Summary
The command of foreign languages implies the possibility of accessing other cultures, customs and idiosyncrasies; At the same time that it fosters interpersonal relationships, it favors an integral formation of the individual, developing respect for other peoples, their inhabitants and their cultures. In turn, it allows us to better understand our own language. Language teachers should take these aspects into account when preparing and delivering classes. The development of language skills must be related to the development of the general comprehensive culture of the students. Understanding written texts through reading allows us to learn any discipline of human knowledge, and by appropriating it we develop superior cognitive capacities such as reflection, critical spirit and conscience.Reading and subsequent comprehension of a text requires the student to activate his cognitive resources.
Key words: comprehensive general culture, texts, reading, English.
Abstract
To know a foreign language gives us access to get to other cultures, customs and idiosyncrasies; at the same time that promotes the personal relationship and favors an integrated formation of the individual, it develops the respect among other peoples, its habitants and its culture allowing us to understand better our own language. Language teachers must take these aspects into account by the time they are preparing and giving their lessons. Developing the language abilities must be related to the development of an integrated general culture of the students. The comprehension of written texts through reading allow us to know any subject of the human knowledge, and getting all these information we can develop superior cognitive capacities such as thinking over, critical mind and conscience.Reading and the subsequent comprehension of a text demand the stimulation of the students' cognitive resources.
Key word s: integrated general culture, texts, reading, English.
Introduction
The command of a foreign language constitutes a valuable working instrument through which the student not only consolidates his abilities, but also expands his knowledge substantially in the sources of information and reference. The main objective of the teaching-learning process of foreign languages is to develop communicative competence: the communicative approach leads us to perfect, carry out and apply tasks in classes aimed at creating a professional capable of understanding, communicating and understanding the language taught, in this case English. Likewise, the methodology of teaching foreign languages as a means of communication (oral and written) facilitates the development in students of the knowledge, habits and skills necessary to communicate,develop their skills so that they can use foreign languages as a working tool.
In the historical development of humanity, reading has played a preponderant role in achieving intellectual and occupational training. According to the reading, it is “(…) the main source of obtaining culture and one of the irreplaceable ways for the integral education of man, to act for it is to project oneself humanistically towards the future”. Consequently, reading is one of the most effective means for the development of the general-integral culture, since it plays an active role in producing meaning, since the reader imagines, thinks, compares, relates and hierarchizes ideas, judges, classifies, among others; that is to say that, in addition to being a fundamental way of receiving visual information, the written text allows us to infer information related to the personal or social characteristics of the author of the message,such as their social status, cultural level, ideological profile, and to whom the writing is addressed.
However, many students - despite the great efforts for the massification of culture and the large number of existing publications - do not read sufficiently or efficiently, do not grasp the message and the cultural elements inherent in it, even in their mother tongue.; they do not see text as a field from which information is extracted through reading.
Through reading you can influence historical knowledge and the development of culture and its different manifestations, not as something static because it is in continuous boiling, permanent creation and improvement.
According to Ayala, ME (2000) textual understanding is one of the most urgent and serious problems facing education and if the student is not able to use the written text, as a tool from which information is extracted, they will not be able to build their own knowledge, nor can it be formed in an integral way. Hence the importance of inquiring about the real state of this phenomenon, to see how the absence of strategies or actions can be resolved, with coherent techniques, that lead to the development of a cultural formation on the rise, really necessary at the moment in that a profound transformation is taking place in education and in our society.
It is important to note that the deficiency of English teachers in our education system has brought many limitations for our students, among which we can highlight what refers to the poor knowledge of the cultural and social elements of the English language, transmitted by speakers from different countries; Because language teachers, when teaching a language, we must not only teach the linguistic forms, but the skills and values behind each action.
Having knowledge of the culture is important for understanding the language and, in turn, a good command of the language is necessary for a positive understanding of the culture.
Development
Our José Martí told us that "Being educated is the only way to be free" and also pointed out that "There is no social equality possible without equality of culture." On the other hand, our Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz told us at the UNEAC Council that "Without culture there is no equality possible." That aspiration for equality, freedom and social justice of all the people is what drives and inspires our Revolutionary State to continue developing a profound educational revolution.
Regarding the importance of culture, he states: "There is no civic education… that can provide a neutral basis for cultural differences."
The active role of culture is also analyzed in the text “Problems. Latin American cultural identity. Philosophical-literary approaches ”, where it is stated:“ Our culture is a culture that is breaking the cover-ups to which it was subjected, it is a culture of liberation and it is to include and not exclude ”. Hence, the absence of the analysis of sociocultural elements does not allow enriching the knowledge of the world around us and therefore the development of comprehensive training.
In this sense, it agrees with what has been stated regarding that “… education cannot limit its action to repetitive learning of“ guidelines ”or“ patterns ”, under penalty of perpetuating transmissionism centered on teaching and maintaining an uncritical position facing cultural heritage ”.
These authors lead us to reflect on the importance of including and exploiting knowledge about the cultural advances of humanity in order to shape the education of new generations; and due to the priority of the massification of culture, a methodology is necessary that enables the efficient use of texts written in the English language to form a comprehensive general culture.
The concept of culture also includes the sphere of artistic creation, national customs and traditions, the set of concepts and representations, as well as the rules of conduct, which occurs in the behavior of the members who make up society in their daily life and is determined by the socio-economic and ideological conditions reached by said society.
