Towards a cultural theory in MFL (Modern Foreign Language) Pedagogy This paper argues that MFL learning is a cultural activity and not simply a surface level activity of decontextualized words, phrases and sentences without a real world content Kramsch (1993) views teaching language as teaching culture. It is about teaching different ways of viewing the world through language. The surface level of language often taught in schools reflects a dominant socio-economic view of the world leading to an instrumental transactional style of language use. I argue here that learning should take place at the level of cultural discourse rather than individual words and phrases so that contextual meanings can be created.

Learning and identity are bound up in the same process Learning and identity are bound up in the same process. Lave and Wenger (1991) In this presentation we will see how MFL learning develops from a neutral technical action to one which is intensely personal and even ideological.

Learner Identities 1- How do we frame learner identities as teachers Learner Identities 1- How do we frame learner identities as teachers? 2- How do the learners construct their own identities? Is there a dialectical relationship between these two positions? What is the outcome?

Social psychological model of learning Views the learner identity as culturally and ideologically neutral –just as person X who learns for different objective reasons. No concept of subjectivity. Gardner (1985) argued that language learning was for 1- instrumental reasons 2- integrative reason

Integrative motivation was regarded as a stronger motivation- establishing affinity with the target language community Instrumental motivation was seen as weaker since learning was to satisfy an external goal-getting a job-passing an exam

Social investment theory Norton (2000) unites integrative and instrumental motivations in the social investment theory. This views MFL as symbolic cultural capital which can be traded in for a socio-professional-socio-economic return This is essentially a socio-economic model for learning There is an identification with the language learning which is symbolically capitalized.

Zoltan Dornyei (2009) renews the notion of ‘integrativeness’ within a theory of Imagined Future Selves. Integrative motivation stays the same in terms of the desire to empathize with the target language community except that Dornyei aligns the integrativeness with identity. Imagined Future Selves is the ability to conceptualize the Ideal future second language self. What ideal future self could you become with the foreign language?

Dornyei argues that such a vision of self is required because MFL learning is such a long term process. He argues that MFL learning is about identity rather than ability. It is about embracing the target language and culture –aligning it with one’s own identity.

The Cultural Model for MFL learning This focuses on the individual learner’s culture or learner identity Individual cultural learner identities are shaped with discourses Discourses can be defined as the interaction between language, signs and social relationships underscored by power relations Due to power some discourses are strong, some are weak –the powerful discourses tend to colonize adjacent weaker ones.

Culture and meaning Meanings are constructed within discourses (Edwards 1998)- some meanings are stronger than others-some people have to stay silent-some voices are unheard! Learner identities are constructed within classroom discourses There are discoursal conflicts between the official power discourse of the teacher and many pupils discourses.

Kramsch (2008) argues that learners learn MFL from their own cultural place. The dialectical resolution of the dichotomy between conflicting pupil discourse and official teacher discourse is ‘the third place’ ( Kramsch 1993: p257) The third place is the personal cultural space of the individual. ‘Nobody,least of all the teacher, can tell them (students) where that personal space is; for each learner it will be differently located, and will make different sense at different times. (Kramsch 1993:257)

MFL as a language ecology ‘ Language is both representational and ecological’. Van Lier (2000;p247) This means that language at the same time labels pre-existing phenomena and is part of an on-going construction of a wider reality. The learner is constructing his/her cultural MFL identity towards a wider MFL reality and, in using the language, is already a part of this wider ecology. In the cultural model, learning the foreign language is for the learner an emancipation of his/her identity from a prior much narrow location. In this sense language learning is a personally creative and liberating process