Teaching languages in a culturally diverse environment : the case of Israel

Abstract

The basis for the present paper is the perception that (a) the importance of teaching languages derives from an image of language as the most striking indicator of culture; and (b) in this context the word 'environment' is a synonym for a political entity. probably a 'state'. Every state has a unique historical and cultural configuration which justifies the ways in which language teaching is inserted into the educational system. In this paper, I discuss the backdrop for aspects of language teaching in Israeli schooling. The data that I present relate to a specific problem: the difficulties that beset members of groups with different cultural·origins when they communicate in the 'same' language. The obstacles place a particular interpretation on proficiency and place politics at the center of the problematic of language teaching and learning.