TO: Ms Eva Egron-Polak

1Case Study on Intercultural Learning and Dialogue Irina Kraeva, for IAU

Case Study presented by Irina Kraeva

Curricular Options for Teaching Language through Culture

Moscow State Linguistic UniversityRussia

Introduction

Education is both a tool for and a reflection of cultural diversity. UNESCO supports language as an essential component of inter-cultural education in order to encourage understanding between different population groups and ensure respect for fundamental rights. Education should raise awareness of the positive value of cultural and linguistic diversity and threats to them.

According to some predictions at least 50% of languages may be dead (or moribund) in a 100 years time proving that language diversity is disappearing relatively much faster than biodiversity. With this in view, it is primarily important to circulate the information related to the situation of the languages and linguistic communities of the world, so as to heighten public awareness of the necessity and advantages of preserving linguistic diversity. UNESCO supports bilingual and/or multilingual education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies. The future belongs to multilingual people, they are an important part of the linguistic diversity and linguistic education is one of the most important media. It helps mould the individuals worldview and constitute it into a coherent system. It gives and develops readiness for a dialogue, respect for ones native culture, traditions and language, promotes tolerance for other cultures and languages and capacity for cross-cultural communication. In order to get an effective command of a foreign language, one has also to learn to comprehend its respective culture with the help of the language.It seems to be common knowledge now that this has to be done simultaneously instead of being routed through separate, even if adjoining channels.

Nevertheless emphasis should be given to learning a non-native language and its culture as an integral whole. Moreover, linguistic education should serve as a basis for cross-cultural communication and be targeted at shaping intercultural competence in different spheres of activity and professional communication.

What we are concerned with in this paper is developing the role of foreign languages across the university curriculum in such a way as to promote inter-cultural awareness and competence as general educational goal. Curriculum should be reformed to include the cultural component of language teaching and learning. This component should be strengthened in order to gain a deeper understanding of other cultures; languages should not be simple exercises but opportunities to reflect on other ways of life, other literatures, other customs.

The Case of the Moscow State Linguistic University

The Moscow State Linguistic University (formerly the Moris Torez institute of Foreign languages) has a longstanding tradition of training foreign language teachers, interpreters, translations and linguists. Our strategy has recently been first and foremost to create, develop and improve a systematic approach to teaching foreign languages and their cultures as part of a unified educational space in CIS countries, the Baltic region, Europe and the world at large. The main task is to develop programmes and introduce practices to meet the standards of integrity and transparency and to design novel curricula focused on cross-cultural communication.

Among other things, efforts have been made to develop a system of common levels of command of a foreign language in relation to the common European system of levels and to work out standards for curricula and textbooks, as well as a system of tests that will provide a solution to the problem of certification of educational establishments engaged in teaching language and culture.

The name of the speciality Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication, which most of our students major in, speaks for itself. This speciality comprises the following qualifications: Foreign Language Teaching, Interpretation and Theory of Translation, Psycholinguistics, Applied Linguistics, all of them requiring at least two foreign languages of specialisation. The current curricula include compulsory courses both in language and culture country studies of nations speaking the languages learned (History and Culture, History of the Literature, etc.)

Individuals express culture through a variety of symbols such as art, music, literature, religion, money and most importantly language. Key to understanding and acquiring the rules of culture is the ability to identify the value orientations and the values underlying them, the interpretation of the beliefs stemming from the values and the expression of these values through the oral and written forms of the language.

It is noteworthy that the up-to-date approach to language teaching proper offers and comprises more than traditional philological or literary studies used to. It promotes a realistic and positive inclusion of history, culture, and linguistic and cultural diversities and reflects on other ways of life and customs. Intercultural competence component has become part and parcel of the respective curricula and syllabuses.

The University has been directly involved in the practical work giving rise to the design of curricula and syllabuses of the kind, pedagogical experimentation, the development of new approaches to the assessment of learners proficiency, teacher development, etc. What we are concerned now with is further developing an integrated approach to language learning and teaching in students who specialize in areas of study other than those traditionally associated with foreign languages, namely linguistics, interpretation, foreign language teaching (that is, students for whom a foreign language or languages is not the main focus of their university study).

This is our firm conviction at the University that students of so-called non-linguistic disciplines (law, economics, business, sociology, politics) should develop proficiency in one or, preferably, more foreign languages. Since the disciplines mentioned represent professions in which lack of foreign language proficiency may be a handicap. For those who seek to develop their foreign language proficiency as an adjunct to their main area of study the intercultural component of language learning is vitally important.Those specializing in Culture Studies, Public Relations, Political Sciences, International Relations or Sociology, for example, should be well aware of both linguistic and cultural diversities and be ready to take into account cultural differences and respect cultural identity.

