Balancing between language teaching and teaching about culture in the EFL classroom: With reference to the movie Two weeks notice |
Sook-Hyun Lee, Mun-Koo Kang |
EFL 교실에서의 언어교육과 문화교육의 균형에 관한 연구 |
이숙현, 강문구 |
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Abstract |
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate what kind of cultural knowledge (big C or little c) is needed in movie English; second, to examine the degree of interest in cultural knowledge in the EFL college classroom. There is a wealth of literature that discusses the importance of cultural education in terms of globalization and that argues for the inseparability of culture and language. However, teaching and learning both culture and language simultaneously might place a heavy burden on EFL learners. The romantic comedy, Two Weeks Notice (Lawrence, 2002) was used as material. Five college students majoring in English who enjoy learning English language through movies volunteered. They took three written tests and handed in two reports regarding the relationship between culture and language. The results showed that one student preferred to learn about culture than to learn language, two students focused on language learning with the help of information about culture and the last two students had no preference for learning about either culture or language. Though different preferences were found in the study, it is cautiously suggested that students wanted to understand little c culture to enjoy the movie script and language learning was more important than learning about culture. |
Key Words:
teaching culture;cultural background;cultural information;Big C;little c;Two weeks notice |
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