Culture Topics: fundamental addendum to the learning of a foreign language

Abstract

This article proposes to discuss the importance of Culture Topics in the process of teaching/learning of an F.L. Such a proposal is based on the fact that, in the American continent, the processes of mixing races and hybridization were the generators of today’s nations in this vast territory. That being, an effective process of teaching a foreign language should consider the need to, besides developing a communicative competence, develop also the cultural competence (GARCÍA SANTA-CECILIA, 1995). To have a dimension of the importance of culture in the F.L. teaching in the American continent there must be in mind the civilizations that were found here before the arrival of the Europeans. There needs to be attention also to the supremacy of the oral language over the written language of the conquerors in order to grasp the struggle between those forms of language (GREENBLATT, 1991). Another point to focus refers to the fact that Spain was constituted of a hybrid society at the time of the great navigations. In this sense, should be reminded the way how this society became “pure”, establishing the supremacy of the Old Christians. With these confirmations can be affirmed that, today, America, specially the Latin one, is the most appropriate ambient, according to Uslar Pietri (1990), for the production and development of a new process of creative hybridness.