Sociocultural competence development among master’s students as a part of "The Culture of Romano-German Countries" course

Desenvolvimento de competências socioculturais entreestudantes de mestrado como parte do curso «A Cultura dos Países Romano-Germânicos»

Desarrollo de la competencia sociocultural entre estudiantes de maestría como parte del curso “La Cultura de los Países Romano-Germánicos”

Alla Bariyevna Bakmansurova¹

National research university Higher school of economics (HSE University), Federación de Rusia

Anna Valeryavna Efimova¹

National research university Higher school of economics (HSE University), Federación de Rusia

Elena Gennadyavna Koshkina¹ e-lena-koshkina@yandex.ru

National research university Higher school of economics (HSE University), Federación de Rusia

Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 Internacional.

This article aims at examining the features of the development of socio-cultural competence among undergraduates of the educational program "Foreign languages and intercultural communication" within the course "Culture of the countries of Group". The goal defines the following set of tasks : consideration of the essence of socio-cultural competence, its components / its content; description of the structure of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group", studied by students in the second year of study of the master’s educational program "Foreign languages and intercultural communication"; the analysis of features of the discipline implementation; conducting the survey among students in order to identify the degree of awareness / understanding of the need to develop socio-cultural competence within the framework of the study course for the second foreign language (German).

The research presented in this article is relevant, because the speech behavior of a speaker in a foreign language is determined by knowledge of national and cultural characteristics of the country of a language being studied.

The article has both theoretical significance and practical value. The first consists in the certain contribution to the theory of methodological science, in particular to the section on communicative competence and its components. The practical value is determined by the description of the experience of implementing the specific discipline in the master's program for students of level A2-B1 who study German as the second foreign language.

Many national and foreign scientists have been engaged in research on the topic of "Socio-cultural competence". Among foreign scientists, it is worth mentioning such authors as R. Lado (1957), G. Neuner (1996), G. Hofstede (1993), J. Sandra (2002), R. Bodine, L. Pauline & P.M. Paul (2021), M.F. Alejandro, M. A. Torres & D. Fernandez (2018), J.S. Lee & B. McChesney (2000), I. Anužienė (2015) and many others. Numerous Russian scientists have devoted their works to the formation and development of socio-cultural competence, for example V.V. Vetrinskaya & T.A Dmitrenko (2017), A. Rakhimova (2017), A. Ivygina, E. Pupysheva & D. Mukhametshina (2019), N.I. Sosnovskaya (2012), Z. I. Nikitenko (2005) and also K.K. Bakytzhankyzy (2020).

This article consists of two parts. In the first part of this article, the authors turn to the consideration of the key concept –sociocultural competence. After that, in the second part, the authors stop on the specific example of the formation of this competence within the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group". In this part the content of the discipline and the planned learning outcomes are described.

After some review of the content of the curriculum, we will analyse the features of the implementation of the discipline (these include duration of the discipline study, target audience, combination of lectures and seminars, regular reports-presentations, discussion after each report, ongoing monitoring, etc.). As an example we will take one if the topics exactly “Die Reformation” (the reformation).

In the last part of this article, we would like to analyze the usefulness, expediency and necessity of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group" from the point of view of the master student. For this purpose, we will conduct the small survey among students and ask them some questions regarding the course. At the end of the article, we will summarize the results of our research and summarize the work.

Effective Foreign Language Teaching has an obvious appeal among scholars. Early research argued the culture aspects should be included to the program of teaching foreign languages (Lado, 1957; Neuner, 1996). Nowadays there is a volume of published studies describing the role of socio-cultural competence while teaching foreign languages.

Vetrinskaya and Dmitrenko (2017) based on the study by Hofstede (1993) demonstrated that even a deep knowledge of a foreign language does not exclude misunderstandings and conflict situations while interacting with native speakers. Thus, the authors proofed there is an urgent need for students to prepare for effective intercultural communication in the educational institution. The student should know the culture, understand the nature of intercultural misunderstandings, develop practical skills, which, in conjunction, allow comprehensively understanding representatives of other cultures and adequately perceiving and understanding the verbal and non-verbal communication. The research used the descriptive analysis of sources and documents revealed that the formation of socio-cultural competencies through teaching and learning is characterized by features such as social skills, social perception, self-awareness, attribution, communication with peers, cultural sensitivity, cultural awareness, cultural knowledge (Anužienė, 2015).

