Self-Reflection of Reading Materials Week 1

Adaskou, K., Britten, D. and Fahsi, B. (1990)

The paper discusses the justifications made in the process of
implementing a large scale textbook project in Morocco. Despite a lot of
decisive actions to be made in making the instalment a success, the
textbook writers should forsee some of the crucial parts like cultural
differences which eventually will pose some threat to the entire project
itself.
In some part of the world, textbook may become the only reference
the students have that connects them with the outside world. Owing to
that, the selection of materials to be posted or used should be able to
reflect the generality of the foreign language so as for the learners to not
becoming even more confuse when they confront with the real situation in
the near future.
As idle as it may seem, some countries like Malaysia and Morocco
practice the top-down approach when it comes to making decisive actions
concerning the textbook usability for foreign language learning. However,
for Morocco English is taught in secondary schools for the purpose of
communication solely without any ambitious aims of making the English
language as an alternative mode of communication in the coming future
like Malaysia.
Textbook writers had worked hard in infusing local context into the
characters, settings and situations exemplified in the textbook as an
approach to prepare secondary learners of such possible circumstances
whereby English language will be used. Regardless of how much effort
being put forth, reality may never be duplicated on paper thus resulting in
English language learning to remain in isolation.
Holme, R. (2002)
The theory of language as a universal medium of communication
has brought about numerous debates among scholars. Despite these
arguments, they have to agree to a point whereby existing culture of each
civilization has and influence over the origin of the language specified for
the community. The author has tried to classify the instalment of culture
into the language curriculum through five different perspectives.
First, culture can be seen as a mode of communication where
instructors can exploit other communitys culture to enrich the learners
vocabulary and commentating skills. Secondly, culture implementation

can be viewed as an enriching perspective of language learning if the

existence of similarities between L1 and L2 takes place.
Apart from that, culture can also be used as a mode of unification
when all the countries using the same language should be able to
establish a network for future gains. The fourth view is that culture can
lessen the differences between each cultural disparity either in socially
constructed meanings or interpretation. The fifth culture view is where the
language is conveyed to the optimum beyond any explicit and implicit
extension of the language.
Kramsch, C. (1993)
Language is supposed to be a medium which connects people
regardless of their origins. As true as it may be scrutinized, the
involvement of culture into language teaching has brought about
conflicting issues when it comes to getting the message across between
the encoder and their decoder. In some foreign cultures, what is spoken or
written may not necessarily carry similar interpretation in other
languages.
The existence of dichotomies and deceptive symmetries in various
aspects of language teaching had resulted in extensive debatable
thoughts. Instructors or teachers equipped with a variable of teaching
philosophies entered their classrooms would normally end up making their
own judgmental understanding of how the outcome of the lesson is going
to turn up by the end of the specific lesson.
One cannot deny that teachers would definitely know their students
better in a sense of making any decision of how the lesson is going to take
place. Krashen (1998) suggested that the learners should be exposed to a
lot of comprehensible input simply to complement any discrepancies
between each dilemma that emerged in the teachers teaching
approaches. Despite the numerous research outcomes regarding the
subject, teachers could still find their own ideal method of teaching based
upon their own teaching philosophies.
Lund, Ragnhild (2001)
This article emphasizes on how ELT can be exploited to cater for
cultural awareness among the learners of L2. The designing of the
curricula for English teaching in Norway was used as the base of the
research to study whether the context and culture awareness can be
adapted to suit any situation. The main aim of the curricula design is for
the development of students ability to interact confidently with other

users of the English language with the awareness of cultural sensitivity as

a point of reference.
Culture is a part of every humans life. In some places, culture is
even stronger than the religion itself and has a direct link to the language.
Kramsch (1993) argued that culture can be negotiated and not fixed for
every culture. So, the most relevant approach is trying to narrow the gap
rather than integrating one foreign culture into the other.
The challenges arise to infuse context and culture of foreign
language into L1 users require an open-minded preparation from both
parties; teachers and learners. However, in spite of going too deep into
the context itself, teachers are advised to explain the culture of L2
explicitly so as not to confuse the learners.