Do socio-cultural and historical aspects influence second language learning?

By Sudirman

Melbourne 2013

There are, of course, many factors that may affect second language teaching. They are categorized as internal or external factors. The latter are such as aptitude, attitude, students' belief and learning style. The former are those coming from outside of the learners' personality, such as an economic, cultural, historical, and political aspect of the background. However, in this essay, I tend to elaborate only on two aspects of external factors, namely cultural and historical aspects. In addition, we cannot generalize the effect of these aspects to the same degree for all countries; the effect must vary from country to country.

Mercer (2001) convinces that the application of sociocultural perspective has an important impact on the field of educational endeavor, although she claims that the application of this perspective is quite new to be brought to modern language pedagogy. Mercer (2001) furthermore explains that teachers who have a deep understanding and awareness of the sociocultural aspects and the use of language as a pedagogic tool will be more successful to improve their curriculum-related learning and also will be easier for them to convince their students that a language is a tool for constructing knowledge. The relationship between language and socio-culture is very close and they cannot be split from each other.

Another academic, Canagarajah (2001), sees the close relationship between English education and British colonialism in Srilanka. Since the British colonized island of Ceylon, English become very important to provide socioeconomic advantages for Native Lankans, and this factor causes most Sri Lankan to become English-speaking bilinguals. However, based on his study, Canagarajah (2001) observes that the language teaching method/approach applied in Sri Lanka is mostly grammar-based, product-oriented, and teacher-centered. He strongly argues against this strategy, and he claims that focusing on grammar learning will detach students from the language and the course and even will prevent the students from active use of the language. This situation, although will be useful in helping them to pass an examination, will lead the students to be far from cultural and social language aspects. Cultural and social aspects should not be split from the language, he confirms.

Shameem (2000) tries to relate the first language and second language of ESL learners. He argues that first language maintenance is very important in learning a second language and its importance is not only for social justice but also for long-term cognitive and educational benefits. Therefore, the identification of students' language and cultural background will help them to address their particular English education needs to be addressed more appropriately. Also, it will help them to maintain their first language and culture. Studying language other than one's first language should not cause subtraction to their first language, but it should facilitate additive rather than subtractive.

In Indonesia, historical factors influence much toward language education much. Since Indonesia was colonized by Dutch and Japan, at the beginning of Indonesia's independence, these two languages strongly affected Indonesia's education. However, the Indonesian government stipulated not to use these two languages as the national language, and also they are not compulsory subjects in Indonesian schools. The Indonesian government decided English as the first foreign language to be taught in Indonesian schools, but of course, this historical factor caused Indonesian people to find difficulty in learning English compare to Sri Lanka for example as stated by Canagarajah (2001) above or other countries which were colonized by British. From a cultural perspective, Indonesia comprises of so many ethnic groups with different cultures. Some people, especially old age people, worry about the negative effects of foreign cultures if we learn other languages. In this case, Shameem's (2000) opinion above can be a solution because learning other languages should not subtract one's first culture and language. From the above explanation, I can conclude that socio-cultural and historical aspects do influence second language learning.

 

References

Canagarajah, S. (2001). Critical ethnography of a Sri Lankan classroom: Ambiguities in student opposition to reproduction through ESOL. In C. N. Candlin, & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context (pp. 208-227) London: Routledge.

Mercer, N. (2001). Language for teaching a language. In C. N. Candlin, & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context (pp. 243-258.) London: Routledge.

Shameem, N. (2000). Factors affecting language gain and loss in young immigrants and the case of the Wellington Indo-Fijians. Prospect, 15(2), 48-64.