The Importance of Introducing Culture to the Teaching of its Language: A Teaching Porposal in ELT

Abstract

[eng] Thousands are the people that nowadays decide to choose the English language as their means of communication with people from different nationalities. It is certain that English has already become the new lingua franca (ELF) due to its global use in many foreign countries. In addition, English is also referred to as the international language used for governmental affairs as well as for business, media and, very importantly, education. Therefore, its teaching is crucial to educate students who will have to coexist in this globalised and multicultural world with people from other cultures and different nationalities. Hence, due to the advent of globalisation, the contact with other cultures is stronger than ever and I believe that language teachers should take advantage of this situation and promote tolerance and respect throughout their lessons. It is the aim of this paper to support a teaching methodology which includes both the teaching of a language, more precisely, the English language, and its culture simultaneously in order to instruct students not only the language by itself but also the richness of its culture in every sphere. To demonstrate the feasibility of this way of teaching, a didactic proposal will be put forward showing sample activities which integrate both the learning of the language and its culture. Furthermore, this master’s dissertation will centre not only on the teaching of British or American culture and their language, as the metropolitan varieties of English, but the relevance of other World Englishes will be also brought up to make students aware of the different Englishes that exist around the world.