Over the past decades, most research have emphasized on introducing socio-cultural competencies in educational institutions when teaching foreign languages including English (Nikitenko, 2005; Savignon & Sysoyev, 2002), Chinese (Sosnovskaya, 2019), Russian (Ivygina et al., 2019), French (Torres et al., 2018) languages. Sandra and Sysoyev (2002) made an attempt to introduce the concept of socio-cultural competence to schoolchildren and examine the benefits of teaching the strategies for coping with specific social and cultural situations. As a result, the method of teaching socio-cultural strategies for high school students learning English as foreign language was developed. The following research focused on developing intercultural competencies of teachers of initial vocational education (Bodine et al., 2021). Although the articles present the great overview on the essential professional development aspects aiming to socio-cultural competences and intercultural communication, the research seem not to be sufficient to clarify what forms and characteristics effectively impact on the student results and classroom practices.

Moreover, there have been a great number of investigations into the components that should be included in the program of teaching socio-cultural competencies. After reviewing the existing approaches, the author suggested a list of aspects the program should contain. There are cultural, linguistic and regional studies, socio-psychological, sociolinguistic, linguistic, informational and communicational aspects (Rakhimova, 2017, p. 7). Lee and McChesney (2000) claimed that the use of discursive rating technology and role plays could help students to go beyond the sample expressions in order to convey the subtleties of the language best suited to the communicative context. Ivygina et al. (2019) demonstrated that local history texts increase the interest among students to intercultural communication, enhance the respect for customs and traditions of other cultures, deepen the knowledge of norms and values of native and foreign cultures. The method using poems and songs is also an important component in the process of studying foreign language aiming to develop sociocultural competence of students. (Bakytzhankyzy, 2020).

However, the majority of the work on socio-cultural competencies can be characterized by a narrow focus, particularly with regard to the structure of the program teachers might follow while teaching socio-cultural competence.

This paragraph is devoted to the description of the main results of the study.

First, the authors formulated the definition of the Socio-cultural competence. It is the component of communicative competence; the body of knowledge about the realities of the country of the target language, national and cultural characteristics of the social and speech behavior of native speakers; the ability to apply this knowledge in the practice of communication and observe specific customs, norms of etiquette, rules and stereotypes of behavior.

The authors have also established its structure and described them. Sociocultural competence includes several components: linguistic and cultural, sociolinguistic, socio-psychological and cultural.

Besides the question “what is theoretically the process of formation the Socio-cultural competence” is answered. The authors also focused on the consequences of the absence or insufficient formation of socio-cultural competence.

To consider the process of working on the formation and development of socio-cultural competence, we chose the course “Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group" and described its content and planned learning outcomes, which are presented in the table below.

Table 1
Content and planned learning outcomes of the course “Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group".

Notes: 1. Material for preparation for seminars - see the list of references (Germany, n.d.; Grundlinien der deutschen Geschichte, 1989; Klyueva, 2006; Koshkina et al., 2013; Tatsachen über Deutschland, 2000).

2. As forms of control within each topic, vocabulary dictation for key terms, "chronological dictation" (event - date), oral monologue statement (message / presentation; types - individual, pair, group) are used.

After that the authors considered the features of the implementation of the discipline:

1. 1. the shortened course of study of the discipline;
2. 2. target audience - students with language proficiency level A2-B1, for whom German is the second foreign language;
3. 3. combination of lectures and seminars in the volume - two academic hours per week;
4. 4. the need for regular (once every two weeks) preparation of reports-presentations on the additional topic;
5. 5. obligatory discussion after each report;
6. 6. the need for regular study of theoretical material on each topic, active work in practical classes, repetition of what has been passed and preparation for current control, the main forms of which are dictionary dictations for key terms, "chronological dictations" for correlating events and dates.

Next, the authors focused on the consideration of a specific topic - the Reformation - and described the stages of work on it (these steps will be described in the next part "Discussion"). Work on other topics was lined up in the similar way. The prerequisite was the attraction of authentic material, which helped to learn not only the essence of significant events from the history of the country, but also revealed the cultural and national characteristics of the country of the target language.

A significant result of the conducted research can be considered the opinion of master's degree students (all students who attended the course in the 2020-2021 academic year were interviewed) obtained during the interview about the expediency of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group". The students were asked, what did they study in the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group", what new did they learn in this course, why was this course difficult and interesting for them, what would they like to take as part of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group", if they would you like to know more about the culture and history of Germany, why do they think they need to get acquainted with the culture of the country you are studying and if do they know what is sociocultural competence?

