Teaching L2 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 one of these terms that many might find easy to understand, but hard to put into words. I would define culture as the collective art, customs, and institutions of a particular group of people - basically, if it is a defining characteristic of native L2 speakers, you can file it under culture. An L2's culture can be a motivating factor for many students to study a second language in the first place, so I think it is important that teachers incorporate culture into their lesson plans as best they can. 

Teaching culture is an important, but also challenging aspect of foreign language teaching. I think that teaching culture should start early on in language courses, even if it is as simple as the teacher relaying her/his personal experiences to the class through short anecdotes. Most language teachers should have plenty of personal stories about their experiences in the target culture to share with the class. In my own teaching, I found that most often I would not need to have anything planned the mention something cultural in class. A story would come arise organically from the lesson plan for the day. As long as these types of asides do not bring the class off track, a personal story about the L2 culture helps to keep the class lively and engaging for the student. A 1-2 minute break from a lesson on grammar is usually welcome.

Culture teaching can also be placed more deliberately into language curriculum by including authentic cultural material into lessons plans. For example, a teacher could use poetry, music, or other authentic works of art to teach a certain grammar point or create a listening/reading comprehension lesson. These types of lessons would then accomplish two things at once - helping students to acquire the L2 while at the same time learning about C2. When appropriately integrated into classroom learning, I think showing films in the L2 is also a great idea once students obtain at least intermediate listening skills. Almost all of my German teachers from throughout my life took special advantage of film to teach both culture and listening comprehension. I would even argue that my language classes made me appreciate the medium of film on a much deeper level than I previously had, because lessons based around films would force me to think critically and analyze film in a way that I hadn't before. Even if students are not able to discuss films completely in the L2, I think the cultural value of certain films in language learning can make language learning much more fun and help foster a lifelong interest in the L2.

There are of course limitations to teaching culture in the classroom and no lesson on culture can quite compare to actually being immersed in the C2. Although a language teacher can offer some limited exposure to the target culture, a language learner would ultimately learn more about the culture by experiencing it themselves. That is not to say that teachers should ignore culture completely though. Language instruction that connects the learning of a language to authentic materials produced in that language is most certainly valuable and should not be ignored in the less-than-ideal setting of the classroom.

Discussion #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. 

Discussion #5: Free topic - Duration and frequency of FL classes

Last week in class we talked a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of different class lengths and frequencies for foreign language classes.  In high school I taught 80 minute classes on alternating days, meaning I had one group of students 3 days a week and the next week I’d have them 2 days a week.  I think an 80-minute class in high school is just too much.  It was really challenging, in both planning and execution.  I would often devote about a half an hour to a game in many classes, because I couldn’t have the students sitting down for that long, especially my college-prep freshman.  Putting that much time into a game has its advantages and disadvantages.  It means students get really invested in the game and have enough rounds to really apply their skills; but if students are not engaged or really trying then it quickly becomes a waste of time.  On the weeks in high school when I only saw students twice, it was really hard to reinforce the concepts we were learning that week.  And on this alternating schedule, if students didn’t do their homework, they were routinely lost in class because they just weren’t practicing enough in or out of class. 

In Spanish 401 at UNH we have four 50-minute classes a week (Wednesday off).  Although college students are better equipped to sit for an 80-minute class than my high school students were, I like this schedule much better.  50 minutes is not a lot and I often run out of time, but now I feel that I use my time much more wisely.  With the online homework, students get a lot of practice outside of class, so I only do things in class that the students otherwise couldn’t do alone, or without their peers.  If I try to play a game, we usually only can do so for about 10 minutes, plus I have to explain the directions.  Sometimes I would like to have a little bit more time to devote to games because I honestly believe they are effective teaching tools.  On the whole, though, I feel it’s an efficient schedule.  We plan 401 in 10-minute increments tops, so in theory we are changing the activity enough to keep students engaged.  I do a lot fewer filler activities this way and I get to see the students 4 times a week.

What has been everyone else’s experience with class duration and frequency of foreign language classes?  Do you have a preference for how often and long classes should be?

