Culture-Related Difficulties for English Learners

Culture-related ways of perception when they differ from those of the native speakers of English can be a problem demanding much patience and understanding for English language teachers to tackle effectively in ESLsituations.If the French students of English use question-tags wrongly, it may be due to the influence of their mother-tongue. The same mistake is made by Indian students of English,and for the same reason,too.It is fairly easy to teach question-tag.Just tell the students that the structure of the question-tag is operator followed by the pronoun of the subject of the statement and the operator is negative for positive statements and vice-versa.It is as simple as that ! .But owing to the force of habit they might occasionally relapse.No problem!Practice drill will help them overcome this difficulty.However, when it comes to culture-related differences in perception whose causes may be traced deep into people's racial memories or experiences,the teachers ofEnglish may be facing a serious difficulty.In my next post I will be giving more examlpes of culture-related learning difficulties fo English language learners and suggest ways to overcome this problem