The students’ answers were grouped into 5 groups and presented in the form of the following table (the analysis of the respondents' responses is presented below in the part “Discussion”):

Table 2
The opinion of master's degree students of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group".

In this part we will focus on the interpretation of the results of the study. Above, we presented the definition of socio-cultural competence and listed its components, so in this part we will describe in more detail the essence of the analyzed competence.

The linguistic and cultural component includes lexical units with socio-cultural semantics and the ability to apply them in situations of intercultural communication (for example, greeting, addressing, saying goodbye in oral and written speech).

The sociolinguistic component is the set of linguistic characteristics of social strata, representatives of different generations, genders, social groups, dialects (namely, background knowledge, realities, subject knowledge).

The socio-psychological component is the mastery of socio- and culturally determined scenarios, national-specific models of behavior using the communicative technique adopted in the given culture.

The cultural component is the sociocultural, historical, cultural, ethnocultural background (knowledge of the traditions, customs of the people of the target language)

The "New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts" examines the content of sociocultural competence, represented by four components:

a) sociocultural knowledge (information about the country of the target language, spiritual values and cultural traditions, peculiarities of the national mentality);

b) communication experience (choice of the acceptable communication style, correct interpretation of the phenomena of the foreign language culture);

c) personal attitude to the facts of the foreign language culture (including the ability to overcome and resolve socio-cultural conflicts during communication);

d) knowledge of the ways of using the language (correct use of socially marked linguistic units in speech in various spheres of intercultural communication, sensitivity to similarities and differences between native and foreign-language sociocultural phenomena) (New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts, 2009).

The formation of sociocultural competence implies the integration of the individual in the system of world and national cultures, as well as the presence of certain personality traits, namely, openness, tolerance, and readiness for communication. Openness means freedom from prejudice towards representatives of another culture; tolerance is manifested in the tolerant attitude towards manifestations of the foreign, unfamiliar to us in other cultures; willingness to communicate is expressed in the desire and ability to engage in active communication with representatives of the different socio-cultural community (New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts, 2009). Note that the absence or insufficient formation of socio-cultural competence is the cause of errors of the sociocultural nature and, as a consequence of such errors, discommunication, that is, disruption of the course of foreign language communication (New Dictionary of Methodological Terms and Concepts, 2009).

If we speak about the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group" for the master's degree students, we have to we have to determine its place in the working curriculum. So, this course belongs to its variable part and is an optional subject for learners of German as the second foreign language (level A2-B1). The discipline is offered for the first half of the year, includes 30 classroom and 198 hours of student independent work (6 credit units). The form of the final control is the exam¹ .

The course program consists of two sections: German history and German culture. The content of the discipline includes the following topics: 1) Einleitung: Geografische Lage. Landschaft. Klima. Oberfläche, 2) Germanen. Frankenreich. Karl der Große, 3) Die Entwicklung der feudalen Verhältnisse in Deutschland, 4) Die Reformation. Der Bauernkrieg. Der 30-jährige Krieg. 5) Die Epoche der Absolutismus in Deutschland. Friedrich II. 6) Deutschland von der Revolution 1848 bis zur Reichsgründung 1871, 7) Die deutsche Arbeitsbewegung. Die Gründung der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, 8) Der I. Weltkrieg, 9) Die Novemberrevolution in Deutschland 1918, 10) Weimarer Republik, 11) Der Nationalsozialismus in Deutschland. Der II. Weltkrieg, 12) Die Potsdamer Konferenz. Die Spaltung Deutschlands, 13) Die BRD und die DDR in der Jahren 1949-1989, 14) Die Vereinigung Deutschlands, 15) Bundesländer der BRD 16) Kulturelle Vielfalt, 17) Die Literatur Deutschlands, 18) Die bildenden Künste, 19) Theater und Musik, 20) Die Filmkunst, 21) Feste und Bräuche, 22) Wiederholung.

As for the planned learning outcomes for each topic, they are reduced to the following: the students know how to talk about important events within the topic and they additionally search for information and present it in the form of the presentation (in a PowerPoint form).

Above we have listed the features of the implementation of the discipline. Now we are going to describe them more detailed.