Study Abroad Requirements (or: Why Every Student Should Study Abroad)

As dedicated language learners and aspiring language teachers, we all see the value in and opportunity afforded by any extended stay abroad. Having first gone abroad during my junior year of high school, I've spent a combined three years of my life living in German speaking countries. Those experiences have shaped the person that I am in a big way, and I'm sure my worldview would be very different had I not chosen to go abroad. I realize I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do this. I also realize that not every person is able to afford to travel abroad, but at times I feel that some kind of required study abroad experience, if organized the correct way and made affordable to all students, would only enhance the post-secondary education experience overall. The experience has the potential to be extremely formative and helps to increase a person's cultural sensitivity and global awareness.

Although we are living in a world connected by digital communication and a globalized economy, it is sometimes difficult to realize this from the vantage point of one cultural perspective. Travel to foreign cultures, especially those that speak a different language, can have a powerful effect on a developing mind. By traveling abroad, the cultures and places that you might read about on Wikipedia or in a documentary on Netflix become real, tangible, and personal. As some of us in this class can say from experience, "nothing beats actually being there." Furthermore, studying abroad can be a real boon to college graduates when they enter the work force. My experience in dealing with novel and foreign situations can be seen as a real asset by potential employers. Knowing a foreign language is also generally seen as an asset as well, even if it does not directly apply to a potential job's description. I believe that people who go abroad for an extended period of time and learn the local language are generally viewed as passionate, forward-thinking, and adaptable. Is this not exactly the types of people we need our educational system to produce going forward? The next century is going to be filled with challenges on a global scale, and it would serve us well to be educating young people be better global citizens. This is why I see so much value in studying abroad and I would love to see us work toward a higher education system that offers this opportunity to all students in a way that is affordable and sustainable.

What would a study abroad requirement look like? Would such a thing be feasible? Would it be better to work toward a nationalized study abroad program akin to the ERASMUS program in Europe? I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

For more food for thought on this subject, check out this short series of articles on study abroad that appeared last year in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/17/should-more-americans-study-abroad

Speaking the Target Language in Class

As a foreign language teacher, what is your position on students speaking the target language in the classroom?

At first, I thought the answer to this question was fairly simple: of course I want the students to speak French in class. My cooperating teacher for my internship agrees with me, as she wants the students to speak ONLY the target language. However, this has been more challenging than I thought. When we hear the students speaking English in class, we prompt them to speak French. We tell them that i our classroom they need to speak only French, especially since that is the most effective way to learn a foreign language.

Some students in particular like to challenge us, as some refuse to speak French. If students ask to say something in English, sometimes we allow them to. But a couple of students in particular say "I'm just going to say this in English because I cannot say it in French." It has gotten to the point where I tell the students if they can't say it in French then they can't say it. If a student has a relevant question then I am a little more lenient, but would like them to at least make the effort in the target language.

We have tried to incorporate methods that make the students want to speak the target language. For instance, I went skydiving over the summer and I have a video of the experience. We made a deal with one of our classes that if they speak only French in class for an entire week, then we would show them the short video. Unfortunately the class spoke some English, so they will have to try again, but we were very impressed by their effort. I have been thinking of incentives for the students to speak only French. For instance giving the each student five poker chips at the beginning of the week. If they speak English then you take a poker chip away. At the end of the week the number of poker chips that they have left can equal extra credit or points towards something.

I wonder though how other foreign language teachers approach this situation. I observed a Spanish class on Friday because they were giving presentations about Barcelona. In between the presentations the students were speaking some English, and the teacher didn't seem to mind. If the students spoke to her in English, she replied back to them in Spanish. She didn't say anything to them about speaking only Spanish, but many students chose to only speak the target language.

I want to know your takes on this subject. Is it better to be lenient about speaking the target language, or strict about enforcing it? How do you think the students respond to each method?

Foreign languages in the elementary school

As an elementary student, I was lucky  enough to attend a school at which we were exposed to foreign-language education at a young age. I feel as though this is had a profound impact on my life long love ot languages. Although my Spanish education was not formally graded until sixth grade, I do feel as though I had benefits over some of my other friends who attended other elementary schools. The early exposure to foreign languages may give a student who is weak in the other areas another avenue where they can excel.

