Teaching with a Culture in mind

Goals of Cultural Instruction
~ to help students develop an understanding for the fact that all people exhibit culturally conditioned behavior;
~ develop an understanding of social variables (age, sex, social class and place of residence ) influence the way people speak and behave;
~ for students to master conventional behavior in common situations of the target culture;
~ to increase awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language (e.g. ‘three square meals a day’; why немцы?);
~ to develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture;
~ to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to encourage empathy towards people.

ARTEFACTS = CULTURAL PRODUCTS
Students become more confident if the activities are based on realia ( souvenirs, cartoons, travelogues, money, photographs, newspapers, news – radio and TV, stamps). They have the advantage of being actual physical objects to work with - currency deals, front page features, headlines, poems; stamp collections: postage stamps are a form of advertising and show the best aspects of a product (What does this country seem to believe is its most important industry, product or scene (same with money); today’s TV schedule, which can be used to increase awareness of the type of TV programme broadcast in the UK/US, to compare them with those in the student’s own country, to practice deducing info.

NEWSPAPER PROGRAMMES

HELP WANTED TASKSHEET

HOUSING AVAILABLE
~ types;
~ sizes (number of rooms, total area);
~ price;
~types of heating;
~ other info (What is an American cottage in Russia?)

WHAT MAKES YOU ELIGIBLE?
?

ПРИЕЗЖАЙТЕ НА ДАЧУ…

‘GARDEN’ CONCEPT

WHAT MAKES IT A DISASTER?

Examining patterns of everyday life
To sum up…This refers to concepts of such culturally related themes as family, home...: here we should refer agony aunt’s letters, dating customs (2), ads of the ‘Help wanted’ type (3); holiday photographs, ads about housing available (to increase awareness about the variety, size, structure, and related features of housing in the UK and the US, to practice deducing factual info from newspaper ads (4)); working with generalizations about the target culture (as a home assignment, students can be asked to prepare a brief written report, summarizing the evidence which confirms, contradicts or modifies one or several statements (5) (it is a good testing format); The home I grew up in – to increase awareness of the fact that culture plays a role in how people define and create their homes and organize use of them (6); Which would you like to do – to increase awareness of leisure activity options in the UK/US, to practice deducing info from ads (7).

Generalizations
Most start dating at the age of 12;
The bill in restaurants includes service charge;
Shopping means going to the supermarket once a week;
It is polite to ask questions about salary;
People who walk their dogs in public are required to clean after them;
‘Thank you’ – is a way to react to compliments.

Exploiting Realia

What is this?

EARLY, ON TIME OR LATE?
a) a business meeting;
b) a school exam;
c) a concert;
d) a date;
e) a job interview;
f) a meeting with a friend;
g) a film;
h) a graduation ceremony;
i) a dinner party;
j) a class;
k) a wedding;
l) a play.

STUDY OF SYMBOLS

Recognizing cultural images and symbols
Here anything can be exploited (up to surrounding sounds, nickname matches, exploiting song lyrics, guessing people, odd one out (not belonging to this culture), postcard matches, rogues gallery or the top ten (Who’s the most famous: monarch/President, politician, General, poet, writer, actor/actress, criminal, sports person; scientist/inventor; artist, singer, etc.);
ten word stories – selecting culture-related words you’d like to revise: e.g. for America it would be black, white, successful, Oscar, mother, car...

SIGNAL OF A PARTY GETTING A LITTLE BIT TOO WILD…
?

PAINTINGS AND FOLKLORE

Culturally conditioned connotations

Culturally conditioned connotations

EXPLOITING ATTITUDES AND VALUES
Trap words (clichés which might have a culturally conditioned hidden layer of meaning, should also be exploited (Br.: How are you? Let’s have lunch some time? Excuse me?! Russian.:Нужна мне ваша ваза! Да нет…Здравствуйте, я ваша тетя! Счас!).