Teaching Immigrants Norwegian Culture to Support Their Language Learning

Title
Teaching Immigrants Norwegian Culture to Support Their Language Learning
Publication Date
2013
Author(s)
Alhassan, Awal Mohammed
Kuyini-Abubakar, Ahmed
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Canadian Center of Science and Education
Place of publication
Canada
DOI
10.5539/ies.v6n3p15
UNE publication id
une:14377
Abstract
This study was conducted with 48 adult immigrant students studying Norwegian under basic education program of the Ski Municipality Adult Education Unit between 2009-2011. Using the framework of Genc and Bada (2005), we tried to replicate their study in new setting - Norway. The study investigated migrant students' perceptions learning Norwegian culture and its effects on their learning of the Norwegian language. The participants responded to a set of questionnaire and one open-ended question adapted from Bada (2000) and Genc and Bada (2005). Descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis procedures were used to analyse the data. The results showed that teaching culture to immigrant students raised their cultural awareness of their own and the Norwegian society. It also improved both their language skills and attitudes to the Norwegian culture. The study revealed some similarity between the students' views and the theoretical benefits of a culture class as argued by some experts in the field. The results provide some further evidence of the benefits of learning cultural content as an integral part of learning a new language.
Link
Citation
International Education Studies, 6(3), p. 15-25
ISSN
1913-9039
1913-9020
Start page
15
End page
25

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