The typical curriculum in a foreign  language classroom includes much more of then being able to effectively communicate in the language. We all know of the importance of bringing culture into the foreign language classroom but I wonder if this is even more important at the elementary level? For me, it's hard to generate ideas about activities that would be appropriate for elementary level students surrounding target culture except for songs and games which I feel can have a certain amount of variety and effectiveness amongst elementary students.  One particular activity that I remember in my elementary school was fiesta night: a sort of carnival like atmosphere where foreign language students would have activities for the entire school community to learn about the target culture.  These kind of events can can create lasting memories for students and made pique  an interest in foreign languages

Disengaged Language Students

How can introductory language instructors at the university level manage students with very varying degrees of interest in and commitment to the course?

As a Spanish 401 instructor who has a relatively large class (22 students) I often feel frustrated by some of my students’ lack of interest in the course and lack of motivation to participate in class. I would guess that about a third of my class is very often disengaged, a third makes an effort to pay attention but rarely participates, and a final third really enjoys language learning and consistently participates. With such varying degrees of interest and engagement in the class, I often feel as though I end up teaching to one extreme or the other, depending on how my students are reacting to the lesson plan on that particular day. Given the large number of students, it is often difficult to single out every individual who consistently avoids participating, and when I do randomly call on such students, they sometimes have no idea what is going on and I end up feeling slightly guilty for potentially embarrassing them.

I have inferred that a small number of my quiet and sometimes disengaged students may be behaving in such a way out of anxiety, but others are obviously just disinterested. These disinterested students are taking my course out of necessity (i.e. to fulfill a discovery requirement), never come to office hours for extra help, and tend to fall behind on exams. Many just cram to memorize material for the test or quiz, but then make no effort to retain such information. This becomes problematic when I discover that some students, for example, are trying to learn more complex grammatical structures like “gustar” and “ir,” and yet have not yet committed to memory somewhat basic, yet ESCENTIAL concepts like how to conjugate regular “-ar,” “-er,” and “-ir” verbs. I obviously feel responsible for the success or failure of my students, yet it is very difficult to teach/help those who do not help themselves.

My disengaged students and their general lack of effort certainly make me nervous, but they also make it difficult to teach those students who truly want to learn Spanish. When the same 4 or 5 students are the only ones to participate in class, it makes the classroom dynamic somewhat awkward and I end up spending too much class time trying to encourage others to join in, or waiting for those who I have called on to figure out what page we are on or which question we are reviewing. I can tell that this becomes quite annoying to my very motivated students, who are eager to learn more and actually practice the language. I am more than happy to slow down the class for individuals who have questions, which obviously happens, but I am always frustrated when I have to waste time forcing students to participate.

My experience teaching 401 makes me wonder if UNH should implement some sort of alternative language class that caters to those students who are only taking a language to fulfill a discovery requirement. I would assume that other universities may have similar systems, in which students who only want to learn the bare minimum can do so without enrolling in such a fast-paced language course, which our Spanish 401 truly is. Perhaps there could be a class like “Spanish for travelers” or “Spanish basics,” where students who do not really want to learn a language could develop some basic conversational or “survival” language skills. This would save such students from having to enroll in a more serious language course, and would also make regular Spanish or French 401 courses more interesting for those students who truly do want to learn. University language courses are obviously easier to teach that those taught in high schools, in that instructors rarely have to address behavioral issues, but the lack of “levels” at the university level can sometimes be challenging, as I explained above. 

Elementary Foreign Language Education

There are tons of articles that debate whether starting foreign language education in elementary school is a better model than waiting until high school. As someone who loves foreign languages, I am super jealous of my peers who learned two languages from birth because their family was bilingual. I am also super jealous of many European countries where students learn two languages throughout school or the people who are decent with 5 or so languages by the time they graduate high school. I have read that learning 2 languages from birth makes it easier to learn foreign languages later on with a bunch of different theories explaining why, maybe this applies to younger children as well. For those reasons and many others, having foreign language education in the curriculum for elementary schools may be much more beneficial than having just foreign language courses in high school.

