Teaching Culture in the World Language Classroom

  Food and Cultural Identity At the end of our unit on food, students must create a video in which they teach their classmates how to cook something. They can choose to cook a dish that is from the country they are studying (each student studies one country over the second half of the semester), or they can choose a dish that they know how to make and enjoy. Regardless of which they choose to do, an important part of the video is explaining the cultural relevance of the dish. They can prepare cold cereal or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they have to put it in the context of U.S. food culture and explain its significance. The ICC goals for this unit are: Investigate : I can understand meal times and customs in my own country and in several Spanish-speaking countries, and why certain foods are eaten in some places but not in others. Interact : I can teach others how to make a dish of my choice (from my culture or a different one) and explain its cultural significance. For...

Go, Sebastien, Go This lesson is developed around the short video “Go, Sebastien, Go” and has at its core the goal of helping students reflect about their cultural identity while at the same time considering the diverse cultures of the U.S. and how we define citizenship. The video also contains many other relevant topics that we touch on as time allows, including racism and cyberbullying. Students in this example are novice low, but the lesson would be appropriate for any level of Spanish. Since the video is in English, the lesson can be used in a variety of courses, especially if the focus is on U.S. diversity, identity and citizenship. This lesson comes at the end of a unit I teach in which the cultural focus is Hispanics in the United States. Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) and Intercultural Citizenship are goals of this course, so the lesson is intentionally designed to help students reflect on their own culture as they challenge pre-conceived ideas (especially about...