Teaching+Culture

//Post ideas for engaging students in exploring the relationships between cultural products, practices, and perspectives here.//

=Guiding Questions=
 * What is culture?
 * Why is it important to embed culture in second language lessons?
 * How might teachers design opportunities for students to experience and explore culture in meaningful ways that develop students' proficiency in Spanish? [|Annenberg - El triángulo cultural]
 * How might teachers guard against reinforcing stereotypes and prejudices when teaching culture?
 * How might teachers assist students in recognizing the diversity that exists within the target culture (i.e., avoid overgeneralizations)?

=**Principles**=



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 * **Activate Prior Knowledge & Experiences -**Build on what students already know about their own culture to help them understand cultural ideas and practices that are new to them. Start locally and then build (i.e., self, families, communities, nations). Teach them that they have a culture (i.e., how would they respond to the idea of eating chicken soup on Thanksgiving?)
 * [|101 Characteristics of Americans/American Culture]
 * **Allow the Culture to Speak for Itself -**
 * **//Interaction/Participation// -** Provide students with multiple opportunities to interact with the target culture (through exposure to culturally authentic artifacts and materials, native speakers, opportunities to view and participate in culturally authentic practices, community events, etc.).
 * **//Evaluation// -** Assist students in evaluating the accuracy, authenticity, authority, credibility, and coverage of the cultural information they encounter.
 * **//Interpretation// -**Teach students to generate a variety of alternative hypotheses about the meaning of the cultural information they encounter and to base their final interpretations on sound reasoning and evidence (as opposed to emotional reactions or hearsay).
 * [|Civilisation Français]
 * [|Taller Hispano]
 * **Avoid Stereotypes**- Purposefully provide counterexamples to stereotypes and over-generalizations. Try to avoid absolutes (i.e. "All French people . . . ."), "othering" (objectifying the other culture or separating "US" from "THEM," often with the intent to criticize or pass value judgments), "exoticizing" (i.e., emphasizing only what grabs attention or will be perceived as strange or weird by students), "trivializing" (i.e., presenting only what is quaint or silly) or "political bias." You can "type" without "stereotyping."
 * [|Amish Paradise]
 * **Compare, Don't Just Contrast**- Present both similarities and differences between the target culture and the dominant culture of your students (i.e., refrain from "othering" the target culture by emphasizing solely the differences).
 * [|American Culture & American Diversity] (See pp. 41-56 for great activities that help students explore cultural perspectives)
 * [|Cultural Venn Diagram]
 * [|Pre-departure Orientation for Chinese Students (Chart)]
 * **Critically Evaluate Texts** - Consider the cultural content (or lack thereof) embedded in the texts you choose to use
 * **Elicit & Challenge Incomplete or Mistaken Information**- Uncover students' mental models about culture by giving them opportunities to talk about their own culture. Address their misconceptions respectfully. Offer students multiple examples/representations of the phenomena under study so they can see the diversity that exists within the target culture. Be sure to address both "big C and little c" culture.
 * [|Barbara Snyder's Culture Clashes]
 * We & They by Rudyard Kipling ([|Poem], [|YouTube Reading])
 * **Embed Culture in EVERY Activity**
 * [[file:Cultural Circumlocution Pairs.doc]]
 * [[file:Culturally Authentic Realia Mixer.pdf]]
 * [[file:Culture Hear-Circle Arabic ST.pdf]]
 * [[file:Culture Capsule Rubric Template-BYU.doc]]
 * [[file:Examining Foreign Currency.doc]]
 * [[file:The Scoop on School-BYU.doc]]
 * [[file:Listening Grid Activities Arabic ST.doc]]
 * **Frame the Culture Positively** - Encourage students to avoid value judgments (i.e., "different," not "better," "worse," "stupid," or "weird"). Speak about the culture as though a native speaker were standing in the room--honestly, openly, but respectfully.
 * **Highlight Connections & Relationships** - Focus on the //relationships// between products, practices, and perspectives in the target culture rather than considering each one separately and in isolation.
 * **"Make the Familiar Strange" -** Encourage students to examine their own culture from the perspective of an "outsider."
 * **"Normalize" the Target Culture -** Use culturally authentic images and materials on a regular basis. Try not to "frame" or "teach" the culture as something that needs to be separated or "pulled out" each time (from Deanna Mihalyi)
 * **Prioritize Perspectives**- Encourage students to examine how the beliefs, values, historical events, and physical conditions of the culture influence the logic behind what and how people do things.
 * [|American Culture & American Diversity] (See pp. 41-56 for great activities that help students explore cultural perspectives)

See Culture Connection for culturally authentic materials in Spanish

=General Cultural Resources= //Post high quality texts in// //Spanish/Portuguese// //that could serve as the foundation for a lesson or project here.//

- Blog by Zachary Jones with links to materials in Spanish that reflect popular culture

 - Links to advertisements from around the world

- A Ning community that contains links to a blog and podcasts re: Brazilians living in the U.S.

