Hi class,
Do you all think that in reality we can and should combine language and culture teaching or rather is it better to separate the two as suggested in the Moran article? If you're for the unity idea, why and can you give an example of where the language and culture are equal components of a lesson or unit? If you're against it then why?
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3 comments:
I say YES to both. I think that a lot of the time it is easier to teach them separately, and because of limited time that is what will happen a lot. However, I really like the idea of combining language and culture too.
Even when taught separately, I think that we should help our students see vocabulary and grammar through the lens that native Spanish-speakers do. The obvious example is with the word "familia" and helping students to see what that means in Hispanic cultures.
But then on the combining notion, what if students just learned vocabulary on the family, but then they were assigned to do research on different aspects of the Hispanic idea of family. It's an obvious connection and not one that would be difficult to create. I also like to think that when creating contexts to teach linguistic elements, we should involve some aspect of culture. Why not? I think it would make it a lot more fun.
I agree with Sara. The amount of time we have to teach a class may burst the bubble of language and culture combination in teaching. I also agree with her idea of integrating a cultural theme in to the language practice. Other ideas of how we could integrate include:
1) Fill-in-the-blank narrations which reveal cultural aspects in the lives of native speakers instead of a wide array of simple example sentences.
2) Roleplay situations which focus on a language principle with a situation that goes a little bit deeper into a cultural theme.
ETC.
I know this is a really old post, but I didn't get the chance to comment on it earlier. I think that the two should be combined, but only when both elements are integral parts of the structure of the class. One cannot appear without explicit attention to the other. The question is, how does one teach "either, or" in a cultural unit? How does one actually implement this? What is the role of language instruction in a culture-based class? In a year-long course, would culture and grammar take alternate days, or how would that work? I think some of these theories need to be more prescriptive. Anyway, that's all.
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