Effectiveness of Assessment

How accurately do you feel that classroom-based tests reflect student abilities? What are your experiences as a test-taker? Do you think there are students that do not test well? What method of testing do you think is most effective to measure students' language skills? Use examples to justify your point of view.

In my view, classroom testing only provides limited insight into a student's language abilities. From my admittedly limited teaching experience, I found that for the most part classroom testing seemed only to confirm what I already knew about my students. The students that were performing well in class did well on tests and vise versa with very few exceptions to that rule. I think this is especially true in lower level language courses, were tests also happen to occur more frequently as a measure of student skills. More often than not, I think classroom tests are used as a way of forcing students to demonstrate their abilities and knowledge in a high pressure situation. I think this is interesting given the amount of time we have devoted in class discussing how important a low anxiety environment is to facilitate successful language learning.

This is not to say that testing is entirely useless. I have given both short quizzes and large chapter tests in the classes I have taught and they were useful to me as a teacher because they provided me with a good way to know whether the class was understanding certain concepts and learning goals. A quiz especially gives a teacher a good benchmark to work from and allows him/her to adjust lesson plan accordingly, depending on the needs of the class. Larger tests can make a teacher aware of student needs as well, but since they usually come at the end of a chapter or unit, it can be difficult to backpedal and incorporate further practice while at the same time moving the class forward and on to more advanced concepts. 

End of unit or end of course projects can be an interesting alternative to traditional tests to measure language skills. A project tied to an oral and written component can serve well to measure a student's language skill when the teacher is clear about expectations. Since it is difficult to create "authentic" speaking activities in the context of a text, I see student projects/presentations in lieu of testing to be a good alternative. It provides a more authentic and meaningful context to measure the student's speaking skills. Ideally, my language classes would have a mixture of student projects/presentations and traditional tests. This approach would also cater to student needs and learning styles. Not every student, including myself, are good test takers and a teacher should provide ways for students to demonstrate their skills beyond a traditional test.

#7: Effectiveness of Assessment

How accurately do you feel that classroom-based tests reflect student abilities? What are your experiences as a test-taker? Do you think there are students that do not test well? What method of testing do you think is most effective to measure students' language skills? Use examples to justify your point of view.

I feel that all in all, tests do a reasonably good job in reflecting student's abilities, so long as they test all four skills, as well as the different elements of communicative competence, and not just reading and writing.  It is very important to include listening and speaking, as well as a cultural component into tests in oder to have a well rounded assessment of a student's abilities.  Our textbook provides examples of the "Hybrid Approach" to classroom testing, which I believe does a serviceable job combining these different elements and placing them into a "naturalized" context.  The test should mirror the format of classwork;  this provides another layer of schema for students because they are already familiar with the expectations and format of the test.

The same principles hold true for testing as they stand for teaching; the testing and development of FL skills require multiple smaller skills (the different competencies) and an authentic context.  The further that tests deviate from these principles, the less accurately they reflect student's abilities.  

Luckily, I am a good test taker;  I have never had a hard time taking exams regardless of their format, but I do believe that there are some students whose test scores do not accurately reflect their skills.  I think that for the most part, anxiety is the biggest factor in these student's test performances.  A student who allows the permanence of a test (the idea of a grade!) scare them into over-thinking and anxiety will have test scores that are probably much less proficient than their assignments (where they have more time and resources at their disposal) or in classwork, when it is unlikely that they are being graded.  

In my experience, the most important factor in my success in a test has been whether or not the expectations of the test were clearly defined by the instructor.  Above all, students need to know what to study, and how to study it in order to be successful.  This means that teachers must clearly define what subjects will be on the test, and in what format.  It is nearly impossible for a student to study all of the material—teachers can tell students what is the most important to know.  For example: "The test will cover everything you have learned up to now," or "Study chapters 5 and 6," are not sufficiently defined expectations for a test.  A better way to inform students would be "Please review the conjugations of all of the irregular verbs from chapter 6, there will be phrases to translate, also: reread the culture section, there will be related listening activities with true or false questions."  

Discussion #7: Foreign Language Assessment

How accurately do you feel that classroom-based tests reflect student abilities? What are your experiences as a test-taker? Do you think there are students that do not test well? What method of testing do you think is most effective to measure students' language skills? Use examples to justify your point of view.

Culture in the Classroom

In order to learn a language you have to learn about the culture associated with it. The most obvious reason being that you need to know how to act when you arrive to a country that uses the language. The more subtle reason is that culture affects the mechanics of the language. So in order to truly understand the language you need to understand the culture. An example of culture affecting the mechanics is seeing the influence of indigenous languages in the Spanish of Mexico. Knowing about the indigenous culture makes it easier to pronounce the native words and be able to hold a conversation with them.

