The 6 th ELTLT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS October 2017 362 ISSN 2580-1937 (Print); 2580-7528 (Online) K CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE IN LEARNING ENGLISH: A SIGNIFICANT GAP ELT IN EAST JAVA Muhammad Baiqun Isbahi Postgraduate Program Semarang State University Semarang, Indonesia baiqunbai@zoho.com Abstract Language is a part of culture, and plays a very important role in the development of the culture. Some sociologists consider it as the keystone of culture. They believe, without language, culture would not be available. At the same time, language is influenced and shaped by culture, it reflects culture. Therefore, culture plays a very important part in language teaching, which is widely acknowledged by English teaching experts. This study delineates the relationship between culture and language. As a result, the gap of cultural knowledge is one of the most important barriers in English teaching and study. Among the students, lacking of cultural background knowledge can, to a great extent, hold up the improvement of English teaching and become a noticeable problem. At present, the objective of English teaching has broken free from the traditional listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the demand for cultural background knowledge in language learning has been gradually concerned. Presentation of history of the country which has the target language, cultural background knowledge and customs are the proposed solution to the problem. This paper mainly discusses how to present cultural background knowledge and expose learners to it in the need of English teaching at rural schools in east java so as to solve the problems caused by cultural differences, help learners grasp the nub of the language and develop their English ability. Keywords: cultural knowledge, learning English, rural schools Introduction The linguist Robert Lado defines the goal of learning a foreign language as ―the ability to use it, understanding its meanings and connotations in terms of the target language and culture, and the ability to understand the speech and writing of natives of the target culture in terms of their great ideas and achievement‖ (Lado, 1964: 25) Therefore, the English teaching inevitably involves the culture teaching of target language. With Indonesia‘s open-up policy and entry in WTO, G-20, ACFTA, and MEA how to lay a solid foundation for cultivating learners becomes an important objective in teaching English as a foreign language. In traditional teaching, though students master the pronunciation, grammar, vocabularies and a lot of skills about listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating, they still cannot be said to fully understand and master English. English, as a foreign language, is the unity of the language itself and culture. One purpose of English teaching is to develop learners‘ awareness of cultural differences reflected in languages. The teacher must help learners to realize that thoughts and views of different nationalities and different types of societies about nature and human society are quite different. Therefore, it is a great importance to take for cultural background knowledge as one of the contents in the whole process of English teaching so as to help students to have a good command of necessary cultural background knowledge and to develop their comprehensive English ability. Though culture instruction may not be new to most English teachers in an examination-oriented environment in East Java, Indonesia, the research and practice of English teaching in East Java still have a