MY OWN REFLECTION ABOUT CULTURE

By Charles Wright

I am a Master Degree Student in the National University (UNA) in Costa Rica. I have a great course called Culture and Target Language. As part of the assignments for the class, I have to write some online blogs. For the first, I am going to write about culture as I understand it, the implications that it has to teach English culture and why some people have the main issue learning English as a second language.
I understand as culture the system of beliefs, knowledge, experiences, values, attitudes, meanings, religion shared by a group of people. It means that everything that happens within a society in a specific region is culture. For instance: “some people use to say that Costa Rican people are lacy”. Everything people do are characteristics that differentiate them from other groups.
Rather than teach English, English teachers have to teach the students the target culture. It is impossible to pretend teaching English without teaching aspects of English speaking countries culture. Some teachers teach English relating the topics with our own culture which is good, but we cannot separate target language and target culture.
Some people have many issues learning a second language because they are closed to new ways to see life. Can do not take the time to analyze or try to understand why other people behave the way they do. They are so closed to their beliefs that they think that people who live in a different way are wrong. People have to be open mind to other cultures. In that way, they are going to be successful learning the target language as well as the target culture.