Now that brings up the question of what is culture? Culture is essentially the way in which humans live their lives. It covers every aspect, including beliefs, habits, social interactions, food, and the way that we think. Because of the range of culture it is very difficult to teach in the classroom. In order to get students to truly understand the C2, we need to teach them a new way of thinking.

Trying to get students outside of their own way of thought is a complicated process. You are essentially challenging every thing that they have learned before taking this class. In consequence some students will resist. I know I did at first, but once I learned to embrace the culture I fell in love, so it just takes work.

Within the classroom the most common ways to teach culture are through lessons about traditions, food, and history. These are all very important,but can get stale. So teachers need to cover a variety of topics in order to keep students interested. Movies and music are some of the best ways to insert culture into the classroom and keep things fresh because students can see what the culture is like, but also relate a little since these are mediums that they love. Creating connections between the C1 and C2 are ideal in having students learn about the second culture.

Beyond these tasks obviously the best way to learn about a culture is to live in it and be forced to adopt it. As teachers our job is to prepare our students as much as possible for this immersion. That is the point of the class. To make students prepared to use the language, which in turn means using the culture as well.

Discusson #6: Teaching culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Culture is an important part of the identity of a person because it affects their behaviors and perspectives on the world.  If you want to get to know someone, it helps to get to know their culture because of the influence it has on them.  Culture is made up of beliefs and traditions that belong to a certain group of people.  Often someone’s culture is defined the same as their nationality (i.e. French, Costa Rican, Haitian) but culture is not confined by national borders.  The most obvious example is of indigenous peoples or ethnic groups (Native American culture, Quechua culture, Roma culture). 

It is very important to teach L2 culture.  I like the example on the first page of Chapter 8, where the teacher points out that it is even more important for a student who will never leave Georgia to study foreign language precisely because he will never leave Georgia.  He may be a great guy and live a very content life in Georgia, but he may not be exposed to many different cultures there.  He may not know what to think of different cultures if he does encounter them; and he might not be open to tolerating something he’s never been exposed to, for instance.  Fostering cultural understanding and tolerance in students seeps into other parts of life – learning to accept that others are different from you is a lesson we spend a lot of time teaching children and one we often have to remind ourselves of in adulthood.

It is possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom to a certain extent – the easiest manifestation of that would be lessons on holidays in the target culture.  There are some really interesting and far-out festivals that go on in other cultures that are totally foreign to us, and often students are fascinated by the ways holidays are celebrated in other cultures.  That also provides the opportunity for some valuable self-reflection about our own holiday traditions that we take for granted. 

What’s a little harder to teach is attitudes and how they differ in other countries.  Anecdotes are the best way I can think of to compare how people behave in their day to day lives.  For instance, almost all of the host parents I knew of when I studied in Spain made the meals for the students.  I know my host mom didn’t even let me put the food on the plate; the full plate was waiting for me when I sat down. When I first arrived I asked if I could help with various kitchen tasks, and she turned me down for all of them, so I stopped offering.  There weren’t enough seats when we ate in the kitchen so she would eat standing up while my father, sister, and I ate, or she would eat after us or take the first empty seat when someone finished.  This rigid domestic role for the mother is a little outdated in our culture but it is not unusual in Spain.  I don’t know how I would convey this to students other than by telling them the story.  Luckily, I do think they enjoy when I tell personal anecdotes, because they are interested in something that really happened.

Of course, the best way to experience culture is to live in it (insert study abroad plug here).  Living in a foreign country allows you to immerse yourself in all the nuances that you’d never catch onto in a classroom. 

Teaching culture in a classroom should be a multimedia experience - you need to use authentic material to show what life is like in other countries.  Interviews with natives, music from the target culture, lots of photos, and any useful videos you can find are a must.  Images and sounds can make you feel closer to something that you’re unfamiliar with.  Getting a native speaker in to talk about his/her own culture would be fantastic.  It’s also important to draw connections to the students’ own culture - that way, a foreign culture won’t seem quite so foreign after all.

Teaching Culture in Foreign Language Education

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view.

Culture can be broadly defined as the products, practices, and perspectives of a certain country, region, or area. This can include material objects such as food, but it also includes inanimate objects, such as languages and traditions. It is difficult for two countries or regions to have the same culture, but it is certainly possible for aspects of two different cultures to overlap. For instance, Canada and France are very different, but their history, and therefore their language and traditions may be very similar (parts of Canada, at least).

