Pamela Arraras's List: Virtual Backpacking

• The main exposure students had to the culture of the target language was through controlled interaction with native speakers in the classroom.
• Language & culture are more naturally integrated in this approach. Culture instruction is connected to grammar instruction. Its main goal is to teach students how to use the target language when communicating in a cultural context
• the following are other common approaches to teaching culture: (from Omaggio)
    
   
  1. The Frankenstein Approach: A taco from here, a flamenco dancer from there, a gaucho from here, a bullfight from there.
   
  2. The 4-F Approach: Folk dances, festivals, fairs and food.
   
  3. The Tour Guide Approach: The identification of monuments, rivers and cities.
   
  4. The "By-the-Way" Approach: Sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences.
   
• focusing a little more on similarities, instead of the differences, between cultures
• Latorre believes that focusing on differences instead of on the similarities contributes to people misunderstanding other cultures, often thinking that the foreign cultures are "exotic," perhaps more exotic than they actually are. What Latorre suggests that any teacher of any foreign language should do is focus on the “true differential, the language [itself], rather than enlarging beyond proportion attitudes and activities which are either regional, outdated, or downright non-existent” (672).
  
• one of the most important factors for success in learning a foreign language is the need for students to get involved in the learning process. The use of materials based on internet technologies offers many innovative ways of getting students involved in the process of learning a language. Students can get to know the target culture by means of interacting directly with native speakers via on-line communication, with mail exchanges or chatrooms.
• From her point of view, it is crucial that the students can learn not only the language but also the diversity of the target culture. That is why, according to her, internet resources, such as newspapers and magazines, have a great importance, since they provide students with authentic and current information that can help them understand the target culture. Reading on-line newspapers makes students aware of current social phenomena.
• According to Lee, recent studies have proved that internet resources can help students improve their language skills in a similar way to full immersion or study abroad, although are based basically on written communication. Besides, this use of on-line resources are more beneficial to students at the advanced level because they require a high level of language proficiency to read, comprehend, and respond to cultural readings, for example, newspapers.
• In H.H. Stern's breakthrough 1983 study "Fundamental concepts of language Teaching," there are concepts of day-to-day culture and customs that should be used in the classroom. Stern uses a four component model including a 'cultural syllabus' for culture teaching.
• The most important part of Stern's research involves his 3-level framework of foreign culture pedagogy: teaching social sciences, applying theory/research, and their practical applications in the classroom. In the 1990s, Stern's cultural/communication mix evolved from describing sociocultural contexts of second language/foreign language to contexts of competence in second culture acquisition (not just language acquisition). This is the first time that cultural pedagogy and social sciences had been paired.
• • Foreign language (FL) teachers should make culture more of a central role in the class
   
  • FL teachers should throw out teaching culture in terms of isolated facts
   
  • FL teachers should have an awareness of the past on the present within any culture without focusing too much on the past
   
  • FL teachers should be aware of cognitive and affective influences on the students
   
  • FL teachers should engage students as active participants
   
  • FL teachers should teach culture in such a way that students can be cross-cultural here and abroad
   
  • Given that the teacher’s assumptions about how language and lang learning affect how he or she teaches lang and culture, the approach should aim for communicative competence (that is, real communication)
• Tang discussed the use of performance-based theory developed by Walker (2000) who suggests that culture could be better taught if done through simulated social interactions in the classroom, for example hosting a guest or accepting a gift. This serves to create a “default memory” within the student's mind that will help him perform in the target culture without drawing conclusions or using as a reference his own base culture which could lead to misunderstandings.
• Tang also discourages the pure instruction of behavioral culture in the classroom and says that to perform effectively in a target culture one must not only be able to master it linguistically, be familiar with its artifacts, norms and rituals but also with the meaning system, or the hidden significance underlying these. This is why she believes that Walker's performance-based theory can only work properly if the true meaning system underlying the simulated situations and interations created in the classroom are internalized by the students.
• the Three P's, into three separate categories: cultural perspectives, cultural products, and cultural practices. Cultural perspectives are the values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions shared within a culture. Cultural products are things such as literature, music, art, or even utensils such as chopsticks; tangible items that are linked to a certain culture. Cultural practices are the acceptable behavioral patterns, forms of discourse, and rites of passage within a specific culture.
• the goals are that students "demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied," which means that we should encourage the students to understand why other cultures do what they do and what the members of that culture think about the reasons behind what they do. In addition, the students should come to an understanding of "the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied." This means that we should enlighten the students on what members of other cultures do and what these peoples' own opinions are about what they do. Moreover, culture should be starting point for all classroom education. In keeping with the 5 C's, culture is used to make comparisons and connections about communities and in doing so students can have meaningful communication within those communties.
• • According to Omaggio:
     
    1. Culture is complex and elusive and is difficult to include in linear instructional formats.
     
    2. Culture requires time that many teachers feel that do not have.
     
    3. Teachers avoid culture because of their own perceived lack of knowledge.
     
    4. Culture often requires both teacher and learner to move beyond their level of comfort when confronted with deeper, sometimes controversial issues.
     
    5. When teaching languages that are spoken in many different countries, e.g., Spanish, where are the cultural boundaries?
     
    6. Balancing Big C with Little C.
     
   
• Strategies, techniques, and tools for teaching culture in the classroom

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