There are different criteria on the concept of culture. In this work, the definition given by Valdés, S. (1998) who calls culture the set of material and spiritual values that humanity has created through the centuries is useful .Material culture, made up of material values, productive forces and the links established between human beings and spiritual culture, represented by the results obtained in the fields of science, technology, art and literature. Based on the diversity of definitions of the term culture, the author of this research coincides with the definition of comprehensive general culture provided by Lemus Reyes (2004) '' Comprehensive general culture is a manifestation of culture that integrates ethical and patriotic ideas, the various spheres of culture, science, education and is based on justice - the primordial and essential category of culture. "
An important element, which when speaking of culture should not be overlooked, since it is part of it and which serves to manifest itself, is Language. Different authors are of the opinion that language is a conventional mediating system of signs created by man in the process of transmission and communication of the historical-cultural experience.
Sapir, E. (1949), is of the opinion that language is the key in the structure of a culture and expresses:
“Language is essentially a means of expression and communication between people. Of all the aspects of culture, it is fair to assume that language was the first to receive a highly developed form and that its essential perfection is a prerequisite for the development of culture as a whole. ”
Language is a means of getting to know the world, taking into account that each language is the expression of the culture of the people or towns that speak it. Language, as a social phenomenon, in its accumulative or collecting function, also allows the fixation and preservation of information about the reality that surrounds us and that is obtained or reached by each and every member of society.
Díaz, G (2000) states that "… the didactic principle of active communication in foreign languages presupposes the use of real events and situations, hence adequate communication is inconceivable without the knowledge of the country that speaks that language."
The foreign language allows a more direct approach to the cultural values belonging to the people who speak that language, and thus the concept of the cultural function of the language arises.
The aforementioned author expresses that within the Foreign Language Teaching Methodology, Linguism is the knowledge of the country through the language being studied. This linguistic-pathological approach to foreign language teaching aims to guarantee cultural exchange and reciprocal understanding in the act of communication between participants who belong to different cultures, in other words, to enable a positive approach towards the country and its people..
The works of these authors allow us to affirm that the foreign language teacher should be interested in the study of culture, since if the language is taught without at the same time teaching the culture in which it manifests, we will be teaching symbols without meanings or symbols to which the student will give an incorrect meaning. Students enhance their own culture by learning another language.
Reading is a fundamental and useful way to obtain knowledge, it enriches it and educates the feelings and will of man. Through it, the individual is able to better understand the surrounding environment and can stay informed about the latest events and developments in the world. Today there are quite generalized opinions in affirming that the reading process is interactive and that the meaning is not something that is in the text, but rather is the progressive result of the construction carried out by the reader, thus emphasizing the constructive role of reading comprehension.
According to López, JL (1999) reading is "(…) an intrapsychological process that takes place in silence: knowing how to read consists of treating with the eyes a language made for the eyes." In the reading process there are two moments of the assimilation of knowledge: the interpsychological and the intrapsychological planes, both are implicit, so that approaching them separately is a scientific reductionism. Reading in its sensory component includes touch, in addition to vision, an example of this is the Braille system for the blind and visually impaired.
Pipkin, M. (1999) emphasizes that reading is an activity that takes place in solitude, but that this can only be affirmed as a norm in relation to expert readers, who are able to interact with the text. On the other hand, inexperienced readers, in the processes of interaction with the text, have difficulties to interrogate it, to relate it to previous knowledge and to search for its macrostructure. For this reason, the task shared with the teacher and with other students constitutes a recovery practice, where all students benefit from situations of interaction, but fundamentally inexperienced readers.
The reading process is materialized in practice through the use of texts, whether written, oral or by symbols.
Among the definitions of the text concept, the existence of divergent judgments from linguistic perspectives can be considered, this leads us to define this concept with the aim of approaching it from a didactic perspective.
Almaguer, B. (1999) defines the text as "… the linguistic unit that expresses a content with a given semantic value…", it can represent the two variants of language; oral and written; and it has implicit or explicit communicative values, transactional or cognitive values and artistic or aesthetic values. In other words, the referred author classifies the text from a didactic point of view into transactional, interactional and literary.
When working with texts, an interactive process is established between the text itself and the subject. It must contribute its knowledge, strategies and the result of the process is the construction of a representation of its meaning. In the act of reading, the reader uses her previous schematics and knowledge, makes the necessary inferences and applies, expands and enriches her vocabulary knowledge.
Conclusions
The student is a participant in a specific sociocultural context, where those who interact with him transmit culture to him, providing him with what is necessary to transform his physical and social environment. Knowledge of the culture of the peoples whose language is being learned gives students the possibility of establishing the similarities or differences of comparable patterns; therefore, the use of dimensions and indicators is necessary for the development of cultural knowledge. These dimensions constitute the starting point of the teaching-learning process through language skills, especially through written texts and reading comprehension. The determinations of these dimensions are specified in: customs, economy, food, folklore, education-instruction, literature, health,celebrations, culture and recreation and ways of life.
There are many ways through which the student can acquire information about the country to which the language they are studying belongs, such as: radio, TV, movies, magazines, etc. In the teaching-learning process this information is extracted, mainly, in the texts used in classes, which enrich and perfect the cultural baggage of the students.
The creation and implementation of a didactic model aimed at foreign language teachers is proposed as a guide in pedagogical-didactic actions to achieve a comprehensive general culture in students.
Bibliography
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