Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

1. Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Saturday, March 29 2008 Jutta Schmiers-Heller and Annie Falk js2331@columbia.edu & aef61@columbia.edu

2. Overview • Some Theoretical Aspects of Teaching Culture • By the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook: Samples • Questions and Discussion Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

3. Some Theoretical Aspects of Teaching Culture -The 5 C’s of Foreign Language Education [From: images.google.com] Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

4. The 5 C’s of Foreign Language Education Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

5. Some Theoretical Aspects of Teaching Culture -The 5 C’s of Foreign Language Education cont. • ‘Cultures’ is one of the 5 C’s in the Standards for Foreign Language Learning (see: www.actfl.org) • “Cultures” is defined as follows in the National Standards: • Gain Knowledge and Understanding of Other Cultures • Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied • Standard 2.2: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied (Shrum/Glisan, 2005) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

6. Some Theoretical Aspects of Teaching Culture: The Culture Paradigm(Shrum/Glisan, 2005) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

7. Some Theoretical Aspects of Teaching Culture -The 5 C’s of Foreign Language Education cont. • All C’s are interconnected and you can find the other 4 C’s in the Cultures C. • Examples: • Connections:“Connections enable students to further their knowledge of other disciplines, acquire new information, and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are available only through the foreign language and its cultures.” (Shrum/Glisan 2005) • Comparisons:“Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.” (Shrum/Glisan 2005) • Together these elements will lead to: “Knowing how, when and why to say what to whom.”(http://www.actfl.org/files/public/execsumm.pdf) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

8. The Presentation of Culture • “Big C” vs. “little C” Culture • Big C: formal culture - arts, literature, music, history • Small c: daily life culture - anthropological and sociological aspects (e.g.: social behavior, beliefs, housing, food, and transportation) (Brooks, 1975) • Four Common Approaches to Teaching Culture: • The Frankenstein Approach: a taco from here, a flamenco dancer from there, a gaucho from here, etc. • The 4-F Approach: folk dances, festivals, fairs, food • The Tour Guide Approach: identification of monuments, rivers, and cities • The “By-the-Way” Approach: sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences (Galloway, 1985) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

9. The Presentation of Culture - Issues • Culture has been traditionally treated in the classroom by giving facts and information. • Information acquisition approach • Making culture an integral part of the classroom is a challenging task for teachers. • We often feel that we don’t have time for culture. • Teachers do not always have sufficient cultural experiences themselves and find it difficult to integrate them into the linguistic part of the language class. • Learners do not always understand the relationship between language and culture. Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

10. The Process-Oriented vs. the Information-Acquisition Approach • The latter: cultural information is presented by the teacher. • The former: • based on the cultural paradigm which includes practices, products, and perspectives as outlined in the standards (slide 6) • allows students to learn about culture, by constructing their own views of culture through social interaction and interpersonal communication => constructivist approach (Shrum/Glisan, 2005) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

11. Basic Structure of Any Activity • Basic Structure: • Warm-up/Introduction • Modeling/Presentation of New Material • Meaningful Activity/Activities • Wrap-up • Other Considerations: • Contextualization • Varying of Activities • Transitions between Activities • Keeping the Pace (5-15 minutes) (Omaggio Hadley, 2001) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

12. By the Book and Beyond – Where is the culture in my book? • Culture can be found in different ways: • as part of the presentation of material by the teacher • in various parts of the book (vocabulary, dialogs, reading passages, pictures, etc.) • presented in special boxes labeled ‘Culture’ (can be used in a concrete way or as inspiration) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

13. Some Sources for Taking You beyond the Textbook • Your colleagues • Websites [with a fairly simple surface structure – see WG/ Kafka/dating/ greeting cards/ restaurant menus/ hotels/ train, bus, movie schedules/ shopping websites (IKEA, clothing)/ university sites and course catalogs, etc.] • Samples: • WG: www.wggesucht.de; • Kafka: http://www.kafka.uni-bonn.de/cgi-bin/kafka?Rubrik=biographie&Punkt=genealogie or http://www.franzkafka.de/franzkafka/home/ ; • Dating: www.yahoo.de (click on dating); • Reisen: http://www.bahn.de, http://www.hbf-berlin.de • Songs (itunes, youtube), video, podcasts (www.dwelle.de; http://podster.de/; or google) Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

14. References • Brooks, N. (1785). The Analysis of language and familiar cultures. In R.C. Lafayette (Ed.), The cultural revolution (pp. 19-31). Reports on the Central States Conference on Foreign Language Education. Lincolnwood. IL:NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group. • Galloway, V.B. (1985). A design for the improvement of the teaching of culture in foreign language classrooms. ACTFL project proposal. Yonkers, NY:American Concil on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. • http://images.google.com • http://www.actfl.org/files/public/execsumm.pdf • Omaggio Hadley, A. (2001). Teaching Language in Context. Boston : Heinle & Heinle. • Shrum, J. & Glisan, E. (2005). Teacher’s Handbook: Contextualized Language Instruction. Boston : Heinle & Heinle. Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook

15. By the Book and Beyond -Examples • Family • The German ‘WG’ • Transportation/Environment • Fairy Tales: Biermann • Health/Sickness • Worksheet • Text Teaching Culture by the Textbook and Beyond the Textbook