In my opinion, culture is everything about a people or a country that makes them unique and similar to another people: food, clothing, religious beliefs, money, music, stories, history, art, values, ethics, laws, behavior, and more things that can't be seen or really defined well. In my FREN 790 class, we've been talking about foreign culture with the metaphor of an iceberg. Everything above the surface (10%) is the visible aspects of a culture, like how they dress or the music they listen to. Everything below the surface (90%) is the non-visible part of the culture, like values, beliefs, ethics and morals. One example that is that when visiting someone in their home in France, you will not be given a tour of their home. In fact, you may only see the entry way and the dining or living room. For Americans, that is really weird and rather stand-offish, but the unseen part of the French culture is the importance they place on private and personal space.
It is incredibly important to teach culture alongside the language. Without the knowledge of even the aspects of culture from the tip of the iceberg, let along a glimpse of the bottom parts, a student would be learning words and concepts with no meaning behind them. In addition, if a student went to a country where the L2 was spoken without knowing even a small information about the culture, they would invariably become lost and confused and in all likelihood would offend someone or multiple someones.
The difficulty is how to teach a culture in the classroom setting. In my own L2 experiences, culture topics are usually best introduced through an authentic film or reading that incorporates the aspect of culture. For example, in my high school French classes, we watched Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, a set of films about small town provincial France and the farming communities there. In the films, we got to see what the country side looked like and how they dressed and lived there. In addition, we learned something about the French culture that can be very hard for Americans to come to terms with: they eat bunny rabbits. In fact, the raise and breed them much like we do chickens. It isn't a deep non-visible aspect of culture, but nonetheless it is an important one. Having been to France with this knowledge, I was not surprised, disgusted or taken aback when I saw "lapin" on a menu in a restaurant.
It is much easier to teach the "little culture" aspects than it is to teach the deep invisible underlying "why" culture aspects. I believe that when students are shown and taught the smaller more visible aspects, and when they have more knowledge and experience with the language and its history, they will inevitably ask "why" something is the way it is, which can lead to a good discussion about the deeper aspects of the culture. That isn't to say that the culture should be taught in a cheap, touristy way, with outlandish parties and weird food, but by exposing students to different parts of daily life in that culture, including food, holidays, school, transportation, etc.
After being in France for a whole year, there must have been a lot you learned about French culture that you still hadn't been prepared for. Was there anything that took you by surprised or did you ever feel that sense of culture shock during your time abroad?
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely true that it is much easier to teach the "little culture" lessons as opposed to the underlying "why" lessons. I think this is why most teachers gives all of the "little culture" lessons and then tell their students that the rest will have to be experienced while they're there. I find that this is true anyway, because talking about something will never be as representative as actually seeing it.
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ReplyDeleteI like the analogy of the iceberg, because it is very true, the surface culture is easy for students to learn, but it is the aspects of culture below the surface that are really important to understand. I hated how on a trip to the Dominican Republic at my last college my classmates saw open air markets as less civilized and thought that is was gross how people had meat hanging up and fruits/vegetables on blankets on the floor. I wanted to tell them that this food was probably a 100 times fresher than any food they would find at a supermarket in NH where almost all the food is not organic, full of preservatives and is imported from far-away. Our meat is pre-packaged and made to look neat, but that doesn’t make it better than meat hanging up in an open air marketplace. My classmates felt bad for people living under these conditions, when they should not have felt sorry for them because supermarkets are not the only way that people get their food and farmer’s markets have become more popular in the past years because organic farm-fresh food is the way to go. In the Dominican Republic is common practice to eat goat or "chivo" and I liked the fact that my classmates were willing to try goat. It was funny that I had never known I was eating goat when I was growing up because I thought it was just beef, but it really is delicious. Little culture is very important and students should learn about things like open-air markets and that people do eat rabbit or goat on a daily basis.
I agree that instructors should start by teaching little aspects of culture as soon as the learner starts learning the language. Gradually, with the more language they learn, they will be able to ask why and learn even more. For example with holidays: beginner levels could discuss holidays as they occur during the calender year and just cover the current and simple basics. Then as learners achieve a higher level of proficiency, teach the holiday by explaining why they celebrate the holiday as they do and the history behind it.
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