the basis of study – in crude terms, are the literary ‘greats’ being replaced by
the equivalent of soap operas?
Culler (1997) argues that cultural studies in America has few of the links
with political movements that have energised the discipline in Britain, and
it could be seen in the USA as primarily a resourceful, interdisciplinary, but
still primarily academic study of cultural practices and cultural representa-
tion. Cultural studies in Britain is supposed to be radical, as is critical
discourse analysis, but the opposition between an activist cultural studies
and a passive literary studies may be sentimental exaggeration (Culler,
1997: 53–4). However, as we shall see, the debate in America stirred up by
Hirsch (1987) and the responses to him (Murray, 1992) demonstrate that the
USA may not be as immune as Culler suggests to political questions of the
kind that prompted the development of British cultural studies in the 1950s
to 1980s. It may be that the cultural theorising, the struggles for academic
territory, and even the very content of cultural studies seems irrelevant to
the practising teacher of English as a second language.
Byram (1997a) gives a detailed critique of cultural studies and its rela-
tionship to foreign language teaching, and ELT in particular. Seen from the
perspective of a language education pedagogy that has been concerned
with learning processes and methodological effectiveness, cultural studies
is found wanting:
It [cultural studies] does not work with explicit learning theories, or
with issues of adapting methods to particular age groups. It does not
address issues of affective and moral development in the face of chal-
lenges to learners’ social identity when they are confronted with
otherness in the classroom or, just as significantly, in the hidden
approach of the informal learning experiences of residence in the
country. CS discourse does not, furthermore, include discussion of
teaching methods and learning styles appropriate to different kinds of
classroom interaction, in different environments inside or outside the
country in question. (Byram, 1997a: 59)
Byram’s work focuses on teenagers learning European languages in
state schools, and particularly on the exploitation of school trips to the target
country for raising intercultural awareness. Therefore his priorities lie in
developing frames of reference and ‘decentring skills’ that will facilitate
intercultural communication, rather than in the intellectual abstractions of
cultural studies and its focus on ideological critique and interpretative dis-
ciplines. He observes that cultural studies and foreign language teaching
could happily go their own ways, but also acknowledges the potential
value to foreign language teaching of a critical cultural analysis, albeit one
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with greater emphasis on the processes of learning, and greater sensitivity
to the demands of non-native speakers in a variety of learning situations.
Despite Byram’s reservations, there is substantial evidence that cultural
studies has influenced ELT indirectly. The revival of literature in communi-
cative language learning, after a period of relative neglect, has emphasised
the non-canonical: no longer is literature included in the syllabus to
inculcate the values embodied in a ‘great tradition’ (e.g. Brumfit & Carter,
1986; Lazar, 1993; McRae, 1991). Instead, literature is exploited largely for
its value in promoting language acquisition and, to a lesser extent, cultural
awareness.
Similarly, the broadening of the canon, and in particular the rise of
m
edia and cultural studies, is reflected in activities in recent ELT
coursebooks, like
True to Life,
and in specialised textbooks such as Edginton
and Montgomery’s
The Media
(1996). As a result of projects sponsored by
the British Council, school books and curricula have been developed in
different countries which attempt to combine the ‘four skills’ of language
teaching with the ‘fifth skill’ of cultural interpretation (e.g. the Romanian
textbook
Crossing Cultures,
Chichirdan
et al.
, 1998; cf. the intercultural cur-
riculum developed for Bulgarian schools, Davcheva & Docheva, 1998). In
these materials, task-based methodologies familiar to ELT are put to the
service of issues which are familiar to cultural studies: for instance, how
are social categories like gender, youth, and nationality constructed
across different cultures; and how do advertising, popular television and
the press represent social groups in the media? In such materials, cultural
studies absorbs some of the lessons of a task-based ELT methodology
while ELT absorbs some of the curricular aims of cultural studies. No
longer are the students simply ‘learning language’ – they are learning
ways of viewing others and reviewing themselves. By no means all of
Byram’s anxieties have so far been addressed, and there is much still to
achieve and debate, but the process of merging ELT and cultural studies
has already resulted in a range of innovative materials (see further,
Chapter 8).
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