- Extensive library of digital texts (including children's literature and museums) from Colombia

[|Broadcast Live] - A collection of links to newspapers, radio, and TV from countries around the world. You can filter them by country, language, topic, or type of media



[|Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon] - A database of culturally authentic Creative Commons images, organized by language and topic user:chericem1

[|Culture-based websites in Spanish (from Glencoe)]

- Searchable collection of videos in hundreds of languages from around the world. Choose the 100% option in order to get a subtitled version of the video. You can also select the "country" tab to find videos from a specific country.

- Very nice collection of Spanish & Latin American literature (navigation on the left)

- Searchable database of language maintenance/proficiency development lessons (reading and listening) in a wide variety of languages. Allows you to limit the search to video-based lessons. Click on the individual links to launch the lesson modules

- A site containing a host of infographics on topics like health and social issues

- Children's picture books online - search for your language

[|Juvenile Books in Spanish (at the Harold B. Lee Library)] - Lists of the children's picture books currently available for check-out from the collection (organized by year of publication)

- Check out CDs of music, content materials, [|culture kits], flags, and/or maps from the [|Outreach Resource Library] at BYU's Kennedy Center for free. The Center can also help you schedule [|free presentations] for your classroom regarding specific countries. You may also wish to explore their [|CultureGuides]--conuntry-specific teaching units for both elementary and secondary classes

- Latin American Network Information Center - Extensive list of texts in Spanish & Portuguese (organized by country)

- Interactive map with legends and folktales from around the world--many available in different languages

- Over 1,000 TV stations, organized by countries from around the world (available as streaming video)

- List of audio courses and podcasts in a variety of languages, including Spanish & Portuguese

media type="custom" key="5720883" [|Playlist.com] - Create customizable playlists of music that you can screen (and post on a wiki or a website) and that students can listen to and control in a pop-out player

[|Quino] - Site in Argentina containing Quino comics & Mafalda videos

- Searchable database with links to faculty-reviewed, culturally authentic images, media, and materials from multiple countries

[|Resources for Student Learning: Finding, Evaluating, & Using Culturally Authentic Materials - Part 1] - This electronic newsletter from the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center will connect you to a wide variety of culturally authentic materials, will assist you in evaluating them for use in your classes, and will provide you with links to examples for ways they can be used to support learning in a variety of languages user:chericem1

[|Resources for Student Learning: Finding, Evaluating, & Using Culturally Authentic Materials - Part 2] - This electronic newsletter from the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center focuses on practical ways to use the culturally authentic materials and resources that you find to better support language learning user:chericem1

[|School for Scandal] - This interesting article from the Urban Legends Reference Pages is useful for considering issues related to teaching about culturally authentic practices may be perceived from multiple perspectives

- Excellent grammar practice activities based on culturally authentic multimedia materials

[|Teaching Foreign Languages Video Library] - Videos of lessons taught entirely in different target languages, organized by topic - most of them are grounded in culture

[|Teaching Foreign Languages Video Organizer] - Videos of lessons taught entirely in different target languages, organized by grade level, performance level, National Standards, and teaching strategies.

- Extensive list of resources for Spanish literature and linguistics

- Links to sites related to literature in Spanish & Portuguese

..EDU - Search for educational videos in Spanish


 * [|Depende] (4:28 – Spanish – Video based on art that plays with perspective – would be a great foundation for launching a discussion re: the pros/cons of Spanglish)
 * [|Don Quixote de la Mancha] (“translated” into Spanglish)
 * [|The Job] (3:00 – English - Parody)
 * [|Mujeres migrantes] (3:23 – Spanish – Ad re: problems faced by women who are migrants)
 * [|Manu Chao - Clandestino Clip Inmigrantes] (3:01 – Music video)
 * [|Los prejuicios contra los inmigrantes] (:31 – Spanish – Public Service Announcement)
 * [|Spanglish 2] (4:28 – Spanish & English - Movie clip that would be excellent for Translation classes)

Culturally Authentic Realia - Links to several websites that may be useful

=Culture-related Lesson Plans & Materials=

Spanish
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