AMERICANA E-journal of American Studies in Hungary

The Crucible Project: Representing American Culture through Theatre in Education

Mátyás Agárdi, Dénes Flosznik, Fanni Gombkötő, Máté Huber, Liliána Ördög-Katona — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Abstract
Drama pedagogy is proven to be an effective method in foreign language education. It can help the
teacher create realistic scenarios in which learners can use newly acquired language in an authentic and
creative way. It can facilitate the improvement of fluency as well as lexis knowledge, moreover, it offers
a chance for the learner to be familiarized with the target language’s culture, or any other literary or
cultural work (Dunn and Stinson 2011,622-623), (Even 2009, 162), (Rothwell 2011, 149). In 2023,
SzThEatre, a drama group consisting of future drama teachers, created a play titled "The Crucible" for
high school students about high school students. The English-language play is set in a detention room
that is also the set of the American classic "The Breakfast Club" (1985) and incorporates other typically
American elements such as student body elections and the allegory of the American dream. Despite the
title's reference to the famous American playwright Arthur Miller's work, the drama group intends to
use 'crucible' as a wordplay alluding to today’s society as a melting pot. The play addresses frequent
issues that occur in teenagers’ lives in any country, while creating a safe space by estranging the audience
through cultural differences. This allows students to process these life situations through drama
pedagogy while passively learning the language and becoming familiar with American culture.
Educational drama is one of the most widespread educational tools nowadays, since not only does it
allow learners to express themselves in a safe environment spontaneously and honestly, but their social,
critical, and moral values are also challenged. This genre is also an effective instrument for training the
students’ critical thinking skills, while also learning how to form a critical view of their surroundings
(Kaifa et. al 2020, 139-148). Visiting theatres and seeing plays has numerous educational benefits besides
entertainment, like creating a more deeply rooted need for theatre in the students (Roberts 1968, 309),
or teaching them sensitivity about good theatre including the play itself, the performance, and the
production. Educational theatre may also aid personal development by allowing learners to encounter
opinions different from theirs and helping them understand those ideas, or by motivating them to think
more creatively and autonomously (Hodge, 1954, 106–19).

Representing American Culture in Teaching English as a Global Language

Zsolt Pál Deli — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This paper aims to show the relationship between culture and language. English is a global
language spoken all over the world occupying a status incomparable to other languages, and culture is
an integral part of ourselves, affecting all areas of our life in a profound way. Language, as the primary
tool of human communication, is not an exception. Besides offering learners linguistic knowledge and
potentially advanced language skills, it is inseparably interconnected with culture, whether it be through
literature, media, popular culture, sports, only to mention a few areas. Representing cultures in
education is inevitable in general, and in language teaching in particular. Integrating American culture
in teaching English is vital for a number of reasons. It helps students understand cultural norms and
social conventions, which can make their communication more effective and stimulating, promoting
motivation and involvement in real life-like settings in the target language. Today, the depiction of
cultural diversity, sensitivity, and awareness in education are probably more important than ever in
human history, making the language learning journey a more realistic adventure. A holistic approach of
incorporating cultural features into teaching practices may substantially promote a deeper level of
language education and contribute to more accomplished learners who possess insights into cultural
aspects beyond mastering English.

Hungarian EFL Learners’ Language Attitudes

Gyöngyi Püski — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This paper focuses on Hungarian EFL learners’ attitudes toward Hungarian-accented and
native varieties of English, with a special focus on the impact of American English on Hungarian EFL
learners’ accent preferences. The paper reports on the results of two pilot studies (prepared for the
author’s dissertation-in-progress): one carried out with the participation of 10 English major and 10
non-English major students, and a subsequent one based on the previous study, with 25 English
majors, all from the University of Szeged. The results of the first study show that the majority describe
their accent as being closer to American English than to British English, while the verbal guise
experiment indicates that the British guise is preferred in all ratings (on both solidarity and status),
with the exception of non-English majors’ indicating that the American guise sounds ‘warmer’. The
majority of non-English majors believe that Hungarian EFL learners want to emulate American English,
while most English majors think that it is British English or both British and American English that can
be regarded as accent models for Hungarian learners of English. The results of the second study
highlight that some of the participants consider their accents to be a mixture of British and American
features, which they see as a flaw. Those respondents who wish to ‘sound American’ attach positive
connotations to being able to speak English with an American accent, such as having a higher level of
English knowledge and having an easily intelligible accent. The results suggest that American English
seems to enjoy covert prestige even among those respondents who prefer British English in all respects,
and positive values seem to be attached to Hungarian EFL speakers’ having an American accent.

The Impact of Culture on Listening Assessment

Jonnie Hill — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Culture permeates our understanding of the world and things around us, affecting our psyche, our
cognition, and our social interaction. To what degree does it affect our comprehension of utterances in a
language other than our mother tongue? To what degree is the assessment of that comprehension shaped by
our cultural worldview? This study synthesizes and pulls together research from Geert Hofstede’s (2024)
dimensions of culture, TED Talks about communication and listening, and studies in assessment to propose a
method of instruction and qualitative assessment then applies it for a descriptive analysis of seven students’
performance on a listening test. Implications are considered that would boost English language listening
proficiency among Hungarian students in SZTE’s Institute of English and American Studies.

