Theroetical Framework

 

One of the aspects about Communicative Competence that are not considered properly is the Sociocultural Competence. Juan C. Vegas Puente affirms that Sociocultural Competence helps bilingual students deal with relationships between two different cultures and in doing so, help them as well to mediate between these two cultures as they interpret each in terms of the other. The central issue here is how bilingual students will cope with other students at school that live in dissimilar sociocultural contexts and who have different sociocultural  values. Many of these “new” values are distinctive from the ones they acquire at home from their parents and relatives. Learning to interact in a new culture and getting along socially and academically with other students with different sociocultural norms and rules is more than just overcome the temporary cultural shock.  According to Yezhitskaya Svetlana (2011) the process of assimilating another culture is indeed a process of growing and transformation.

 

       Moreover, this process in bilingual students is not only developed alone, but it goes along with the necessity of being proficient when 

learning and using the target language as well. (Svetlana, 2011). Thus, learning a target language goes hand in hand with learning also to interact in the target culture.  Therefore, the target language should be learned through strategies and activities in context, and this is how teachers can boost this coupling between bilingual students being proficient in learning the target language and at the same time achieving a Sociocultural Competence in the target culture. (Manitoba Curriculum Framework of Outcomes, 2009).

 

     Why is Sociocultural Competence so important then?  Sociocultural Competence, along with Grammar, Vocabulary, Pragmatic and Discursive Competences (seen on Module 4 & 5) deals with how to manage the target language the bilingual students are learning. In that way, bilingual students can use this new language in terms of the target culture and with the time they will acquire a second culture identity, as a result, they will part of a co-cultural group .  It is this identity that will assist bilingual students to know when is “proper” to use or not certain ways of saying a specific message. Therefore, bilingual learners will communicate interculturally.  That is, the way pupils can communicate specific messages into the correct sociocultural (target) context so these messages can be accepted by the users of the target language.  Thus, learning the target language mean as well using it for the overall process of interaction into the target culture, at the same time they will learn how to avoid using the source culture for trying to interact by means of the target language.  (Celce-Murcia, et al’s, 1995).

 

    The issue now is what kind of strategies and activities teachers should use to develop the Sociocultural Competence in bilingual students. If students do not learn how to live using the sociocultural norms and rules of the target culture and they will attempt to use the target language, in many communicative situations in real life they will be considered as socially dysfunctional. Hence, teachers should use teaching strategies and activities that will help bilingual students to be aware of developing their sociocultural competence. These activities should favor context and sociocultural awareness in students, besides being intellectually challenging and meaningful for them.  Then another dilemma can rise for teachers as they decide which sociocultural norms and rules should be taught first.  That is, which is first? Making students aware of norms for behaving socially within the community or rules for having a good conduct at school or at home, etc.  And how will students react in accepting those norms?  For instance, if a teacher explains a way of behaving socially in front of parents in the target culture, there may be a chance that this rule goes against some family conducts into the source culture that the student and parents practices at home, so the bilingual student could face a real dilemma as well and can be into a conflict.  (Mike Handford, 2002).

 

      As a conclusion, bilingual teachers should be aware of these possible situations where cultural background and the new culture get into conflict. And if so, teachers should be creative and encourage pedagogical strategies and activities that encouraged the awareness of a Sociocultural Competence in their bilingual students. But at the same time, teachers should manage their students to be linguistically, pragmatically and discursive proficient in the use of the target language in concordance with the target culture.  Finally, educators should be aware of the individualistic and collectivistic culture on each of their pupils and how both affect each of them inside classrooms.