Teaching Culture Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is the difference between culture specific learning and culture general learning?
Culture-specific:
acquisition of knowledge and skills relevant to a given target culture
Culture-general:
knowledge and skills that can be applied to a variety of cultures
concept of culture, cultural adjustment, impact of culture on communication, etc.
How has the concept of culture learning changed over the years?
Earlier models of (1970’s) saw culture as static and composed of teachable and learnable “facts”
More recent models see culture as dynamic and variable, constantly being reconstructed by human interaction and communication
What are the three elements to consider when discussing communicative competence?
Linguistics, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics
Who first presented the concept of culture shock?
Kalavero Oberg 1954
According to Oberg, what are the four stages of culture shock?
- Honeymoon stage: fascination with the new
- Hostility stage: hostility towards the target culture. Grows out of genuine difficulty faced by the visitor
- Superiority stage: Visitor takes a superior attitude towards the target culture
- Acceptance stage: visitor accepts the customs of the country as just another way of living.
What is a cultural mini-drama according to Seeley?`
3-5 brief episodes, each of which contain one or more examples of miscommunication. Additional information is made available with each episode, but the precise cause of the misunderstanding does not become apparent until the last scene. Each episode is followed by a discussion led by the teacher.
Six instructional goals of teaching culture by Seeley are:
- Interest: student shows curiosity
- Who: student recognizes that role expectations and other social variables affect how people speak and behave
- What: Student recognizes the importance of products and practices in understanding a culture
- Where and When: Student understands the importance of pragmatics in communicating in another language
- Why: Student understands that perspectives affect how people behave
- Exploration: Student can evaluate a generalization about a culture based on the evidence supporting itT
What are the Value Dimensions: Perspective of Self and Others as presented by Galloway?
Universalist vs. Particularist Individualism vs. Communitarism Neutral vs. Emotional (Affective) Specific vs. Diffuse Achievement vs. Ascription
What are the phases of culture shock according to Seeley?
- Denial
- Defense
- Minimization
- Acceptance
- Adaptation
- Integration
What are the strong and weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?
Strong: Language greatly determines how a person thinks
Weak: Language has a certain influence, but does not determine how someone thinks.
What are Culture, culture, and kulture?
Culture: fine arts/history
culture: everyday sociological elements
kulture: stereotypes and exaggerations
(coined by Nelson Brooks)
What are some of the advantages of using Mass Media in the FL classroom?
They’re authentic.
Helps dispel stereotypes
What are the levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Starting from the bottom of the pyramid:
- Biological and Physiological
- Safety Needs
- Belongingness and Love needs
- Esteem Needs (desire for strength and reputation)
- Cognitive Needs
- Aesthetic Nedds
- Self-actualisation
- Transcendence (Helping others)
What does Maslow’s hierarchy of needs have to do with culture?
Every culture satisfies people’s needs in a different way.
What’s the difference between universal behavior, cultural behavior and personal behavior?
Universal behavior: How all groups of people act in general
Cultural behavior: What people in one specific group have in common; how groups differ from each other
Personal behavior: How we are different
What are learner variables when teaching culture?
- What the student brings with them
- Motivation
- Attitude
What are teacher variables when teaching culture?
- Goals
- Priorities
- Concerns
- Knowledge of target culture
- Perspectives
What are Moore’s 4 instructional methods for the teaching of culture that are typically used? (an argument for why we need objectives)
- By the way (unplanned)
- Frankenstein (unrelated bits of info that produces a distorted image)
- Tour guide (Present Culture)
- Multicultural day (4 F’s :festival, food, folk dance, fairs
What are different methods of assessing culture knowledge or cultural gains?
- Portfolio
- Cultural simulations
- Visual test (identify pictures from the TC)
- Audio test (listen and identify where it came from
- Tactile test (students are given something from the target culture and they have to use it appropriately)
According to Seeley, how can you assess cultural attitudes?
- Social distance scale
- Semantic differential
- Checklist
- Forced-choiced
What does Damen say are four things we should consider when evaluating culture in a textbook?
- Text
- Communicator (teacher)
- Context (type of language learning experience/classroom)
- Client (student)
What are the different types of student textbooks
- Traditional: focus on linguistic skills; culture is implicit but peripheral
- Communicative: situational, culture and communication are the primary focus; heavy emphasis on oral skills
- Supplemental: focus on idioms, language use and specific functions
- Cultural linguistic: a)thematic: universal vs specific, b)developmental: accultural vs intercultural communicative, c) Eclectic: mixture of cultural and developmental
What does one need to be a “global teacher”?
- Multiple perspectives
- Reflective cycles
- Ethnography
- Metacognition
- Technology
What does one need to be a “global student”?
- Contact with target culture
- Exposure to authentic cultural products and interactions
- Interactions in the target language
- Reflections on interactions with target cultre
