DEVELOPING AN AWARENESS OF CULTURE AND INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

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DEVELOPING AN AWARENESS OF CULTURE AND
INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

• Dr. Nalini Boodhoo
• School of Education and Lifelong Learning
• University of East Anglia

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ICE BREAKER

• TELL US WHICH SCHOOL YOURE FROM, YOUR NAME AND
  SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR NAME.

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Aims of the day

• to enable participants to reflect on their own
  views of culture
• to explore a definition of culture and introduce
  models of culture
• to reflect on cultural and social identities
• to explore intercultural understanding and the
  KS2 Languages Framework

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Culture

• Write a phrase or sentence to describe your
  understanding or definition of culture.

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Social Identity Theory

• One approach to analysing how we understand
  others
• The study of how different social groups
  interact with each other the origins of the
  development of this theory lie in attempts to
  explain how minority groups are treated by
  majority groups.

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QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT /OF OUR LEARNERS

• What beliefs might pupils have about a country
  and nations where another language is spoken?
• Where do these beliefs come from?

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• Learners do hold stereotypes about life and
  people.
• Some are negative stereotypes and caricatures -
  other may be positive (yet still caricatures)
• Teachers need to have
• an awareness of how stereotypes arise
• an awareness of how the process of categorizing
  of people functions
• in order to address stereotyping, promote
  understanding of our own
• identities and how others see us
• and
• appreciate how they relate to each other
• ? intercultural communicative competence

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AN INSIGHT INTO SOCIAL IDENTITY

• Complete the following sentences 4-6 times
  completing them with an adjective and a noun
  respectively
• I am . (complete with an adjective)
• I am a (complete with a noun)

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Social Identity Theory

• Shes a labour supporter not a Conservative.
• Shes Muslim not Christian
• Hes French not English.

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• Sometimes the degree to which ones membership
  of a social group or ones social identity is
  determined by other people is very evident. This
  is the case with all theories of racism for
  example (Ibid 19) anti Semitism, apartheid
  
• Irrespective of how much a sense of belonging
  is imposed against ones wishes or part of how
  one sees oneself, the significance of the
  contrast between groups is important (Ibid 19)

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• The characteristics of ones group as a whole
  achieve most of their significance in relation
  to perceived differences from other groups and
  the value connotations of these differences
  the definition of a group (national or racial or
  any other) makes no sense unless there are other
  groups around. (Tajifel, 1996 66)
• In what way might these perceived differences
  be important in the classroom with young
  learners?

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Some implications for Social Identity Theory and
Foreign Language Teaching

• What are the aims of foreign language teaching
  and what is the task of the language teacher?

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• There are a number of aims to FL teaching and
  learning
• -communication in a different language
• -interaction with people who
• speak a different language /are from a different
• country/ have a different culture /have different
• social identities
• -identify how values, beliefs and behaviour might
  be conditioned by certain social groups
• -identify how people see themselves as citizens
  of a country

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• The task of the language teacher may include
• helping learners understand themselves and how
  they see others
• enabling learners to see how their perceptions
  are influenced by categorisation, simplifications
  and stereotyping
• helping learners to understand how they conform
  to other peoples expectations and
  representations of themselves
• how they conform
• how they gain membership of certain social groups