Sayings, Proverbs, and the Teaching of Culture in ELT
By
Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Sunday,
September 14, 2014
Twitter:
@jonacuso
Post
143
Chiu and Hong (quoted by Samovar,
Porter, & McDaniel 2010) have already noted that “Shared knowledge gives
rise to shared meanings, which are carried in the shared physical environment
(such as the spatial layout of a rural village, subsistence economy), social
institutions (e.g., schools, family, the workplace), social practices (e.g.,
division of labor), the language, conversation scripts, and other media (e.g.,
religious scriptures, cultural icons, folklores, idioms).” All this shared unconscious collective knowledge is
inherent to the way people satisfy their psychological and physical needs. It
is through this shared knowledge that we get to understand how members of a
community act the way they are. And this knowledge is also phrased in the use
of sayings, proverbs, and the like.
What can be noted and used in language
teaching is that many sayings are pervasive in many other cultures. As Samovar,
Porter, & McDaniel (2010) have put it, “Because all people, regardless of
their culture, share common experiences, many of the same proverbs appear
throughout the world.” This common shared knowledge and experiences in the
native and target culture can be used to really work on language teaching and
learning. All these sayings, whether they are in both tongues and/or cultures,
can be of great use to teach intercultural understanding and communication in a
regular foreign language class.
As suggested by Prof. Marta Eugenia
Rojas (2014, May 24, Personal Communication), -a Master’s Degree Program
Instructor at Universidad Latina (San José, Costa Rica)-, proverbs and sayings
are great ways to explore a foreign culture and their view to understand the
world. Rojas continues by emphasizing the fact that these cultural statements fuse a culture’s present, past, and future, and
through these culturally-held values, societies govern individuals’ needs to
satisfy their psychological and physical needs. And because EFL students, e.g.,
also hold their values, they can venture into comparing their own behavior as
opposed to what they can expect to find if they were immersed in the target
language. Proverbs and sayings are a good start in having learners reflect
about how native speakers behave and mull over the way that they behave in
their mother culture.
As it has been noted, proverbs and
sayings “offer an important set of values and beliefs for members of [a]
culture” (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel 2010). And as the Russian Social
State University (n.d.) has put it in a quite simple and straightforward way:
- Proverbs
provide an opportunity for students to be knowledgeable experts as well as
learners.
- Proverbs
provide an opportunity for students to learn about each other and their
shared values.
- Proverbs
provide an opportunity for students to gain insight as they discuss their
experiences and work out their understanding of proverb meanings.
- Proverbs
provide an opportunity for students to use their home culture as a
stepping stone into school culture.
- Proverbs
provide an opportunity to improve thinking and writing as students both
provide and receive information.
Proverbs
and sayings can indeed help learners become more competent in the target
language and culture.
Samovar,
L., Porter, R., & McDaniel, E. (2010). Communication between Cultures. Boston:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning
Russian Social State
University. (n.d.). Proverbs in Language Teaching. Retrieved on 2014, May 30 from http://www.rusnauka.com/7_NITSB_2013/Philologia/1_130648.doc.htm
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