Teaching Culture in a Language

Course

JOANNE CHEN2015

Understanding Language

Balance

Language as Code

Language as social practice Language

and Culture

Learning to communicate in an additional language involves developing an awareness of the way in which culture interrelates with language whenever it is uses.

(Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarine, &Kohler, 2003)

我的女兒叫陳美麗 ; 這樣大家才會叫我美麗的媽媽 !

What is Culture? Culture has often been understood as practices or as knowledge:

Knowledge about cultural artefacts or works of art;Knowledge about ways of living;Knowledge about places and institutions;Knowledge about events and symbols;

The knowledge-based view of culture often takes the form of teaching information about another country, its people, its way of living, and so on.

But,Culture is not simply a body of knowledge but rather a framework in which people live their lives and communicate shared meanings with each other.

Culture is fundamentally related to language

The goal of learning is to develop an intercultural identity as a result of an engagement with an additional culture.

Teaching CultureStatic

Dynamic

Approaches to teaching Culture

ArtefactsAnd

InstitutionsFacts

ProcessesAnd

Practice

Static Approach to cultural learning and content

Dynamic approach- Active engagements to learning

Intercultural framework consist three intersecting dimensions:

The nature of content: artefact-practice The nature of learning: fact- process The nature of the educational effect: cultural - intercultural

Intercultural Language Learning Learners engage in developing cultural competence from the beginning of their language learning.

Learners engage in understanding their own languages and cultures in relation to the additional language and culture.

ILL is more than just learning the culture and compare to one’s own. Learners must make choices when engaging in meaningful communication in another language.

ISBN: 978-1-4051-9810-3208 pagesApril 2013, Wiley-Blackwell

Developing intercultural language learning:

1 Active Construction Learners involves purposeful engagement in interpreting in interaction with others

2 Making connections Language and culture and learningExisting and new conceptionsLanguage and thinkingFirst language and target language Intercultural self – intracultural self – others.

3 Interaction Learners continuously learn and build from interacting experience.

4 Reflection Aware of how we think, know and learn about language, culture, and their relationships.

5 Responsibility Learning depends on learners’ attitudes, dispositions and values.

Five Principles of Intercultural Language Learning

Developing intercultural capabilities through actives involving:Noticing cultural similarities and differences Comparing what one has notice about another language and culture with one already knowReflecting on what one’s experience of linguistic and cultural diversity means for oneselfInteracting on the basis of one’s learning and experiences of diversity in order to create personal meanings about one’s experiences

Goal of culture learning:

The ability to learn beyond the classroom It is probably more important than any particular information that students may learn about another culture during their school year.

CultureLanguage

Sources for Creating Cultural Texture

1. Information Sources: internet, CD, Video, literature, magazine, newspapers and all sorts of authentic materials;

2. Activity-types: Quizzes, talk/discussions, role-play, drama, crafts, hand-on practice, noticing, prediction, research, reformulation, games, singing, projects, writing, field trips;

3. Selling – Points: “Sell“ different views of the culture to our students. Activity and materials portray different aspects of the culture. For example, Facts vs. Behavior, City life vs. Country life, Attractive vs. Shocking, Historical vs. Modern.

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Cullen-Culture.html

Tips on teaching culturePersonalization

Group work

Learn your students’ language and culture

Make it interesting

Suitable level of

difficulty

Activities, not just

“Discussion”

Don’t Try to cover everything

Understand your own cultural

baggage