Teaching for Cultural Awareness Presentation by Dr. Christiane Gautier University of California, Santa Cruz STARTALK 2009 Berkeley Teacher Program University of California, Berkeley August 7, 2009 Learning a Foreign Language - Not just about learning a new linguistic code (“what”)
- Learning "how, when, and why to say what to whom.”
- Language/communication does not occur in a vacuum. => Culture provides the context within which communication occurs.
- Language and culture CANNOT be separated.
- Q: Why is it challenging for us to teach “culture”?
- Lack of agreement about what “culture” means as it involves several fields of study; our own definition(s) of “culture” are not always clear.
- Even if we are native speakers, we are not sure of what to teach! (As a Mandarin teacher, which/whose “Chinese culture” do I teach?)
- We are not always sure of when to teach it!
- We are not always sure of how to teach it!
Culture / Challenges - Q: Why is it challenging for us to teach “culture”? (cont’d)
- We don’t have enough time to teach culture. We have too many other important things to teach. “I’ll do it later!”
- Our own lack of cultural knowledge; we fear that we don’t know enough.
- It may be uncomfortable at times since it involves dealing with students’ stereotypes about the target culture, and/or students’ ethnocentric views, or possible negative beliefs/attitudes, etc.
- Culture is multifaceted and changes over time.
Culture / Definition - Q: How would you define “culture”?
- “Culture is the logic by which I give order to the world. Part of this logic is ‘tacit, invisible,’ it is ‘everything that goes without saying.’ ” Carroll, Raymonde (1988)
- “[...] culture learning, whether it occurs in a foreign language or second language context, inside or outside the classroom, with or without teachers, through books or through people, is best seen as a lived experience, as a personal encounter with another way of life.” Moran, Patrick (2001:3)
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