I find it to be extremely important to teach L2 culture in the foreign language classrooms. Looking back on my French studies, the culture lessons were the lessons that I enjoyed the most and made me more curious about the language and the culture. In my experience teaching, the students react in a very similar way to me about studying culture. In our French classes, we do a lot of language study, and a lot of grammar, but the students really excelled in a culture presentation that they had to do. I think that it is important for students to learn about the culture, as well as language, because the two often go hand-in-hand. As we have studied, sociolinguistic competence requires understanding the social context in order to speak appropriately. In French, you must understand that there is a cultural difference between using the formal and the informal -- the "tu" and the "vous" form. You would never use "tu" with a professor, elder, or shopkeeper. This is not a part of the English language, we just use "you", so this presents a challenge for some students in a foreign language class.

I think that it is possible to teach the L2 culture in a foreign language classroom setting, although it does have its drawbacks. With my students, we did a cultural project where the students worked with a partner to research a particular region, château, or holiday in France. They were responsible for creating a PowerPoint and presenting it to the class. Of course, the students do not get to experience the culture first-hand, but they have a much better idea and understanding of it when it is presented. In most examples, the students are limited to what they see or hear. They have to take somebody else's word for what the culture is about rather than experiencing it for themselves.

With that being said, I believe that the best way for the students to see and learn about the culture is through authentic material that comes from a source other than the teacher. Watching films, video clips, or reading about the culture is a good method to use when teaching culture. If you can incorporate food into your lessons when teaching about French cuisine, that would be a great tool to use as well.

Overall, I think that culture needs to be taught in schools and in classes because it is imperative for students to learn about in order to communicate effectively. I think that it is an effective tool to use to keep the students interested in the subject as well.

Teaching culture

In my view, culture is learning the ways of the people who live in the area where the target language is spoken. There are many different aspects which constitute culture such as, food, music, social customs, education, and religion.

I think it is extremely important to teach C2 because it will give students reason behind the language they are learning, especially when it gives students vocabulary related to food, sports, clothing,and daily life. One of the most effective ways to teach culture is to use authentic materials. For example, if a Spanish teacher is teaching a lesson on Machu Picchu he or she may use photos and give background information from their own travels on the cultural significance of the area.

Although I do believe that incorporating culture is effective, there are some limitations to teaching culture in the classroom setting. For example, the school may have policies restricting the distribution    of food, thus limiting the teacher's ability to implement lessons surrounding cultural cuisine.
I think it is also critically important to use tangible materials when teaching culture. While the textbook cultural component can provide adequate background knowledge, it is usually easier for students to connect to the culture if they have some representation of it whether this be  YouTube videos, music, Cultural presentation by a guest speaker or food.

Teaching Culture

            In my opinion, culture can be loosely defined as the language, customs, practices, and traditions of a given country, region, community, etc., that distinguishes it from another location. It attempts to denote the often indescribable idiosyncrasies that pertain to a given group of people. Although geographical locations (i.e. countries, states, regions, communities) may share a singular culture, it is important to denote that, with the rise of modern technologies and globalizing networks, individuals who do not necessarily live in close proximity to one another may share the same culture.

            I think that culture is an essential part of L2 learning, and should be emphasized as much as possible, although in many cases this is difficult with very fast-moving language programs. As we have learned so far in this course, being able to communicate effectively obviously comes from understanding the basic grammatical structures of the language, but it can be equally important to understand the sociolinguistic nuances of that target culture. Communication is not just speaking or creating comprehensible output; it also entails the task of interaction and exchange. The ability to work within cultural norms is essential when communicating in the “real world,” and immersing oneself in the target culture. One who speaks the language incredibly well but has a poor grasp of the target culture may find him or herself in much more communication trouble than someone who has a moderate understanding of the language but a very strong grasp on cultural norms and sociolinguistic nuances.

            As a Spanish instructor, I think that teaching culture is essential for my students, especially given the very broad, and often quite stereotypical, generalizations that people tend to make when discussing Hispanic cultures. Some of my students, at the beginning of the academic year, referred to all Spanish-speakers, no matter their country of origin, as “Spanish,” assumed that all Latin American cultures mirror Spanish culture, and thought that the entire Hispanic world eats tacos. Having studied both Spanish and Latin American studies as an undergraduate, and now obviously as a graduate student, I am passionate about Hispanic/Latin American cultures, and have worked hard to stress that there is no singular “Spanish” culture. I do not expect my students to remember the specifics of each culture or country discussed, but I do hope that they, at the very least, understand how problematic it would be to lump all such cultures into one singular cultural entity.

