Anna NiżegorodcewEnglish Department

Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University 13th July 2010 TUESDAY 11:00-12:30 Examples of diploma projects linking ELT and the target culture Teaching English as a language of international communication (ELF) and culture (whose culture?) – some thoughts Using English to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own and other cultures: examples from everyday life ( Texts and tasks from ”Mirrors and windows”)

Institute of Foreign Languages, Vilnius University 14th July 2010 Wednesday 11:00-12:30 Using English to familiarize speakers of other

languages with one’s own and other cultures: examples from literature

a) Czesław Miłosz’s poetry b) Yuri Andrukhovych’s prose Summing up - English language teaching training

via culture

Two motives in dissociating English from the target culture:

1. The actual mobility of large numbers of people

2. The impact of minorities and immigrants

We should teach ELF users’ culture. L1 (and L2, L3 etc.) culture can be

understood through ELF in a similar way translations are understood.

European teachers are generally positively disposed towards teaching culture.

However, they claim that they do not have enough time to do it in class.

If they teach culture, it is exclusively the target language culture.

Teachers focus both on everyday life styles and on high culture.

( Texts and tasks from ”Mirrors and windows”) a) Approaches of different cultures to time

(pp.13-14: ”Going round the bend in Greece”) b) Approaches to eating and drinking in different

cultures (pp.20-21: ”What time is lunch?”) c) Conversation topics in different cultures

(pp.29-30) d) Different approaches to education (pp.71-73

”Taking a test in Hungary”)

Czesław Miłosz (born 30 June 1911 in Szetejnie Lithuania; died 14 August 2004 in Kraków, Poland) – Polish poet, novelist , essayist , historian of literature, translator, in the years 1951- 1989 in exile, to 1960 in France, then in the United States, in Poland to 1980 encased in censorship; the Nobel Prize in Literature (1980), Professor, University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University, in 1993 he returned to Poland and lived in Kraków; Knight of the Order of White Eagle, buried in the Crypt of Merit „Na Skałce” in Kraków.

Yuri Andrukhovych (born in 1960 in the city of Stanislav now called Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine). One of the best contemporary Ukrainian authors. He writes prose, poetry, plays, and essays, and translates literary works. In 2001, he received the Herder Prize and the Antonovych Prize in literature. His works have been translated into many languages, among them English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Russian.

English language is in the process of dissociation from its target culture (British and/or American), and is encompassing different cultures, through its use by multicultural non-native ELF speakers.

ELF can be used to familiarize speakers of other languages with one’s own culture.

In this function ELF mediates between different cultures and English language teachers should be aware of their roles as cultural mediators.

Thank you!