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Cambridge Language Teaching Library
Culture Bound: Bridging the Cultural Gap in Language Teaching
This book is designed to give language teachers a basis for introducing a cultural component into their teaching. The paperback edition is a collection of selected essays that attempts to provide language teachers with a basis for introducing a cultural component into their teaching. It includes essays written especially for the volume, as well as some that have been previously published.
236 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 1986
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March 26, 2013
First printing in 1986, the one I read is from 1996.
I decided to give it just 2 stars because of the following flaws:
1. Outdated content. I know it's not the books fault, it had the first printing in 1986. You can see it's most updated in the discussions about books for teaching/learning.
2. Too focused on USA and American English. I know it's Cambridge University Press, printed in USA so you might expect it to be about English, but the way it's like is that the whole world is learning English and the native English speakers doesn't learn other languages. There is nothing about culture shock for natives from different English speaking countries (they have none? you could ask). Good that one of the articles covers a bit of difference about French spoken in different places and by various people with different backgrounds. But this makes it confusing. There is nowhere written about the book teaching solely about English as a Foreign Language, but on the other hand the information about teaching (learning) other languages is too scarce.
3. In a book that is teaching about cross-cultural approach to see a chapter (Culture bump and beyond) where the author mixes various cultures through Asia into one Asian... is a serious back-off. I'm not gonna argue about South Americans because I'm not sure how similar are they... but I can hardly believe that a culture is similar for example for Mongolia, Japan and Indonesia. (one of the other chapters, about compliments, shows it's not. ;)). So a minus for a bad selection of readings.
I enjoyed most of the book. It had also interesting and still valid information. I found some inspiration on how to modify my learning of the language. No, no, it's not about adding the cultural things into my learning. I already know the value of it. I got more inspiration on how to use the newspapers and literature for learning (even without the teachers). I got also some ideas for the books and poetry to read in the future, from the linguistic point of view.
I'd suggest this book (if there is none newer available on the topic of cross-cultural learning) to people who: don't know why they hit a wall and aren't able to communicate efficiently, want to master (be fluent) in English or to learn how the approach to teaching language and culture changed over time (there is a bit of information about teaching language earlier, but I thought rather about comparing 80s with current times.). It's also a good source of knowledge to actually learn why it's important to learn about culture too. For the teachers, I'd suggest newer book.
I decided to give it just 2 stars because of the following flaws:
1. Outdated content. I know it's not the books fault, it had the first printing in 1986. You can see it's most updated in the discussions about books for teaching/learning.
2. Too focused on USA and American English. I know it's Cambridge University Press, printed in USA so you might expect it to be about English, but the way it's like is that the whole world is learning English and the native English speakers doesn't learn other languages. There is nothing about culture shock for natives from different English speaking countries (they have none? you could ask). Good that one of the articles covers a bit of difference about French spoken in different places and by various people with different backgrounds. But this makes it confusing. There is nowhere written about the book teaching solely about English as a Foreign Language, but on the other hand the information about teaching (learning) other languages is too scarce.
3. In a book that is teaching about cross-cultural approach to see a chapter (Culture bump and beyond) where the author mixes various cultures through Asia into one Asian... is a serious back-off. I'm not gonna argue about South Americans because I'm not sure how similar are they... but I can hardly believe that a culture is similar for example for Mongolia, Japan and Indonesia. (one of the other chapters, about compliments, shows it's not. ;)). So a minus for a bad selection of readings.
I enjoyed most of the book. It had also interesting and still valid information. I found some inspiration on how to modify my learning of the language. No, no, it's not about adding the cultural things into my learning. I already know the value of it. I got more inspiration on how to use the newspapers and literature for learning (even without the teachers). I got also some ideas for the books and poetry to read in the future, from the linguistic point of view.
I'd suggest this book (if there is none newer available on the topic of cross-cultural learning) to people who: don't know why they hit a wall and aren't able to communicate efficiently, want to master (be fluent) in English or to learn how the approach to teaching language and culture changed over time (there is a bit of information about teaching language earlier, but I thought rather about comparing 80s with current times.). It's also a good source of knowledge to actually learn why it's important to learn about culture too. For the teachers, I'd suggest newer book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review