Teaching Culture

In my view, culture is the collection of beliefs, customs and arts of a particular society or group that contributes to the identity of that society or group. Things such as religion, perspectives, arts, literature, music, traditions and food all fall under these three categories. They are the three categories that essentially shape what a culture consists of. It is incredibly important to teach the culture of the target language so that students can best understand it and think about the other viewpoints or customs that this target culture might have. Teaching culture opens students up to new ideas and traditions and exposes them to things that they perhaps would have never had the chance to experience; since some students may not ever have the chance to study abroad and see the target culture for themselves, it is incredibly important to bring the culture to the students as much as we possibly can by incorporating it into lessons. It is definitely possible to teach culture in the classroom setting; some of the best experiences in my foreign languages classes that I can remember are the days when we would spend an entire class period on culture discussing festivals, foods, customs or the music of the target culture. Not only did it create a more relaxed atmosphere as we got to enjoy food, music and speaking the target language in a relaxed setting, but it encouraged students to ask questions about the customs or festivities that we were studying. Of course, relaxed culture courses like this cannot happen every day but I think incorporating classes such as these creates a great, relaxed atmosphere for students. The limitations of teaching culture are that students could perhaps be unwilling to accept the differences of customs and traditions of the target culture and may not take an interest in it; however, I believe that it is up to the teacher to create an interesting and interactive lesson incorporating the target culture into the foreign language classroom. Culture should be taught in a way that doesn't make it seem random to the lesson plan. I have had countless teachers who would simply throw in a song by Juanes or Shakira and mention that they were from Colombia and consider that their culture lesson, or just mention Dia de los Muertos around Halloween. In order to make the culture seem more appealing to the students, the teacher must make sure that the lesson is not random and is planned out well. One of my Spanish teachers in high school always made it a point to bring up cultural issues such as immigration or elections happening in a country that spoke the target language and asking us our viewpoints on it. That was one of the most effective ways of teaching culture and I think it is something that should definitely be incoporated into the classroom, especially at a higher level of the foreign language.