I
would define culture as the actions, expressions and beliefs of a group of
people. This goes further, however because I will need to define all of these
words in relation to culture. The actions of people include the way that they
celebrate their traditions and perform their every day tasks. The expressions
of these people are ways that the people demonstrate what they believe or what
they have been taught by their ancestors. The beliefs aspect corresponds to the
expressions, but have to do with their religion or cultural ideals. I think
that all these ideas make up the definition of culture, along with the
influence of the language in a culture.
I
think that it is important to teach the target culture simply because it is an
integral part of the target language.
There is no culture without language, nor language without culture. They are internally connected and
cannot really be separated. For
instance, when a student learns a word, phrase or expression that is unusual to
them, they are referencing it from their own target culture, but that student
looked at it from a target cultural standpoint, they could understand the
significance in the context of the target language. Clearly, there is no way to truly separate language and
culture. This means that when we
want our students to learn a foreign language, it is highly important and
necessary to teach the target culture as well.
I
think that everyone would agree with me if I said that the best way to teach
the target language is in the place where it is spoken, but this is not
possible when thinking about teaching High School students. The financial limitations are
essentially the biggest problem that a foreign language teacher has to face
when trying to teach culture. A
teacher cannot simply bring the students to the target culture, so they need to
try their best to bring the culture to the classroom. If students can walk into a foreign language classroom and
feel that they are truly in another culture, then a foreign language teacher
has moved the culture to the students.
Students need to hear the sounds of the culture (the language) through
people communicating and music. If
they can become aware of practices and beliefs and address these concerns in
the target language, they are truly in the target culture.
Culture
cannot be learned or taught directly, but students can become aware of culture
through occurrences in the classroom.
A teacher cannot simply sit the students down and say, “This is Spanish
culture”. Culture is more of an
experiential learning than anything else.
I think that allowing students to understand the target culture is key
to infusing culture in the curriculum.
I like that you said that culture wouldn't exist without langauge and langauge wouldn't exist without culture. I don't know that many people think of it this way and I think it would be very interesting to present it to students this way. You could even have students think about this question in their native language so that they could later compare it to that of the target language. For example, in the north we say "wicked" and they don't do that anywhere else. In a sense that is part of northern culture. The same goes for certain Spanish speaking countires. Many students don't think about things like this unless you point it out.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that culture and language are inherently combined. Not only do students need to understand this when they are learning about culture, even just learning colloquial phrases, but they need to separate their own culture from that of the new one. While I think that comparisons can be good to help students understand, they also need to realize that there will be points where there is no near comparison, like when students expect there to be the perfect translation for something. For example, its raining cats and dogs would never translate over into Spanish in the same way. They would just think that we are crazy!
ReplyDeleteI also really liked when you said there is no culture without language nor language without culture. It's true - we say certain things, think certain thoughts, and act certain ways because of the ways in which our native culture is engrained in us. Language and culture go hand in hand, so it is very important for students learning a language to learn the culture right along with it.
ReplyDeleteI like you point that a teacher cannot simply say "this is Spanish culture" because as we Spanish speakers know, there is more than one "Spanish language," let alone more than one "Spanish culture." Spain becomes an excellent example for this because it does have more than one prominent language, which in turn definitely lends itself to more than one prominent culture. The culture and language in Madrid are very different than the culture and language in Barcelona, which are very different from the culture and language in Santiago, Galicia.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, culture is more of an experience rather than second-hand information. In high school, I went on a week long "vacation" to Spain as part of a cultural trip that my school set up and that was when I really fell in love with the language and the culture. It's too bad everyone can't have that opportunity to experience another lifestyle and culture because I think it would make others more aware of the way other people live and perhaps that would develop a deeper appreciation for it. But the best we can do is to bring the culture into the classroom as much as we can and make that environment authentic so students can get a taste of the culture without leaving the room.
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