Write the synthesis essay from 5 chapter below:
Important Ideas from
Chapter 1 : English as an International language develops alongside with other language. Thus, it is important to consider the use of English within specific bilingual communities dealing with the research, teaching goal and teaching material. (Page 24, 3rd Paragraph)
Chapter 2 : The bilingual teachers who shared the same culture of the students will have many strengths compare with the native speaker. (Page 46, 2nd Paragraph)
Chapter 3 : In relation with culture, EIL should not focus only in one particular rhetorical culture and put emphasize on the learners competence to conform a various kinds of rhetorical pattern. (Page 79, 3rd and 4th paragraph)
Chapter 4 : It is very crucial to make the students gain insight into their own culture by introducing interculturality in the EIL classroom regarding the cultural diversity. (Page 100, 1st Paragraph)
Chapter 5 : The important thing to be considered the methodology is the teacher's sense of plausibility as Prahbu said. The best teachers should have a global awareness and local knowledge because the teacher with local cultural knowledge can make a best teaching material which suitable best with the local culture. (Page 122, 1st paragraph)
INTEGRATED CULTURAL CONTENT IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
Introduction
As culture develop with the language usage, it cannot put apart, as well as in language teaching. Teaching English as an International Language need to consider both local culture and also target culture. The superiority of local culture contents on students' prior knowledge can become a main source of content, besides that students' awareness on target culture also need to promote interculturality learning process. Thus it can be assumed that the local cultural content which integrated with the International target language will enhanced students' motivation in learning English. Therefore, this paper is going to discuss the development of English in bilingual community with various cultural background of the speaker, how English speakers' culture integrated with the local culture in International context and the last how the cultural content both from source culture and International target culture put in language teaching.
Discussion
McKay said that English as an International language develops alongside with other language. Thus, it is important to consider the use of English within specific bilingual communities dealing with the research, teaching goal and teaching material (2002:24). It shows that most of the speakers of English comes from the non-native speakers of English, as they are bilingual. Moreover, because of the bilingualism that possessed by the English speaker it is very important to pay attention to the community who use the language. Dealing with the community, of course we will have many aspects to be considered in teaching English and one of the crucial aspects is having attention to community's culture. As the culture becomes a part of language itself, teaching language means also teaching the culture. Therefore, in teaching English as International Language, teacher should know well both the linguistics competence and intercultural competence in order to gain more meaningful learning process. It is in line with Ho statement that in nowadays, it is important to have both linguistics competence and intercultural competence to overcome some problems in having interaction with other different culture (2009:72). The term of intercultural competence refers to the students' competencies in understanding the differences of cultural variety among many countries who speak English as the target language.
As Cakir explained that every culture has their own cultural norm and it can be a problem in communication if the speaker do not understand the norm of other culture (2006:154). So if we considered Cakir's statement we need to focus not only to the target culture from native speaker of English but also all culture from others English speaking countries, because we can see that the communication problem can appeared when there is no understanding toward other culture. In other hand, in expanding circle countries, which put English as Foreign Language, there is a tendency to have a native preferences in teaching process. Sometimes it is found that teacher from the target culture promoted as best option to improve student English competence. However, McKay proposed that the bilingual teachers who shared the same culture of the students will have many strengths compare with the native speaker (2002:46). The strength can be seen in the way bilingual teachers understand the local culture of their students. Moreover, if the native speaker of English teach the students, they will encounter the problems of cultural conflict which often occurs in eastern culture background countries. Therefore, the best way to teach English is integrating the target language into the local culture so the cultural material can be seen as local culture dominance.
As we have concern about the local culture benefits in teaching English, teachers also need to give an overview toward the use of English in International context. In international context, English has been used not only by the native speakers but many other countries which has produces the varieties in English. The varieties can be seen in some aspects of how language use in some different competencies. The two main competencies are rhetorical and also pragmatic competence. Dealing with the culture diversity of the English users, we should pay attention to these competences in learning a language. Teacher should put appropriate cultural aspects to be taught, not only the native culture consideration but also the varieties of culture from the speakers of English. Moreover, teachers also need to guide the students to have competences to conform those variation. McKay stated that in relation with culture, EIL should not focus only in one particular rhetorical culture and put emphasize on the learners competence to conform a various kinds of rhetorical pattern. (2002: 79).
Although we have seen the need to conform to the variety of English and the speakers' culture, it is very crucial to make the students gain insight into their own culture by introducing interculturality in the EIL classroom regarding the cultural diversity (McKay, 2002: 100). The basic things to be considered here is the use of local culture as the students' own culture to gain the interculturality awareness. The local culture of course can be more beneficial than focusing on target culture when dealing with the material or the language contents to be taught. The students' background knowledge can be a motivation to increase students' participation in teaching and learning process. Teacher can prepare the material well, the source of culture also easy to be found, and the students can gain more information about their own culture, so they can promote or explain their culture by using English. In other hand, we need also to provide the target culture content to promote diversity of English culture in International context. By having understanding toward this diversity, students can compare their own culture and be aware about the varieties of culture that involved in learning English as an International Language. Moreover,
Kilickaya stated that the main idea to have the students' interest in teaching English is put the student in comfort condition where they can discuss their own culture with the target culture by having some meaningful and communicative tasks and activities (2004:4). The students' involvement in such tasks and activities can be gain by the activeness of the teacher to provide the meaningful learning process. Furthermore, the teachers as the main actors in teaching process should have a good methodological consideration toward the cultural contents to be taught. McKay proposed that the important thing to be considered the methodology is the teacher's sense of plausibility as Prahbu said. The best teachers should have a global awareness and local knowledge because the teacher with local cultural knowledge can make a best teaching material which suitable best with the local culture. (2002:122). The sense of plausibility put teachers in logical perform in order to gain students attention in teaching and learning process. The teacher itself should manage the material and its content dealing with the cultural background of the students. The teachers' awareness of International language use of English can become a good basis to introduce the global culture and its diversity to the students.
From those explanations above, we can elaborated that the cultural contents of the target language should be taught in proper portion of learning material. Moreover, the superiority of local cultural contents become a consideration for the teacher of English especially in expanding circle countries to put a great attention toward students interest and provide a meaningful learning process. So that to put a better language learning process teachers need to integrate the target cultural content into the local cultural content. Moreover, the students' awareness toward cultural differences can be improved by the teachers' plausibility in teaching English as an International language.
Conclusion
As the conclusion, teachers and students need to pay attention toward the cultural differences from other countries which speak English. In teaching the cultural contents, teacher should focus to both local and target language culture. As the English has becomes International language, teachers should make students aware about the variety of culture and also the differences among those cultures. The last, teacher should proposed the meaningful learning process from the local cultural basis and integrate it with International target culture to have an interculturality awareness.
From this synthesis essay, the writer found that making a synthesis essay is quite difficult without understanding the all material well because its assign the writer to make connection among the ideas which relevant to one topic/concern. Moreover, the main lesson can be learnt from this task is how to produce an academic writing task which not only focus on the content but also the structure of writing system.
Bibliography
McKay, Sandra Lee. (2002). Teaching English as an International Language. Oxford: OUP
Ho, Si Thang Kiet. (2009). Addressing Culture in EFL Classrooms: The Challenge of Shifting from a Traditional to an International Stance. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching
Kilickaya, Ferit. (2004). Authentic Material and Cultural Content in EFL Classrooms. The Internet TESL Journal
Cakir, Ismail. (2006). Developing Cultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching. Turkey Online Journal of Distance Education.