The contribution of teaching culture in

The contribution of teaching culture in raising student’s intercultural competence and awareness
Introduction : Teaching a foreign language is not an easy undertaking that is limited to the direct teaching of morphology , phonology , vocabulary and syntax. Because language learning is not a case of only aquiring symbols and systems of codes, but it is as well as a metter of developing cultural knowledge and competence, that is viewed as vital component of language that cant be ignored or denied. Infact , culture is contreversial issue in language teaching and learning , and this fact have highligted the necessity of teaching culture aiming to develop intercultural competence and awareness for an effective communication .Intercultural communication becomes the concern of language courses, this communication is mainly implemented through CLT method of teaching that does not consider the communicative competence and awareness as a metter of rules but rather creating conditions that make possible shared interpretation.The following presentation is an overview about teaching culture and its contribution in raising student’s intercultural competence and awareness. The major points tackled are : the relation between culture and language, the purpose of teaching culture , the intercultural competence and awareness , the intercultural approach and the role of teaching culture in raising student’s intercultural competence and awareness.

Language and culture : Language and culture are intertwined entities in which there is an interdependance relationship between them .Language and culture are bounded together in a way that language expreses cultural reality ( words expreses facts and ideas in the same time attitudes ),it embodies cultural reality ( people give meanings to their experiences through the means of communication ), and also language symbolizes cultural reality ( people view their language as a symbole of their social identities).
Teaching a language is inevitably teaching culture implecitly , since culture is viewed as a feature of language itself. Vahdany 2005 stated that « ….. has always been touched but not hugged dearly enough : its relevance and contribution to language teaching has grown blured and mystric ….. ». He and many others researchers argued on the idea that the culture of foreign language must be taught along side with language. In other study, done by Edward saphir and Benjamin Lee Worhf , they arrived at the conclusion about the relationship between laguag and culture that it is not possible to understand or appreciate one without the knowledge of the other .
So in teaching foreign language we are not required to teach only the grammar and vocabulary of that language but also to teach culture costums of the language , its values , way of thinking.

The purpose of teaching culture : Culture is an inevitable component in EFL and ESL classrooms.tTeaching grammar and vocubulary is teaching only what is correct to say and what is not , while learners should be taught what is appropriate for target society and what is not , and this can be only through teaching the target culture. Thus the true content of foreign language course is not only grammar and vocabulary of language , but also the culture expressed through that language ( Holmes 2012). Teaching culture cant be separated from teaching foreign language because of three main reasons. First , language and culture are inseparated , ie if we teach langauge without culture means we are teaching meaningless symboles , as Brown stated « the separation of language and culture leads to losing the significance of either language or culture. » . Second, language teaching is culture teaching. This means every language lesson is about something , and this somethig is cultural (Valdes). Third , the major goal of foreign language program is the mastery of communicative competence , and the absance of this later leads to the destruction of the relationships between people because of cultural conflicts .
Culture is viewed as crucial variable in foreign language classroom because it develops an understanding of different aspects of culture such as : exihibit culturally conditioned behaviors , social variables that influence the way people act , cultural conotation , diferences and similarities between cultures. All those aspects are reffering to intercultural competence and awareness .

The intercultural competence and awareness : Intercultural competence and awareness is the developement of understanding of one’s own and other cultures , it is the ability to interact effectively and appropriatly in intercultural situation . It occurs when people no longer think that their culture is the best and the only one .
Intercultural awareness is more than merely aquiring facts about other cultures but rather list observing , identifying and recording elements in both the home and target culture , comparing and contrasting , negociating meaning , tolerating ambiguity , accepting diffrences , defending one’s own point of vue and making the evaluation of otherrs perspectives .
Learners have an active learning process in classroom , since the focus is on what they can bring into the classroom , and what they can take out of it . In this process learners are not only learning a foreign language but also developing themeselves as a person or member of larger community . Thus intercultural copetence involves both raising the learner’s awareness of their own culture and the awareness of the culture of the language being learned .
Culture teaching for EFL learners promote the learner’s critical thingkin skills that help them in relating their own culture to the culture of the language being learned .

The intercultural approach : As an english teachrs , we are willing to make our learners successful intercultural communicators , and this can be implemented through providing systematic intercultural training that aims to build solid knowledge of both home culture and different target cultures .
By understanding this approach , teachers will recognize that this approach develop student’s ability to compare their native culture with other cultures, to evaluate critically and interpret the results of such comparison , and later on to apply knowledge gained in verbal and non- verbal communication.
This approach consists of three main stages and each stage has an objective . The first stage focuss on the student’s own culture, he / she should look at his / her cultue at conscious level, as one of the many diverse world cultures. The second stage aims at widen learner’s perspectives by teaching them about english speaking countrie’s culture aand to compare it to their own culture , starting by UK and USA than moving to others cultures. The final stage looks at expending student’s cultural knowledge by reading about world cultures.
By following this appraoch ,teachers will assume that their learners have developed and raised their intercultural competence and awareness.

The role of teaching culture in raising student’s intercultural competence and awareness : Teaching culture has an obvious role in raising student’s intercultural competence and awareness . Culture helps learners to appreciate the similarities and difffrences between their own culture and world cultures, it guides learners to identify people’s perspective in the target culture , and it helps them use the knowledge gained to develop much more objective view about the aspect of their mother culture. Learning culture helps learners to embodies different kinds of knowledge that drives them to be an intercultural communicators such as : the knowledge of the self and the other , the knowledge of interpreating and relating information , the knowledge of descovering cultural facts and the knowledge of valuing own’s aspects of culture . these laters will protect learners from falling in an intercultural challanging as religious diversity, sexual orientation and political contreversary.

Conclusion : As foreign language teachers , culture should be our message to students and language should be our medium , since we ought to recieve both experimental and academic training with the aime of becoming mediators in culture teaching. Foreign language teachers should be Foreign culture teachers.