A few years ago in my hometown of Rochester, they started what is called a Magnet school. One of the key components of this school is that there is daily instruction in French. One of my high school French teachers was in charge of planning the curriculum and I asked her a lot of questions about it. I was curious as to what equivalent level of French they would be at by the end of 5th grade and she said only French 1 which shocked me. That not only did not make sense to me, but also seemed like a waste of time then if they were having DAILY instruction in French from K-5. However, she sort of explained it by saying that this is how elementary foreign language education works and that they would be able to learn more French much more quickly and proficiently than their high school counterparts.

Should foreign language be taught much earlier on, particularly here in the USA? My foreign language loving side says yes, as the research seems to be on that side. However, I still think there are many other important things that need to be taught that there is not enough time for already. Another component of the Magnet school in Rochester is that the school year is 200 days instead of the usual 180, so they have made time for the French instruction. With all this said, I would totally be for getting rid of the art or music special and adding a foreign language special perhaps, but I do not think the rest of America, or even Rochester, would agree with me.

Free Topic

So often I remember sitting in Spanish class and hearing people complain about the class. They did not see the point and were not engaged. I personally think that the teachers that I had were pretty good, but they could not engage everyone. Another thing is that most of the engaged students were only engaged because they wanted a good grade, not because they enjoyed the subject matter. So my question is how do we get students interested in the languages we are teaching for the sake of learning the language?

Obviously languages are not for everyone, and you will never get everyone to like them, but I would like to find ways to get more students engaged for the sake of learning the language versus just getting a good grade. My main thought is to expose them to the culture associated to the language as much as possible and show them that it is something that exists outside of the classroom. To me as a language student this is the best part about learning a language, making connections with a different part of the world.

The question that stems from that is how do we make these connections without it seeming like a chore for the students. I know lots of teachers try to use the pop culture of the target culture, which does work, along with showing students places they could go to. These work, and I will use them, but I want to learn some new ways to get students interested. There are so many aspects to a foreign culture that could attract the attention of students, but which ones are the most effective, and the most teachable? Ideally we would all just take our students to the countries of our target languages but we can not do that. Photos of interesting aspects of the cultures help, but are not the same either. Bringing in native speakers would help, but can be difficult to arrange, especially for multiple classes. So what other methods can you guys think of?

#5 Free Topic: The greatest limitations in FL teaching

My question is as followed: As a learner or a teacher, what are the greatest limitations of success in learning/teaching a foreign language?

Personally, I believe that time is one of the greatest limitations on FL teaching and learning.  How can we expect a teacher to teach students to comprehend and produce a language proficiently in a few 50-90 minute sessions a week for a few months? Can students truly pick up on a language with any sort of mastery in this amount of time?  Even for students who take a language each school year, the break in between their study can be detrimental.

On average, my answer would be no.  There simply is not enough quality time spent learning and interacting with a language in most school settings (High-schools or university classes that meet a few hours each week per semester.)  Even students who learn the language in an immersed setting (like a study-abroad, or if they have moved to a new country) take many months of nearly 24/7 practice to become skilled in the language.

Students need to spend class-time learning new grammar forms and complex vocabulary, about which they probably have many questions and truly require the input of an instructor.  There is hardly enough time to cover this material, which leaves little time for instructors to review or practice the material in a meaningful, interactive way.

I believe that assigning homework is one way that instructors can supplement and review the material they have learned in class, but it is difficult to make up for face-to-face learning.  Languages are interactive, and though homework can be beneficial to comprehension/memorization of form and vocabulary, it is almost impossible to replicate in-person instruction.  Though technology might be able to bridge some of these gaps, some still seem to wide.

Though I am not sure whether or not there is any way to change the fact that classroom time is too limited to produce effective communicators in a FL under normal teaching conditions, perhaps our expectations should change.  Education administrators/evaluators often seem surprised to learn that most students retain little of their FL instruction, and that few become actually proficient in the language after they finish their studies (especially at the HS level).

I would attribute the success of some students to master a language during their educational career to their own supplemental learning—for it is nearly impossible to achieve within the classroom.

I made a quick survey on SurveyMonkey, please share your thoughts:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GR6P92Q