We have been engaged in practical work as well as research on the subject for about 10 years. The University provides both compulsory and optional foreign language and culture courses including post-graduate programmes. Compulsory courses for non-specialist students are by definition an integral part of the University curriculum. Optional or sometimes extracurricular ones are highly profession-oriented and apart from language proper and intercultural components offer challenging contrastive studies of the respective professional areas in a country or region of the language learned with the help and through this language.

A number of related problems still seek solution or further development and improvement and are currently under debate: to what extent university curricula should take into account profession-oriented intercultural differenceswhat particular skills should be focused on in teaching language and culture for specific purposeswhich pedagogical goals ( levels, partial competences, transparency, learning to learn) should be set and achievedwhich forms of evaluation and assessment are most adequatewhich levels classification of the mastery of a language should comprise

The latter, regarding foreign language proficiency in general, have been thoroughly elaborated in pilot projects of the European Language Portfolio, which we find a significant long-term contribution to language learning in Europe. A group of the University professors took part in the work mentioned. They have designed the Russian versions of the Portfolio for all stages of language education (Rector of the University Mrs Khaleeva, Professor Iriskhanova). It is regrettable though that so far there is no specific version for students learning foreign languages and cultures for specific purposes as foreign language culture, social and cultural language features are essential components of the project in question. Whereas introduction of the level system contributes to the personal and professional growth of students, development of interpersonal communication, as well as to intercultural and international exchanges.

The system of levels of mastery of languages and cultures presupposes raising the students status in the education process, his or her increased awareness of personal responsibility for the education results, enhanced motivation in teaching and learning of the language and culture, a widening framework of the training process through inclusion in the system of evaluation of students attainment of experience in intercultural communication with those who have the studied language as their mother tongue, etc.

Special attention must be given to enriching education process with promising methodologies and means of teaching foreign languages and cultures to students of non-linguistic specialities. This includes new information technologies (local networks, data bases, knowledge bases, hypertext systems, the Internet, remote learning, multimedia systems, etc.) to ensure an authentic intercultural and inter-social profession-oriented interaction, and the scale, rapidity and plurality of linguistic and intercultural communication.

New information technologies are regarded as the source of authentic linguistic and extra linguistic, including professional, knowledge and a means of communicative interaction with the source of linguistic, cultural and professional knowledge, as well as a means of teaching foreign languages and cultures.

Other Issues

MSLU has long been involved and interested in dialogue, interchange and discussion among educationalists on risks and benefits of internationalised education, intercultural teaching and learning approaches and options, language and culture diversity challenges. Emphasis should be given to the formulation of strong higher education policies designed to promote language and culture teaching and the strengthening and the extension of international support and assistance to universities engaged in training language and culture experts, to facilitate the development of freely accessible materials on language and culture.

Note on Linguistic Minorities in the Russian Federation

There are about 180 nationalities populating the territory of Russia, among them more than 100 indigenous peoples and ethnic groups. Russians account for a little more than 80% and other nations and ethnic groups fall to the share of about 20%.

Minority groups number about 60 ethnic units who mainly live in the North and in the Caucusus. The most numerous of those are Nenets (a little more than 30000) and Evenks (30000). The populations of other nationalities are far smaller. For example, there are only 5000 Akhvakhts. Some groups number less than 1000 - Aleutians, Kumandints, Negidalts, Oroks, Tofalars and others.

The title language groups in Russia are the following: Slavonic (Russians), Turkic (Tatars, Chuvashes, Bashkirs, Yakuts, Balkars, Khakasses etc.), Finno-Ugric (Maris, Mordvinians, Udmurts, Komis, Karelians etc.), Caucasian (Chechens, Ingushes, Ossetians, Kabardians, Avars etc.), Mongol (Buryats, Kalmyks), Paleoasian (peoples of Siberia and the Far North). Most of the languages of the minorities belong to the Caucasian, Paleoasian and Turkic groups.

For the past few decades the attitude to mother-languages in the Russian Federation has undergone cardinal changes.

References/Recommended readings:

1. Education in multicultural world [2003]. UNESCO Education Position Paper, pp. 32-332. UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity [2001]. Action Plan, paragraph 7.3. Skutnabb-Kansas T., 2003, Why should linguists Diversity be maintained and supported in Europe?, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, pp. 13, 17.

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