Incorporating culture materials at english language lessons

Abstract

This article covers the question about incorporating culture materials at English language lessons. The purpose of a foreign language is the formation of a foreign language communicative competence,

i.e. the ability to carry out the real communication. Nowadays many people have an opportunity to travel around the world and communicate with people from different countries. In these conditions, a person should know the culture and history of his own country. There will be no dialogue between two cultures, if a person finds it difficult to talk about his own culture, traditions and history. That’s why in- corporating culture materials plays an important role in language teaching and can create motivation for language learning. The article contains a questionnaire study to find out what local content is the most preferred by the university students and to what extent local materials are useful at language lessons. There is given the list of the books and web sites about Kazakhstan which can be used in teaching Eng- lish language. The practical part of the article presents local culture materials from different books which were used during language teaching practice.

Key words: national and cultural specifics, learning a foreign language, legends, history, tradition, culture, musical instruments, national sports, national clothes.