Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
in a given society. Different ideas result from the use of different languages within a culture. World view is a
structure consisting of ideas and beliefs through which a person interprets the world around him and also the
world view determines how the person interacts with it. World view can be shaped by the culture and language
that is common in a particular society. This is because people in a society use their language to express
their culture thus expressing the world view in that society. In general, culture as the fifth skill emphasizes the
learner's ability to perceive, to understand, and ultimately, to accept cultural relativity. Language teachers often
refer to culture as the "fifth skill." But what does that mean? While it may generally be accepted in the
language-teaching community that culture is an integral part of language instruction, there is little consensus
on what, much less how, we should teach it. Unlike vocabulary and grammar, which are concrete in their content,
culture is quite fluid and amorphous and therefore difficult to define. Culture as a fifth skill refers to a set
of the abilities listed bellow:
� The ability to perceive and recognize cultural differences. ("So, you are supposed to make toasts in
Georgia!" “That is how you are supposed to drink a lot of tea in Azerbaijan”);
� The ability to accept cultural differences. ("From now on, I must remember to make toasts in Georgia."
“So, never forget, you have to drink tea when you are in Azeri society to express your respect toward
them.” )
� The ability to appreciate and value cultural differences. ("Toss is interesting part of Georgian life. "
“Teadrinking is a interesting form of socialization in Azerbaijan!”)
� To achieve touched goals teachers should:
� To help students to develop an understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned
behaviors.
� To help students to develop an understanding that social variables such as age, sex, social class, and
place of residence influence the ways in which people speak and behave.
� To help students to become more aware of conventional behavior in common situations in the target
culture.
� To help students to increase their awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target
language.
� To help students to develop the ability to evaluate and refine generalizations about the target culture, in
terms of supporting evidence.
� To help students to develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture.
� To stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity about the target culture, and to encourage empathy towards
its people. (Dimitrios Thanasoulas) No language can exist in a cultural vacuum. No two cultures are
exactly identical. Sometimes, cultural differences put quite high obstacles for students to overcome
and even more, lead them to the cultural confrontation. One cannot say that language can be isolated
from sicioculture, as cultural factors are always reflected in our daily (and all kind) communication.
For instance, in countries where Christianity is traditionally prevalent, the expressions, such as “Oh
my God”, “My lord” can be frequently. In some cases such way of expressing emotions and feelings
can be culturally unacceptable for Orientals, just like “Inhales” and “Machala” for Westerners, but
still, teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background of phrase (language) usage.
Many Christian writers have absorbed a large amount of nutrients from the Bible. To understand
deeply the western culture, it is absolutely necessary to get familiar with Christianity, history and role
of the religion in western civilization. There are many cases, when people are good in foreign language’s
grammatical structure, have rich vocabulary, have good listening and reading skills but still,
have communicative problems. Specialists think that lack of cultural awareness causes this kind of
communicative problems. Everyday language is “tinged” with cultural bits and pieces—a fact most
people seem to ignore. By the very act of talking, we assume social and cultural roles, which are so
deeply entrenched in our thought processes as to go unnoticed. Shortly culture as an “integrated pattern
of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values,
customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of
a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding genera-
356