The Representation of American Culture in EFL Textbooks in Hungary

Dorina Bálint — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

In today’s globalized world, it is gradually becoming more and more important to learn
languages. In order to do that effectively, teachers and students need appropriate materials, tools and
teaching aids to achieve their language learning goals. That is why textbook analysis has gained more
and more importance throughout the past years, textbooks being among the most important teaching
and learning aids. It is common knowledge that students are more inclined to acquire a foreign language
if they are exposed to materials which interest them. The topics that pupils usually find interesting are
cinema, technology, and culture. That is why this paper aims at analysing the various types of American
cultural representation in two textbook series that are commonly used in Hungarian schools: the English
File and the Pioneer series. They are analyzed in terms of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and
listening comprehension from the perspective of American cultural representation. The findings are the
following: although one way or another both series include certain elements of American culture, texts
and tasks – in terms of vocabulary and syntax – tend to stay neutral, utilizing vocabulary that may
represent all English standard varieties at once. It suggests a lack of cultural diversity, which is a serious
shortcoming in terms of pluricentricity, but can be interpreted as an advantage in terms of contextual
and grammatical coherence.

Approaching an Intersection: Pragmatic Competence and Being a University Student

George de Man — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

One of the more familiar challenges of teaching first-year university students is fostering their
initiative to take part in class discussion. In the EFL classroom, discussion activities are rightly valued as
opportunities for language practice. Less obvious, in contrast, may be the ways that the process of
acculturation to college classroom norms intersects with second language difficulties, especially among
f
irst-generation college students who comprise a sizable demographic in the Hungarian university
population. Pragmatics instruction, it will be argued, has a role to play in helping empower students to
express their ideas and opinions in the company of their peers and instructors. However, supplying students
with a lexical “toolkit” and peer-to-peer scenarios is only a first step in this direction. Indeed, it is precisely
because the college experience is for many “first gens” a form of culture shock that the norm-disrupting
potential of North American humor can be as important as modeling the myriad ways English speakers can
verbally negotiate awkward or unfamiliar situations. Best practices for supporting first-year student
engagement and success, as piloted at U.S.-based higher education institutions will also be explored.

English Nursery Rhymes in the U. S.

Luca Rausch-Molnár — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Nursery rhymes have long been perceived as fundamental in young children’s education, not
only in a first-language environment, but also in foreign language teaching. While most research focuses
on the benefits of rhymes, rhythm, as well as the playful features of nursery rhymes, the aim of this article
is to emphasize the importance of their function as transmitters of cultural values. The role of oral
tradition was, originally, rather to preserve, process and reflect on cultural and historical events and crises
than to educate children. Still, most American nursery rhymes have origins rooted in British tradition and
culture, which means that culturally specific content in British nursery rhymes should be interpreted in
an American cultural context. It is by analyzing and retracing the origins of four British nursery rhymes
widely known in the Unites States that the paper intends to show how these rhymes remain social models
and serve cultural educational purposes today.

The American Impact

Zsombor Váczi — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

In numerous countries around the world as well as in Hungary since the appearance of English
as a Foreign Language in the classroom, British English has always been set as the standard variety to be
taught. The vast majority, if not all, of the course books used in the Hungarian classrooms are based upon
or prioritize British English. Hardly ever will a language learner hear American voices in the audio
materials that accompany a course book series. The boom of technology in the twenty-first century, the
proliferation of the digital world and the growing popularity of social media have long opened the doors
to a conspicuous American impact with regard to content consumption among teenagers. In the past
years, students have been zealously discussing American songs, movies, TV series, streaming services,
video channels, influencers or computer games. The language varieties they encounter in such contents
often stand in conflict with the language varieties their course book materials offer. A small-scale study
carried out with the participation of about 100 students between the ages of 13 and 19 sets out to reveal
which varieties of English students prefer nowadays based on their content consumption. The study
relies on an anonymous online survey consisting of both closed- and open-ended questions. The results
aim to provide a key to how we teachers of English should change our attitude to teaching English in the
classroom in the future.

Meme-Assisted Debate

Andrea Kocsis — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of the present research is to introduce and assess the application of thematically
structured internet macros as a starting point for a level B2 EFL debate task on national stereotypes
related to the culture and everyday life of the United States of America. The main focuses of the paper
include attempts at describing how and why such 21st century visuals can be loaded with the capacity of
enhancing L2 oral production and examining students’ self-reflections and (self-)evaluations of the
learning outcome. Also, it gives some interesting research-based insights into the characteristic features
of the typical present day teenage language learner in the system of Hungarian public education with
relevance to the methodology of teaching foreign languages.

Introduction to “The Representation of American Culture in the English Language Classroom in Hungary” Thematic Issue

Máté Huber — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The Representation of American Culture in the English Language Classroom in Hungary