Culture in the L2 Classroom

Issues Marianna: Lyricstraining Defining culture Representations of culture Activities/technologies Online cultures

Lyricstraining

Discussion Please login to the Google group, and

find the appropriate discussion thread (by name).

Respond to the prompt, read your classmates’ responses, and discuss.

goo.gl/9jhy9

Key terms Culture (capital C): literature, art,

music culture (lower-case c) people’s

attitudes, beliefs, values. Identifies groups. (groups are permeable – we belong to many groups….)

Culture in LL Cultural descriptions can fall into being

essentialist and reductive (Holliday, Hyde & Kullman, 2010).

Reductive – reduced culture to simple causes.

Essentialist – see handout

Discussion Think of a time you have learned about

another language or culture. What were some of the elements of essentialist descriptions of the culture?

How did your views of the language/culture change as you became more familiar with the community?

Cultural representations

Cultural representations What can we see in textbooks/teaching

materials?

What can we get through online materials?

What do we gain through interacting with individuals?

Online cultures Online communities not the same as an

in-person community or cultural group. Learners may (or may not) feel

comfortable using social tools (e.g., forums, CMC, etc.)

Teachers create artificial approximation of inter-cultural exchange or allow learners to explore?

Activity Develop (in pairs) a teaching activity

that can help learners understand an area of the target culture(s) from a non-essentialist point of view.

Use either online materials or CMC or a combination to help facilitate the activity.

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