Project paper revision iv

VIVY LUVIANA/ELS-EDU/P0600214050
ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSE MID TERM PROJECT
(A PAPER ANALYSIS)
 My friend’s original paper presented in TESOL in Practice course last semester is the
one belongs to Kak Suaib, whose title is “English is a language of multipurpose
communication”.
 The article used in Kak Suaib’ s paper
As it turns out that Kak Suaib made no use of any articles in his paper, but books,
one of which is written by McKay – the one we used as our handbook in TESOL in
Practice class last semester, I then tried to find one article from the suggested reading
section in that book. Since chapter 4 was what interested me most as it discussed
about culture, I straight browsed the articles cited there one by one. Luckily enough, I
found a couple of articles which could be free downloaded, and my preference went
with that composed by Cem Alptekin, Target-language culture in EFL materials. The
whole following then ties with that very article.
 The structure of Cem Alptekin’s article is a problem-solution structure
It first begins with a description of a general situation of how culture can play a
significant role in language learning. For this, two types of knowledge made use by
learners for learning language are explained. They are systemic and schematic
knowledge. The first refers to knowledge of forms of language and its syntactic as
well as semantic system through which information and experiences are expressed,
while the second to cognitive structures through which information and experiences
are interpreted. It is through schematic knowledge where culture inherently influence

language learning as this schematic knowledge is a type of knowledge that is socially
acquired as part of a culture; as a part of a way of living. In foreign language
learning, students are naturally inclined to use their pre-established schematic
knowledge referring to their native culture when confronted with texts or learning
material presented through target-language context which they are not familiar with.
Moving on, description of problems is presented. As almost all of the learning
materials for EFL are written by writers or textbook composer whose cultural
background is in target-language, many elements of the writers’ cultures are
presented through the material they compose, leading to such a conflict, among
others, in part of EFL learners as they lack experience in interpreting the contexts.
Since naturally when facing such unfamiliar situations, EFL learners will tend to
make use of their pre-established schematic knowledge referring to their native
culture to decode the meaning of their learning, some problems may emerge as their
native schematic knowledge may not be in match with the target-language schematic
knowledge while in the meantime they are demanded to express a culture in which
they do not have experience at their disposal. In the light of this, EFL learners are
potentially to be urged to behave in such a way which is not allowed in their daily
lives or in their educational situations.
Following the thorough description of problems, there comes a brief description
for two possible solutions – for the part of EFL writers; strategy EFL writers can do
in dealing with differences between native schematic knowledge of EFL learners and
that of target-language while composing EFL learning materials, and for the part of
EFL learners. For the part of EFL writers, it is can be done by building such a

conceptual connection between contexts that EFL writers are familiar, with those
which they are unfamiliar with, thus making avoiding the rises of conflict in the part
of the learners, while for the EFL learners, they are suggested while making
interpretation to transit from their native culture to the international English, which
belong to an international community rather than to one of the particular cultures of
its native-speaking countries.
 The flow of arguments of the writer
Based on rocket.csusb.edu/~jburoker/jill/Courses_files/Arguments.pdf which
mentions that argument is a set of statements, some of which are offered in support of
another, that is, the conclusion (Philosophy 190, Jill Buroker), the flow of an
argument in that paper is as follows:
Very first of all, the writer addresses the centrality of the role of culture towards
cognitive structure or schematic knowledge whereby information is interpreted. He
further recognized that there exist some differences in the way information and
experiences are interpreted by students of EFL learning as he quoted the work of
Widdoson (1990) addressing these differences.
As a consequence of those differential ways, the writer then points out that
learners’ schematic knowledge may be in clash or conflict when learning foreign
language for systemic data of target-language may be presented through a context in
which the EFL learners are not familiar with. To provide support for his very
statement, the writer cites works from Brown et al (1977), Steffensen et al (1979),
Reynolds et al (1982), and Nelson (1987) which are in concern with reading
comprehension, in which in reason of either the incompatibility of native schematic