Regarding the course duration, should be said that it is quite difficult to work through the volume of material on the history and culture of the country (30 hours: 2 hours per week). However, the correct presentation of the main most significant events within the framework of the topic, as well as the attraction of additional information in the form of video clips and interactive discussion of important points contributed to the certain extent to active work on the development of socio-cultural competence.

Let us see how this happened in the work on the topic "Die Reformation". The main items to be discussed with the audience were the following:

- zum Begriff der Reformation;

- Zentren der Reformation (Wittenberg und Zürich);

- Martin Luther und seine 95 Thesen / der Streit um den Ablaßhandel;

- „Lutherbibel“ / Herausbildung einer einheitlichen deutschen Nationalsprache;

- Ergebnisse der Reformation.

At the very beginning of the lesson, we asked the students to work in groups and create the mind-map on the topic “Die Reformation”. Let us present one example below - the result of group work.

Figure 1
The mind-map on the topic “Die Reformation”.

Further, after the second question (Zentren der Reformation) was briefly covered, students were asked to watch the four-minute video about the Reformation and the role of Martin Luther ("Die Reformation um Martin Luther einfach erklärt" at https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v = AToDOEAYRj8 ), which should have solved the three remaining questions on the topic. Note that watching the video was preceded by the discussion of the meaning of some unfamiliar words, in particular: (Error 1: El enlace externo https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v = AToDOEAYRj8 debe ser una URL) (Error 2: La URL https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v = AToDOEAYRj8 no esta bien escrita)

Table 3
Unfamiliar words from the video.

After watching the video, pair or group work followed again, which consisted in discussing a number of issues, namely:

1. 1. Wie sah Deutschland und Europa am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts aus?
2. 2. Wer und was regierte damals?
3. 3. Was verkaufte die Kirche an Sündige? Wer brauchte das und warum?
4. 4. Wozu benutze die Kirche das Geld von Sündigen?
5. 5. Was kritisierte Martin Luther?
6. 6. Was passierte am 31.10.1517?
7. 7. Wie definierte Luther den Glauben?
8. 8. Wie war es möglich, dass sich Luthers Schriften schnell verbreitet haben?
9. 9. Wie reagierte die Kirche auf Luthers Schriften?
10. 10. Wo konnte sich Luther verstecken und weiter seine Schriften schreiben?
11. 11. Was konnte Martin Luther übersetzen? Warum war das wichtig?
12. 12. Was waren die wichtigsten Themen der Reformation?
13. 13. Worunter litten die Bauern? Und was verlangten sie nun?
14. 14. Was gründete sich, nachdem die katholische Kirche wankte?
15. 15. Welche Folgen hatte die Reformation?

After the group work, two presentations were presented on the topics: „Martin Luther: Pionier der protestantischen Reformation“, „Die Rolle von Martin Luther in der Herausbildung einer einheitlichen deutschen Nationalsprache“.

Table 4
Sample presentation "Martin Luther: Pionier der protestantischen Reformation".

The presentation was followed by the discussion - the audience asked questions, the speaker gave explanations.

Work on other topics was lined up in the similar way. The prerequisite was the attraction of authentic material, which helped to learn not only the essence of significant events from the history of the country, but also revealed the cultural and national characteristics of the country of the target language. Examples include:

- acquaintance with the biographies of famous people (writers Gunther Grass, Thomas Mann, contemporary young authors (Judith Hermann), artists Gerhard Richter, Neo Rauch), directors (Klaus-Michael Gruber), musicians (violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter), contemporary figures of musical arts (Karlheinz Stockhausen - composer of electronic music), actors (Moritz Bleibtreu);

- Virtual excursions to famous exhibitions (e.g. documenta in Kassel), galleries, museums, theaters (Talia Theater (Hamburg), Berliner Ensemble (Berlin), Munchner Kammerspiele (Munich), dance theater in Wupertal, Piny Bausch, etc.;

- watching feature films (Oliver Hirschbiegel and his historical drama Sunset, Wolfgang Becker and his tragicomedy Goodbye Lenin, etc.);

- acquaintance with the peculiarities of traditional holidays.

It should be noted that before meeting the celebrity, before the virtual visit to any cultural place, preparatory work is necessarily carried out, which is organized by the teacher or the mini-group / pair of students responsible for the topic, who is consulted by him. In the latter case, students gain experience in organizational and methodological-didactic work, which is of great importance for second-year graduate students, since in the second semester they will have to undergo practice and work as the teacher or specialist in intercultural communication.

