teaching culture in the digital millennium

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teaching culture in the digital millennium

• robert l. davis
• university of oregon
• romance languages

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language teaching in the 21st century

• national standards
• technology (internet, telecommunications, etc.)
• advanced proficiency
• authentic assessments
• second language acquisition research

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Five erroneous ideas

• 1. Thats how I learned it...
• One has to be open to new methods, techniques,
  and research results.

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Five erroneous ideas

• 2. Mechanical exercises help to master grammar
• Mechanical exercise no attention to the meaning
  of the utterances
• declarative knowledge (explicit)
• procedural knowledge (implicit)

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Five erroneous ideas

• 3. Explicit language instruction is necessary.
• NO, but it is better than a natural environment
  because we can guide students, provide summaries
• In sum, its more efficient for adults

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Five erroneous ideas

• 4. L1 is the source of all errors
• Tranfser is only a limited source of L2 errors
• Production strategy when task is far above
  existing proficiency

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Five erroneous ideas

• 5. Acquisition takes place through paradigms
• Human beings dont organize linguistic knowledge
  in paradigms
• Good for summaries and organizing information

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Important concepts

• Comprehensible input
• Mechanical ? meaningful ? communicative exercises
  ?
• Causes of errors
• The role of instruction
• Orders of acquisition (What features are learned
  first?)
• Stages of development of the L2 interlanguage
  (What happens with a specific language feature?)

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national standards for languages

• 1. Communication Communicate in Languages Other
  Than English
• 2. Cultures Gain Knowledge and Understanding of
  Other Cultures
• Standard 2.1 Students demonstrate an
  understanding of the relationship between the
  practices and perspectives of the culture
  studied.
• Standard 2.2 Students demonstrate an
  understanding of the relationship between the
  products and perspectives of the culture studied.
• 3. Connections Connect with Other Disciplines
  and Acquire Information
• Standard 3.2 Students acquire information and
  recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are
  only available through the foreign language and
  its cultures.
• 4. Comparisons Develop Insight into the Nature
  of Language and Culture
• Standard 4.2 Students demonstrate understanding
  of the concept of culture through comparisons of
  the cultures studied and their own.
• 5. Communities Participate in Multilingual
  Communities at Home Around the World

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technology

• internet (web, chat, Blackboard, etc.)
• telecommunications
• cd rom
• video, dvd
• etc.
• (but dont forget pencil, paper, overhead, ...)

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advanced proficiency

• Functions
• narrating in all time frames (present and future
  near 100, past is still emerging)
• descriptions
• comparisons
• asking questions
• stating preferences
• state opinions, support with basic facts

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text type
quantity and organization of output

• extended discourse
• paragraphs
• organized sentences
• sentences
• words and phrases

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research threads

• Learners must have rich, comprehensible L2 input.
• Learners must focus explicit attention on certain
  language features.
• Learners bring to the acquisition process
  preconceived notions and beliefs about language
  and language acquisition.
• Teachers bring to the language classroom
  preconceived notions and beliefs about language
  and language acquisition. These beliefs are often
  implicit and at odds with teachers expressed
  beliefs.

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research threads 2

• C2 is acquired in predetermined stages, in a
  similar fashion to L2 acquisition.
• Authentic materials are rich in linguistic and
  cultural signs that can be read and processed,
  serving as input for cultural acquisition.
• Learner motivation and goals play an important
  role in the acquisition process.

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content-based instructioncomplete integration of
language and content

• a curriculum based on subject-matter content
• not forms, functions, situations, or skills
• use of authentic language and texts
• core material should be texts, videos, etc., made
  by and for native speakers for authentic
  cultural/social purposes
• instruction takes into account learner
  characteristics
• cognitive and linguistic levels
• affective and academic/profesional needs
• personal interests

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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

Teachers using NCBI report higher motivation
among their students. For most students, it is
more interesting to talk about sports, music, and
history than adjective agreement and non-past
verbs.
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

Tailoring content to learners age group avoids
overtaxing young learners with too much analysis
and annoying adults with babyish simplicity.
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

Having to mediate new content in a second
language encourages the higher-order skills of
pattern recognition, inference, guessing from
context, etc.
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

CBI teaches students concrete information from
the various content areas covered, building
overall real-world knowledge.
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

Learners gain concrete skills while engaged in
CBI learning activitiese.g. map reading in a
geography lesson, or computer literacy in
developing a web site on a cultural topic
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

CBI has been shown to assist in developing L2
proficiency. Also, familiar content areas serve
as islands or resting places from which
students can branch out into new areas.
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why cbi?

• motivation
• age appropriateness
• cognitive gains
• knowledge gains
• skill gains
• proficiency gains
• real-world connection

The focus on real-world content allows CBI to
facilitate students successful transition out of
the school environment, to the next steps
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What is culture?

• Informational culture (facts)
• Cultural achievements/monuments (Culture)
• Hearthstone (culture)
• Feel-good topics affective connection
• Culture-specific behaviors
• Thinking like a native

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Teaching culture with texts

• reading is not just decoding
• reading is a psychological guessing game
• background knowledge and schemata are crucial to
  comprehension

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Teaching culture with texts lesson

• thinking (students engage in pre-reading
  activities to establish a C1 frame of reference)
• looking (first exposure to authentic document
  global meaning)
• learning (examine cross-cultural contrasts, form
  or test hypotheses, search for details)
• integrating (reflect on what was read, look for
  additional information in other documents to
  confirm or reformulate ideas)