knowledge to interpret the meanings of the reading tasks – the native schematic
knowledge is naturally used by EFL learners to interpret meanings when they are
confronted with unusual experience, as stated by Widdowson (1990) – or the lack of
target-language cultural competence, as stated by Wallace (1988:33), reading activity
can turn into such a nerve-racking experience.
After giving such general information on cultural role and a brief example in
reading area where such conflict due to the differences in EFL learners way
interpreting meanings, the next thing the writer does is to discuss issues of target-
language cultural elements which are usually included in EFL learners’ written
materials, and which are culturally different from other cultures, particularly those of
EFL learners’. For this, again, as an attempt to provide support, the writer reviews
some works of other researchers. They are Clyne (1981) showing that contrastive
rhetorical cultures between that of English and that of German; Koch (1983) pointing
out that Western mode of argumentation is in contrast with that of Arabic making
uses of many repetitions; and, Jenkins and Hinds (1987) finding out that while
Japanese business letter is oriented to the space between the writer and the reader,
that of American tends to be reader oriented while that of French writer oriented.
After providing examples of numerous cultural elements that EFL writers include
within their learning material composition, the writer moves to point out some
underlying rationales for such doing. Generally, as also stated by the writer himself in
his other paper (1990) and Philipson (1990) as well, EFL writers feel like having
justification in their so doing over EFL in the non-native speaking countries as most
of them come from native-speaking countries.

Then the writer discusses the theoretical and practical rationales or justification
for those EFL writers’ so doing further, in which the writer first mentions commercial
consideration for composing or publishing EFL material composition in the target-
language culture rather than on EFL learners’. Second, he mentions that such
inclusion is also based on those EFL writers’ preferences, in which they feel more
convenient to compose based on their cultural schematic knowledge rather than
others in which they lack knowledge of. The last, the writer mentions that such target-
language cultural element inclusion is based on theoretical judgments of some
scholars, like Stewart (1982), Valdes (1986:121), and Byram (1988), in which they
are generally in agreement that including some elements from EFL learners’ native
culture would not be useful, then must not be necessary.
Afterwards, the writer points out that concerning such rationales, some problems
may occur; first of all, to cite Brumfit (1980: 95), learners are forced to express
culture in which they barely have experience. Next, the writer cites the work of
Byram (1989: 57) revealing that due to such force, EFL learning may endure mental
socio-psychological problems. For this, the writer quotes other works too, such as
Alptekin (1981) stating that such can lead to anomie; Green (1977) saying that such is
also possible to trigger regression; and Clarke (1976) as well as Meara (1977)
revealing the possible occurrence of schizophrenia as the worst problem.
The writer then addresses another subtle problem which may emerge resulted
from either the conflict between EFL learners’ schematic knowledge and that of
target-language or their lack of cultural target-language experience by pointing out
the work of Edge (1987) explaining that it can take form in learners’ ways of

behaving which are not considered appropriate in their native environment as general,
like Chinese students being active in classrooms in which generally, by citing the
work of Young (1987), prefer a teacher-oriented process, and that of Burnaby and
Sun (1989) showing that even Chinese teachers shut them down from communicative
procedures materials as it is generally considered inappropriate and by then
proscribed.
Another problem discussed as the writer continues is in concern with the
ownership of English language. Inclusion numerous target-language cultural elements
in EFL materials may serve as justification of the ownership of native speakers, in
which by then comes their rights to determine the grammaticality and the appropriacy
of using English. However, the writer shows that through the citation of Paikeday’s
work (1985), that such right is not valid as not all native speakers have appropriate
educations to determine the two aspects of language. The writer then continues to cite
Smite (1987: 3) that as English is an international language, the ownership of it to
particular groups or countries is not valid either as it has been denationalized as the
consequence of its being an international one. In concern with this ownership, the
writer again cites other work by Kachru (1985) that even varieties from
indigenization such as Indian English has developed their own competence of using
English which indicates that they have their own English version, not the one dictated
as owned by native speakers. So it means that a matter of claim of ownership of
English is not a relevant matter.
After a matter of ownership, the writer explains another problem, rising from the
presentation of cultural target-language elements in learning material. As the writer

points out to better understand their materials, learners make use of their native
schematic knowledge. To support his points, several works of authors are cited;
Johnson (1982), Nunan (1985), Carell (1987), Barnes-Felfeli (1982), Friedlander
(1990), and Hinds (1984) in which all the works basically clarify the importance of
the degree of familiarity of the contexts used by learners in their learning. However,
with the numerous inclusion of cultural target-language elements which is out of the
range of learners’ native schematic knowledge, the learning tends to become a lot
harder than it would be if the learners are presented with contexts they are familiar
with.
At last, the writer addresses stereotyping issue as one of the potential problems
that may emerge in which EFL writers who are mostly native speakers make
generalization over what is right for their culture also right for others. For providing a
concrete support, the writer takes an example for the work of Hartman and Judd
(1978) showing that many EFL writers from American stereotyped the way they put
roles on men and women, and that of Clarke and Clarke (1990) pointing out that EFL
writers of British nationality did much stereotyping in the area like gender, race,
class, and religion.
After elaborations of each point with explanations and evidences, the writer
asserts his argument that is to retain the inclusion of target-language cultural
elements of one of its native-speaking countries in EFL learning material, not to
mention to stereotype those elements into the cultures of others is detrimental for
EFL learners since it is not helpful for them instead making their learning
processes more laborious as when they are confronted with unfamiliar situations in

