Culture is actually really hard to define. It can be the overarching themes we all know such as literature, art, film, and food, but it can also be smaller stuff such as taking the transit system or going out to buy food at the grocery store. It is important to teach the tart language culture, because without that it may as well be Linguistics. You are learning a language and the point of language is that it is a human creation in which you can communicate thoughts and ideas. You are also not fully learning a language if you take the L2 and place it over the information you know of the L1. The same works for culture.
I think that it is definitely possible to teach culture in the classroom. With Latin, we would have units based around certain cultural practices such as how the markets worked or when a boy would exchange their toga praetexta for the toga libera (coming of age ceremony in Ancient Rome). We would also have projects such as cooking a roman traditional food and we would then have a feast of all the different foods. For Japanese, we would often go off on tangent about culture when we read of a scenario from the textbook. This was mainly because the book hadn't been updated from the 80's and our teacher would remind us that things had changed and would explain the cultural differences and what ha changed from the 80's. Also, in 401 we would also watch part of a documentary series called Japanland (which I highly recommend if any of your are remotely curious about Japanese culture) every thursday. In the higher classes, we would talk about more in-depth cultural ideas, and some problems that are caused by culture. Many times we would read an article and have a discussion about it.
I think that it's important to have culture based in the curriculum, just as important as grammar, actually. Learning a language is extremely boring otherwise and often you will not understand the language without learning the context it comes from.
I think that working a unit or lesson around an aspect of the target culture is a great idea! Then students can learn relevant vocabulary and history that can be meaningfully applied to learning and discussing culture. Though, as you demonstrated with the out of date Japanese reading, it is very important to have updated and relevant materials to work with.
ReplyDeleteI think there can still be value in the older materials. You can explain, as Kristin mentioned, how the culture has changed to become what it is currently. If someone learning English were to read something like Uncle Tom's Cabin, they would learn all about America's history with slavery, something that is still brought up in present-day debates about segregation and equal rights. Though the material that starts the conversation or lesson may be old, I think there is still much that it can teach about the development of its people through time.
ReplyDeleteTeaching the way culture changes over time, while your teacher did it by accident, is a great idea. It teaches both culture and history at the same time, and the two are very connected to each other. I also agree, the context of a language is just as important to language learning as grammar, reading, or anything else. Without context, the language loses much of its meaning.
ReplyDeleteI agree, language is a way to communicate thoughts and ideas, and these are influenced by culture. It is hard to understand how much culture really shapes our thoughts and ideas. Our perspective on life is directly related to the culture that we have grown up in. Culture is vital to understanding the language. The use of an authentic film from that country helps a lot and I liked that the most about my 632 Spanish class because we were able to watch a film made by a Spanish director, so the characters were not a stereotype of how an American director may wrongfully portray a Spanish-speaking character. Films show how language is actually used and can help explain cultural phenomena that could not be explained easily by a non-native speaker. I think discussion is vital and that it is never too early to have students do in-depth discussions about culture.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Kelly. Without an understanding about the culture of the language, it is hard to communicate your thoughts and ideas with native speakers. In the classroom, students typically only use the target language to describe their personal lives. So if learners are speaking with a native speaker, they wouldn't be able to hold an in depth conversation without the learner having some background knowledge of that culture.
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