role of culture in language teaching

It is now argued that a very close relationship exists between culture and learning /teaching, and that learners can learn better if the way of their learning corresponds to the cultural features of their society. Taking this argument into account, many linguists, teachers and researchers now suggest that language teaching-learning practices in the classroom should be based on learners’ culture. They argue that if there is a harmony between the mode of teaching-learning activities in the classroom and the cultural features in the broader community outside the classroom, learners can behave competently in the classroom and can, therefore, learn effectively. The present dissertation has attempted to discuss this relationship between culture and learning / teaching in general, and also between culture and language learning in particular.
1. 1: Introduction
Culture is an almost all-inclusive complicated system with thought, views of the world, patterns of thinking, values beliefs, customs and language as its underlying bases.
Culture and language are closely related to each other. Language, as the most important part of culture, reflects culture, and is passed on from generation to generation by learning rather by instinct, that is, language is culturally transmitted. On the other hand, it is through language that culture is passed on from one generation to the next.
Language is acquired along with the ways- attitudes and patterns of behaving of the social group, and those ways, attitudes and behaving patterns find their expression through language. In this way, language is an inseparable or integral part of culture, and the medium through which culture is acquired.2
Every society has its own culture, which is recorded, reflected and symbolized by its language. Language and culture evolved and developed together, and therefore have been interwoven and mutually dependent throughout their history. Neither of them can exist nor develop without the other. Culture