In the last part of this article, we would like to analyze the student responses that were received during the interview about usefulness, expediency and necessity of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group".

Answering the first question (What did you study in the course?), the students named not only areas (culture, geography, history), but about specific topics (the life of the Germanic tribes, their struggle with the Romans), as well as some typical patterns of development of European countries ("seemed typical for many European countries").

The answers to the second question (What new did you learn in the course?) turned out to be diverse. One of the students (level A2) admits that absolutely everything was new for him. Others name specific topics (the formation of the German nation, features of the geography of Germany, unique natural attractions). Also, one student admits that in the course of the course there was the systematization of previously available segmentary knowledge about the country of the target language).

The aim of the next question (Why was this course difficult for you?) was to establish the degree of difficulty of the course. Everyone admits that the material of the discipline was rather difficult, because special texts on history and culture contained lexical difficulties. Complex grammar and vocabulary made it difficult to prepare presentations, for which it was required, firstly, to choose something suitable and interesting from unadapted material, and, secondly, to work out this material in order to simplify it for listening by the audience with the level of knowledge A2-B1.

The answers to the fourth question (Why was this course interesting for you?) allow us to establish what made, in their opinion, the course interesting. Undergraduates note that the preparation and discussion of presentations of course mates aroused interest in studying the material. It is also noted that the feasibility, structure and brevity ("a large amount of information was presented rather briefly", "there was no cumbersomeness") of the proposed information motivated the study of the discipline.

The fifth question (What would you like to take as part of the course?) was aimed at identifying what else the undergraduates would like to get acquainted with in the course. It turns out that they would be interested not only to learn about the variants of the German language, but also to study its history. One of the students expressed a desire to consider also modern political life in Germany.

The next block of answers (Would you like to know more about the culture and history of Germany?) indicates that the undergraduates would like to continue studying the course (it was indicated above that the course was only one semester). Someone intends to do this on their own, using the course materials (students have access to materials on each topic), someone has very definite ideas about what he or she would like to study.

Question 7 (Why do you think you need to get acquainted with the culture of the country you are studying?) was of fundamental importance. The undergraduates had to speak about the need to get acquainted with the culture of the country, the language they are studying. Students who have studied the foreign language for six years confidently assert that “language is the integral part of culture and its mirror”, “language develops together with the people”, “language is a reflection of the cultural and historical characteristics of a nation”, “language is a part of culture of the studied language”,“ language is born from culture ”. One student calls it recklessness to learn the language separately from the culture of the people. Thus, we see that the importance of the sociocultural component in linguistic professional education is seen by the second-year master's student for granted.

And, finally, the last question (Do you know what sociocultural competence is?) involves establishing whether students are familiar with the term “Sociocultural Competence”? All surveyed students answer this question in the affirmative and give absolutely clear and correct definitions containing fundamental components, such as “knowledge of generally accepted cultural norms, characteristics, realities,” “aspects of social and cultural life,” etc. One of the respondents absolutely correctly considers sociocultural competence as a component of communicative competence.

So, let us summarize our reasoning in this article. The obvious and indisputably important is the development of sociocultural competence in the study of the foreign language. On the example of the specific course and work on the given topic, the possibility of developing the considered component of communicative competence was demonstrated. The survey showed a number of interesting and important observations regarding the usefulness and appropriateness of the course "Culture of the countries of the Romano-Germanic Group". It was also found that students have a good idea of what sociocultural competence is and how important it is to form and develop when studying foreign language.

In conclusion, we would like to emphasize the theoretical and practical significance of this study. Its results contribute to the theory of methodological science, in particular to the section on communicative competence and its components. The conclusions can help school and high school teachers in the implementation of such a course about history and culture and in the development of socio-cultural competence by learning of foreign languages.

Finishing the article, we would like to thank our dear Master's students for participating in this course and research, the results of which we presented in the present work.

How to cite: Bakmansurova, A.B., Efimova, A.V. & Koshkina, E.G. (2022). Sociocultural competence development among master’s students as a part of "The Culture of Romano-German Countries" course. Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação, 14(33), e17760. http://dx.doi.org/10.20952/revtee.v15i34.17760

Authors' Contributions: Bakmansurova, A.B.: conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, critical review of important intellectual content; Efimova, A.V.: conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, critical review of important intellectual content; Koshkina, E.G.: conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, critical review of important intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.