            Given the diversity of Latin American and Spanish cultures, it is obviously difficult to prepare students to interact with one singular “target culture.” Some sociolinguistic norms are rather universal across the board, but others are not. If my entire class intended to eventually study in Mexico, for example, it would be easy to tailor the course so that students adequately reviewed the sociolinguistic nuances of that culture. Unfortunately, this is hardly ever the case, and so Spanish instructors must attempt to give the class a little taste of everything. In upper-level Spanish classes, students often elect to take courses that relate to the country or cultures that they wish to have contact with, but in the case of the 401-402 sequence, discussions of culture are much broader. My textbook, “Mosaicos,” for example, discusses a different Spanish-speaking country (or region in some cases) each chapter, thereby allowing students a brief glimpse of each unique culture. I like this set-up, as it offers students a rather broad survey of Latin American and Spanish cultures, while at the same time stressing the individuality of each.  

#6 Importance of Culture

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Culture can be defined as the explicit and implicit characteristics of a group of people.  Intrinsic characteristics: Beliefs, attitudes, motivations—these are difficult to understand as an "outsider," they are beneath the surface; Extrinsic characteristics: Music, religion, cuisine, traditions, language, folklore, history—these can be observed easily, and are usually responsible for stereotypes.  A "group of people" can be a family, a nation, a religious group, people who share the same occupation, those who share a continent, etc.  

As discussed in the chapter "Teaching language in context," culture provides framework for language learning.  It is difficult for language learning to have meaning and importance to speakers who are removed from the culture because they have difficulty imagining how the learning the language will be useful or relatable to them.  Teaching culture provides a setting—a real, imaginable context—in which learners can incorporate themselves as they acquire the skills to communicate, explore and develop in a new language.  

It is possible to teach culture in a classroom setting, though of course there is no substitute for full immersion in a target language community.  Providing "authentic materials" is a start; real menus, books, blog posts, events schedules, movies, youtube videos, music—these provide a cultural context for language learning.  Next, a teacher can ask students to perform "real world tasks;" ordering food, asking for directions, listening to train/plane boarding information, etc.  These help create skills that go beyond "rote knowledge," they are useful, tangible.

These tasks have their limitations, of course, but "something is better than nothing." Teachers tend to provide input that is equivalent to learner's levels. In "the real world" input won't be modified for learners.  This phenomenon can be simulated, though it is important to keep input reasonable and attainable to students so that they will not be discouraged by something they feel is beyond their level.  

Culture Instruction

In your view, what is culture? Is it important to teach L2 culture? Why? Is it possible to teach L2 culture in the classroom setting? What are the limitations? How should culture be learned or taught? Use examples to support your points of view. 

Culture is what distinguishes one group of people or a society from another in terms of their daily lives, thoughts, attitudes, activities, preferences, family life, and materialistic things such as clothing, music, art, building structure, and transportation choices, etc. It is all the things that connect  the majority of the people of the particular society that does not necessarily connect other the people of other societies.

Before taking this class I would have said that teaching culture was not at all important, but that it could still be used to engage students in the learning of the language. I would have said that I would probably teach some, but not make it an important part of the class. Now after all of the readings I have done for this class, I can definitely see the importance of including culture in the foreign language curriculum. The readings have brought up a lot of good points and good ideas.

Knowing the culture of the target language makes surviving and enjoying trips abroad more easy. You will be much more prepared for everything that will come at you during your time, short or long, abroad. The article I picked and read for this class weeks ago found that a student's level of previous cultural knowledge helped determine how much their language proficiency would improve during their study abroad program. Someone is also much more likely to actually use their foreign language skills depending on how much culture they have been exposed to. For example, if you are not familiar with the stereotype of Parisians being rude and the cultural understanding thereof, you may be more afraid and apprehensive to try to engage in any conversation or communication with these people. Knowing a people's culture helps you understand them and their ideas and therefore it helps you better interact with them.

It is definitely possible to teach culture in the classroom setting and the book does a nice job pointing out many ways it can be done, in my opinion. I would also say that it is essential that culture be taught before actual travel to those language-speaking places. At the same time, full immersion is obviously a great way to get to know a culture much more deeply as well, but not everyone is going to go abroad, but everyone needs to be taught to be able to look through things with different perspectives.

I do not think lecture, nor powerpoints, are an effective way to teach culture. I think exploratory activities using computers are often good activities, especially if students research different things and then present them to each other in varying ways so as not to bore the entire class. I think teaching vocabulary is a good time to bring up culture as well to give students the cultural difference between different words such as the example the book uses about "la maison" and "house." Comparing American culture versus the target culture is effective too, from my own experience.

Most of all, I think the teaching of culture should be focused on engaging students through interesting and amusing activities and topics. It may even be helpful to tell students some reasons why learning culture is important upfront, for some of the same reasons that we have read. Culture needs to be one part of language class that students enjoy; Otherwise the students will be disengaged and not get what they need to out of the culture instruction.