which they do not have experiences while working out new syntactic and semantic
data. After asserting his argument on the detrimental effects of such inclusion, the
writer provides solutions that EFL writers can work out so as with EFL learners. For
EFL writers, they are encouraged to build such conceptual connections between
contexts of cultures they are familiar with, that is, the contexts of their own culture,
with those of cultures they are not familiar with, that is, the contexts of EFL learners’
culture. The building of such conceptual connection, as the writer further maintains,
can be done by making such a cross-cultural comparison and searching for the
universal concepts of human experiences to be used as a basic reference by the time
EFL learners are confronted with unfamiliar data. By working out such conceptual
connections between the two, as the writer continues, the materials they compose for
EFL learners no longer trigger conflict for the part of EFL learners while making use
of materials that have been written by those native-speaker writers.
As the last point of his article, the writer elaborates a solution that EFL learners
can work out when dealing with different schematic knowledge they are facing, that
is, making transitions from their cultural familiar context to the contexts of English as
international culture that are widely spread and belong more to an international
community, rather than confine it to one of its particular native contexts. By so doing,
the level of EFL learners’ conflict can be more managed as no need to tie their selves
with a particular cultural context.
 The flow of arguments of other sources

In case with this, there is no other source in sense of other person to argue in this
paper, but the writer, as this article is a conceptual article in nature, not a review
based, in which such differing argumentation between the writer that writes the
review article and the other source whose work is reviewed is present. The writer of
this conceptual article, Alptekin, indeed cites some works of others as part of the
arguments of the writer himself – to provide support for his – not of other persons’.
 The identification of writer’s argument is as follows:
A series
of statements
- Culture as socially acquired knowledge can be
said to play a central role in cognition.
(page 1, paragraph 2)
- However, as Widdowson states, the foreign
language learning experience is quite different.
- The ‘fit’ or consistency, between the culture-
specific aspects of cognition and the native
language undergoes a substantive degree of
conflict when one begins to learn a foreign
language.
- One area where the violation of the ‘fit’ is shown
to influence foreign language learning negatively
is that of reading comprehension. It is well-
established that readers make use of culture-

specific schemas in relating input to what they
already know and, consequently, construct the
writers’ intended meaning.
- Writing operates in terms of schemas moulded by
the social context in which the writer lives.
- Such examples show that EFL textbook writers,
like everyone else, think and compose chiefly
through culture-specific schemas.
- One reason for EFL textbook focusing on
elements about the American or British culture
stems from the fact that it is generally not cost-
effective for publishers to set materials in the
learners’ society.
- Another reason is that native-speaker textbook
writers, who normally reside in their own Anglo-
American culture, find it hard to compose data
that go beyond their ‘fit’.
- Apart from such mundane matters that affect the

determination of the type of schematic input in
EFL materials, one witnesses theoretical claims
about the necessity of teaching the target
language in relation to its own culture.
- Although practical advantages do exist in
teaching and presenting the target language in
relation to its own culture, there are several
problems associated with this approach as well.
To begin with, it forms part of the ‘strange
paradox’ that, while in mother-toung e teaching
the clarity of children’s ability to express
themselves is emphasized, in foreign language
teaching learners are forced to express a culture
of which they have scarcely any experience.
Secondly, developing a new identity, or what
Byram (1989: 57) calls otherness, as a result of
one’s sudden exposure to the target-language
culture, is likely to cause a split between
experience and thought which is conductive to
serious sociopsychological problems affecting the
learner’s mental equilibrium negatively.

- Hence, argues Edge, learners from those cultures
cannot learn English properly by behaving in
ways which are both alien to their educational
culture and proscribed in their daily life.
- Another problem concerning the use of target-
language culture elements has to do with the fact
that such a position equates a language with the
combined uses and usages of its native speakers,
thus making them not only its arbiters of well-
formedness and appropriacy but, more
importantly, its sole owners.
- Finally, the position relating a language and its
culture appears to ignore the positive effects of
familiar schematic knowledge on foreign
language learning.
- What further exacerbates the problem of
presentation of the target language in relation to
its own culture is the generally stereotypical
representation of that culture in much

instructional material.
Conclusion
- Hence, to confine English to one of its native
settings and, what is worse, to present that setting
in a stereotypical manner is not only unrealistic
and misleading, but also a disservice to EFL
learners in that they are likely to find themselves
in the undesirable position of tackling unfamiliar
information unnecessarily while trying to cope
with novel systemic data (page 6, paragraph 18)
- Instead of diving simplistically into the narrow
confines of a given target-language culture, in a
manner devoid of comparative insight and critical
perspective, EFL writers should try to build
conceptual bridges between the culturally familiar
and the unfamiliar in order not to give rise to
conflicts in the learners’ ‘fit’ as he or she acquires
English. Such bridges can be built, among other
ways, through the use of comparisons as
techniques of cross-cultural comprehension or the
exploitation of universal concepts of human
experience as reference points for the
interpretation of unfamiliar data.

