Teaching and learning culture on English language programmes: a critical review of the recent empirical literature

Abstract

A new exploration of the teaching and learning of culture in English language teaching and learning is overdue, given the particular importance of approaches to culture and intercultural communication in the teaching and learning of the ‘global language’. The review undertaken here finds a growing body of literature exploring culture as a context for and background influence on English language teaching and learning. However, comparatively little research literature explores the actual ‘learning of and about culture’ on English language programmes worldwide. There is some empirical evidence, detailed and discussed here, that culture is not approached in the classroom in a principled, active and engaged manner, and that this lack of engagement may have a detrimental effect on learning. Where it is approached actively, there are indications that a nonessentialised, critical, mediating, ‘intercultural’ approach may have a positive effect on learning. Although this approach informs much of the curricular underpinning for language teaching in Europe, its application to classroom practice here and elsewhere is found to have been the subject of little empirical research, especially in the case of English language teaching and learning. A research agenda to investigate this applicability is therefore outlined.