Page 42 - LanGuide Project: Research and Professional Insights
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reea Nechifor and Cristina Dimulescu
skills. And to a great extent this is what the whole LanGuide project
consisted of, but including minor cultures in its objectives, as well
as languages which otherwise would not have been in the interest of
such an intricate combination of e sp and m all.
Outlining ‘Culturacy’
Fundamental concerns like: How can culture be identified and categorised?;
Is there a relationship between a people’s culture and the language they
speak?; Which culture, that of the candidates learning the language or
that of the language itself, should be taught during the process of teaching
a foreign language?; What exactly can be defined as the ‘cultural compo-
nent’?; How can culture be incorporated into the teaching process: as the
subject-matter of a distinct class or melted into the workout paste? and Is
it possible to escape clichés or are they unavoidable? identify the research
questions that the writers of this chapter, as producers of tasks for the Lan-
Guide phone application asked themselves, a mobile application which, in
its first phase, included activities for the English language, according to
the scope of the project. Furthermore, an issue such as the one Kramsch
posed about the cultural element’s fundamental nature: ‘how can we de-
velop in the learners an intercultural competence that would short-change
neither their own culture nor the target culture, but would make them into
cultural mediators in a globalized world?’ (Kramsch, 2013, p. 57, emphasis
added) was also an essential study premise for the difficulty of producing
English language assignments that target users of different cultural ori-
gins while also addressing various host-countries in whose communities
they may integrate themselves for a length of time.
The link between a social context and its cultural background was en-
visioned by T. S. Eliot (1973) as an incarnation, a superimposed fresco on
which bristles from both wings paint with mutual and harmonious strikes,
culture and society nurturing each other as a living and fully constructed
entity. As a result, while seeking to describe culture on a syntagmatic axis,
the paradigm of identifying qualities is founded in essential concepts such
as spirituality, past, literature, language, arts, morality, sports, geography,
entertainment, customs, and governance. And even though all this can be
reduced to preconceptions or platitudes that are frequently mistakenly or
hastily connected with a particular culture, they must be part of any for-
eign language teaching syllabus and thoroughly learned once they are in-
cluded in the teaching spectrum. Borca (2019) attempted to consider and
to include this in her collection of textbooks focused on teaching Roma-
42
skills. And to a great extent this is what the whole LanGuide project
consisted of, but including minor cultures in its objectives, as well
as languages which otherwise would not have been in the interest of
such an intricate combination of e sp and m all.
Outlining ‘Culturacy’
Fundamental concerns like: How can culture be identified and categorised?;
Is there a relationship between a people’s culture and the language they
speak?; Which culture, that of the candidates learning the language or
that of the language itself, should be taught during the process of teaching
a foreign language?; What exactly can be defined as the ‘cultural compo-
nent’?; How can culture be incorporated into the teaching process: as the
subject-matter of a distinct class or melted into the workout paste? and Is
it possible to escape clichés or are they unavoidable? identify the research
questions that the writers of this chapter, as producers of tasks for the Lan-
Guide phone application asked themselves, a mobile application which, in
its first phase, included activities for the English language, according to
the scope of the project. Furthermore, an issue such as the one Kramsch
posed about the cultural element’s fundamental nature: ‘how can we de-
velop in the learners an intercultural competence that would short-change
neither their own culture nor the target culture, but would make them into
cultural mediators in a globalized world?’ (Kramsch, 2013, p. 57, emphasis
added) was also an essential study premise for the difficulty of producing
English language assignments that target users of different cultural ori-
gins while also addressing various host-countries in whose communities
they may integrate themselves for a length of time.
The link between a social context and its cultural background was en-
visioned by T. S. Eliot (1973) as an incarnation, a superimposed fresco on
which bristles from both wings paint with mutual and harmonious strikes,
culture and society nurturing each other as a living and fully constructed
entity. As a result, while seeking to describe culture on a syntagmatic axis,
the paradigm of identifying qualities is founded in essential concepts such
as spirituality, past, literature, language, arts, morality, sports, geography,
entertainment, customs, and governance. And even though all this can be
reduced to preconceptions or platitudes that are frequently mistakenly or
hastily connected with a particular culture, they must be part of any for-
eign language teaching syllabus and thoroughly learned once they are in-
cluded in the teaching spectrum. Borca (2019) attempted to consider and
to include this in her collection of textbooks focused on teaching Roma-
42