- Finally, given that traditional notion of the
communicative competence of the native speaker
is no longer adequate as a goal to be adopted in
an EFL program, the transition from familiar to
unfamiliar schematic data should not necessarily
be thought of as moving from the learners’ native
culture to the culture of the native speaker of
English. ...other options may involve transition
from the learners’ native culture to the
international English....
 I pick up the argument part as follows:
“Hence, to confine English to one of its native settings and, what is worse, to
present that setting in a stereotypical manner is not only unrealistic and
misleading, but also a disservice to EFL learners in that they are likely to find
themselves in the undesirable position of tackling unfamiliar information
unnecessarily while trying to cope with novel systemic data”.
 My own comment on it, excluding the part of stereotypical manner, is that I can
only partly agree with that, which means that I also disagree to some part. In fact,
even the inclusion of target-language culture into EFL learning material may be hard
to understand by students, but once they figure out the meanings behind the

presentation of target-language cultural context either they do it by themselves or by
our help as facilitator, as far as my experiences tell, it also interests the students. They
even get more motivated to study hard to be able to continue their study or save more
money so as to some day go visit the given foreign countries mentioned in the text
and by then experience and learn their culture directly.
To me, it may not be simply a matter of EFL learners’ schematic knowledge
confronted with that of target-language schematic knowledge that make them hard to
understand or interpret the meanings presented in target-language context – so
making the composers of the materials are to blame – but also the students’ ability
with the systemic knowledge – students’ knowledge particularly in concern with
vocabularies and the grammar, in which as addressed by Richard (2001: 15), that they
are the most fundamental aspects of language – through which the concerned context
is presented. Perhaps, the complexity of the language in terms of its grammar and
vocabularies in the text we use is just too hard for them to understand; then, it should
be our responsibilities to select appropriate texts or materials we use in classrooms by
being aware of our students’ general levels.
 The contextualization of the writer’s argument
Rather than contextualize the writer’s argument, I prefer to do it with one of the
solutions offered by the writer, but taking it to the context of the learners, not that of
the EFL material writers. One of statements of the writer’s solutions found in the
paragraph 3, page 6 in “Pedagogic implication” sounds as follows:
”instead of diving simplistically into the narrow confines of a given target-language
culture, in a manner devoid of comparative insight and critical perspective, EFL

writers should try to build conceptual bridges between the culturally familiar and the
unfamiliar in order not to give rise to conflicts in the learner’s ‘fit’ as he or she
acquires English. Such bridges can be built, among other ways, through the use of
comparisons as techniques of cross-cultural comprehension or the exploitation of
universal concepts of human experience as reference points for the interpretation of
unfamiliar data”
I would like to contextualize the bold part only. To me, I very much agree with
that solution since it was the technique my team-teaching partner and I used to
employ, making such kind of that bridge when teaching, through which students were
encouraged to make a reflection on diverse target-cultural contexts presented to them
in their learning material by comparing those differential contexts to the contexts of
their own cultures. As a whole, these reflective or comparative techniques have
proved useful in my teaching atmosphere as it helped learners to decode or interpret
the meanings of their learning experiences with ease and fun in the light of having
such a basis from which they can tackle unfamiliar contexts.
However, I would also like to suggest some changes to part of the writer’s
solution. Instead of being critical to other cultures, it is better to just being
comparative as being critical projects some ideas to correct other cultures by
imposing our own cultures. To tell the truth, such thing is prevalent, suggesting others
for being critical on others’ cultures, but surely irrelevant and inappropriate as there is
no such a good or a bad culture. What exist is only different ways of lives, different
ways of seeing things, not superiorities of some to others as the aim of reflection is to
understand uniqueness of cultural differences and have broader insights into own

(McKay, 2002: 98), not to judge other cultures. Being critical will take us nowhere to
better understand other cultures instead keeping us away from respecting differences.
As our students are encouraged to be critical of other cultures, their learning will
instead turn into more conflicts as they will never find cultures with a hundred
percent similarity with theirs.

Project paper revision iv

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Project paper revision iv