| Makale Özeti: | The  first  part  provides  an  analysis  of  the  concept  of  culture:  the  one  related  with  the  academic 
meaning of the word, which expresses the level of a society’s evolution regarding literature, music, 
and painting, i.e. artistic and intellectual expressions of a society. In addition, this concept includes 
the  anthropological  perspective  which  encompasses  the  way  of  life,  customs,  traditions,  beliefs, 
mindsets, principles, as  well as abilities that the individual and the  community in which he lives 
have developed. Further on, an analysis is provided of the concept of culture in glottodidactics and 
its importance in the program of studying a foreign language. 
The  second  part  highlights  the  importance  of  learning  culture  and  civilization  in  the  foreign 
language  classroom;  this  is  a  major  task  which  every  teacher  and  instructor  should  pay  close 
attention to: when learning a foreign language it not only necessary to  acquire knowledge of its 
morphology and syntax, but also to study aspects of culture and civilization. In order to optimally 
achieve  this,  the  teacher  can  use  different  methods  to  analyze  cultural  differences;  for  example 
comparisons, simulations, newspapers, media and the classroom too. 
The third part focuses on the importance of authentic material as this material originally reflects 
the culture in a particular moment and context. In this way, by the use of this material, the teacher 
provides students with a way of understanding situations and foreigners’ behavior, in this case the persons who represent the culture and the language being learnt. New technology, such as video 
and internet, is very good sources of authentic material. Internet is particularly a mere environment where students can interact in order to improve their communicative competences and where they can discover the culture of the language which they are learning. |