the methodological approaches, bridges the gaps between L1 (Native culture) and L2 (Target Culture).In order to conceptualize the impact that global/popular culture has on a native language, researchers have offered a number of frameworks. These frameworks analyse the root that the Foreign language uses to impact the native language. In one of the studies from prof. Michel Byram in his research on Culture studies in foreign language education (1989) elevates the phenomena to a different level by speaking about the “hidden” curriculum in second and foreign language teaching. In this context he indicates that language teaching can rarely be purposeful without implicitly teaching the culture of its speaker. There are a number of frameworks that have been offered as analyses of Culture teaching in teaching English as a Foreign Language. One of the frameworks, which was conducted through analyses of the Japanese market in English as a foreign language (EFL) publications, is offered by Ito Horumi in his article “A New Framework of Culture Teaching for Teaching English as a Global Language.” He depicts the impact that Globalization and English as a global language have to the Japanese Culture. The impact is evident in the (as he calls them) “Changes in Cultural Orientation of English Textbooks”.The study also suggests educational frameworks that could be implemented in a local context and use English as common ground but also neutral territory for students of different ethnic or cultural groups.