Culture, history and traditions: THANKSGIVING

Hello, my readers!

On my contribution today, I would like to make you wonder about culture and all its implications within the SL classroom. From now on, I will refer both to high school and adult learners of English. It is cold this winter, please take a coffee and seat before meditating...

Are HISTORY and TRADITIONS important when TESL? What do we understand for CULTURE? Does it apply for one and only single COUNTRY? If so, WHERE should we choose it from?

So to calm down my readers after these universal questions, I have delicately done some reasearch and chosen the paper so called "Teaching culture in the 21st century language classroom". It was published by University of Nebraska and defends that:

"Research on teaching culture has shown that language and culture are closely related and are best acquired together. [...] The acquisition of a second language […] is also the acquisition of a second culture.” 

This being so, trying to avoid culture in our ESL would be a catastrophe that will damage our students' perception of the world and enhance their rejection towards other countries. 

Undoubtedly, teaching beyond language structures seems for me a engaging opportunity to "open wide" their mind scopes and appreciate different cultures whenever you have the opportunity, as a teacher, to keep your students in contact to foreign institutions or schools (English speakers, it does not really matter if you decide to communicate with students in Colombia who learn ESL or native English speakers from Scotland). 

Good real examples I have experimented myself in the ESL classroom are:

•  a videoconference session using the platform Skype to discuss about Hallowe'en differences between America and Europe; 
• sending e-mails / letters  to ask for recommendations for planning a trip or a recipe for preparing a British national meal.

Focusing on the "Lost in the States", I have created with the tool WordClouds a highly visual word map containing some of the essential vocabulary to be employed at the end of your Thanksgiving lesson in order to retell the historical events. However, this idea can be applied for several purposes such as: 

• a table of contents for introducing the involved characters and locations, you can establish a concrete order, in our case I did not choose it on purpose;
• a study helper;
• a tool for brainstorming during debates, showing the guide lines to follow;
• an opportunity to come upon synonyms and antonyms on online dictionaries as Theasaurus;
• teach them to generate their own "word clouds" easily not just with the previous tool mentioned (WordCloud) but also with the ones I have considered the best to handle by beginners: Wordle, and WordItOut.
• There are plenty of objectives that could be achieved from them, do not hesitate to contact me or comment this post if you can name some more!

CREATED BY SANDRA BACAICOA

References

• Dema, Oxana and Moeller, Aleidine Kramer, "Teaching culture in the 21st century language classroom" (2012). Faculty Publications: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education. Paper 181. 

My best New Year's wishes to you all!

Miss Bacaicoa