Journal of English Language Teaching

Developing Socio-Cultural Competence in ESL Learners: Some Practical Techniques

Dr K Venkat Reddy

Professor & Head, Department of Training & Development, The English & Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India.

Keywords: culture, ‘languaculture’, ‘linguaculture’, grammatical competence, communicative competence, sociocultural competence, cross-cultural communication

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Abstract

The paper is based on Agakar’s concept of ‘‘languaculture’’ which states that language, and culture are inseparable units and that teaching one in the absence of the other will render the learning incomplete. Consequently, teaching a language should not be limited to merely imparting LSRW, vocabulary, grammar, and rules of pronunciation. The curriculum should incorporate socio-cultural content to boost cultural awareness. In India, often teaching materials are designed with little attention to sensitizing students about the culture of the English language and, as a result, cultural training remains conspicuously absent in classroom practices. The paper argues that apart from developing grammatical and communicative competences of English, simultaneous efforts must be made to enhance socio-cultural competence. Such an inclusion would foster a broad cross-cultural awareness and understanding in addition to encouraging tolerance for other cultures. In this paper, firstly, I explain the general concepts of language, culture, their definitions, Agakar’s concept of ‘languaculture’, Friedrich’s term ‘linguaculture’, the need, and the how of incorporating the cultural content into the ESL curriculum. Secondly, I identify and present an inventory of ‘cultures’ that the native speaker routinely experiences, and finally, based on the inventory, I present a few cross-cultural activities to develop socio-cultural competence in Indian ESL learners.

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