Culture%20in%20language%20teaching

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Culture in language teaching

• Multi Pluri Inter
• The Prefixes of Culture

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Culture in language teaching

• Although some L2/FL teachers seem to think that
  the presence of culture in current writings is
  relatively recent, a review of the L2/FL
  literature shows that this is clearly not the
  case (Lessard-Clouston, M. 1997).
• Culture and Language come together in LT, culture
  appearing and disappearing from theoretical
  approaches regularly. Now it is enjoying a
  revival.

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Culture the prefixes

• If at first the terms contrastive and
  cross-cultural were the key terms in cultural
  studies, the incorporation of multicultural and
  intercultural approaches widened our perspective.
• The scope of cultural studies nowadays includes
  the self, the group and the communicative
  situation.

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The prefixes
Interculturality
Pluriculturality
Pluriculturality
Multiculturality
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Definitions two approaches

• Static definition
• Inter- definition of a communicative situation
• Pluri- definition of the identity of a person
• Multi- definition of the social context

• Dynamic definition
• Inter- active and critical participation in
  communication
• Pluri- perception and construction of the
  multiple identifications of a person
• Multi- ackowledgement and appreciation of the
  coexistence of a number of cultures in the social
  context

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Multiculturalism (I)

• Multiculturalism describes a general situation
  (region, country, community) of culture
  contact.
• Normally, the term comprises three visions of
  diversity
• culture as state-nation (multicultural
  different nationalities)
• culture as religion (multicultural different
  religions)
• culture as ethnic groups (multicultural
  different ethnic groups).

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Multiculturalism (II)

• However, none of these metaphoric definitions of
  culture are satisfactory
• it could be argued that other cultures could be
  added culture as age, culture as gender,
  culture as profession, culture as
  ability/disability, ...
• Consequently, any country, region, community or
  group is multicultural by definition, as
  different cultures interact simultaneously at any
  level.
• So, we would keep multiculturalism for the
  description of contexts where cultures are in
  contact, not restricted to nations, religions or
  ethnic groups.

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Pluriculturalism

• Identity is the by-product of experiences in
  different cultures.
• Thus, multiple identifications create our unique
  personality more than a static identity.
• Pluriculturalism implies an approach to the self
  and the other as complex, rich beings which act
  and react from the perspective of those multiple
  identifications.

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Interculturality

• Interculturality is, undoubtedly, one of the key
  notions in language teaching at the moment.
• ECML projects
• Candelier, Oomen-Welke and Perregaux (2004)
• Dupuis et al. (2003)
• Huber-Kriegler, Lázár and Strange (2003)
• Aleksandrowicz-Pedich, Draghicescu, Issaiass and
  Šabec (2003), Skopinskaja (2003) and Facciol and
  Kjartansson (2003)
• Zarate, Gohard-Radenkovic, Lussier and Penz
  (2003)
• Grima Camilleri (2002)

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Interculturality

• Interculturality is, for our perspective,
  intimately related to communication it is the
  link between language and culture.
• Being intercultural is a way of participating in
  communication in which interlocutors
• Are aware of the relevance of culture in
  communication.
• Participate actively in communication.
• React critically to communication.

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Awareness of culture

• The language learner must be aware of three
  layers of culture multi-cultural, pluri-cultural
  and inter-cultural.
• First, the language learner must be aware of
• diversity in society and
• how social groups, including nations, create, use
  and manage cultures, which are intermingled in a
  complex matrix of social contact.
• We will refer to it as awareness of culture from
  a multicultural perspective.

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Awareness of culture

• Secondly, awareness of culture from a
  pluricultural perspective implies
• to define identity as a complex, flexible,
  dynamic composite which, in any situation, can
  adopt an apparently definite layout for a certain
  purpose with a particular interlocutor.
• culture as product which is static
• culture as process which is dynamic.

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Awareness of culture

• From an intercultural perspective, awareness must
  be displayed in two directions.
• First, the learner must be aware of the
  pluricultural identity of his or her interlocutor
  as defined above.
• Second, the language learner must be aware of the
  cultural conventions of the language(s) they may
  use.
• Language is a culture-bound phenomenon and there
  are conventions ruling any communicative act,
  written or spoken.
• Awareness of these cultural conventions can
  smooth communication
• At the same time, a positive, cooperative
  attitude on the part of the listener/reader can
  help overcome ignoring, forgetting or flouting
  these conventions.

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The LEA Project

• To raise awareness of diversity as a key element
  of society.
• To enrich language teacher education with the
  potential to exploit cultural diversity at
  individual and social levels
• To facilitate curricular changes aimed at
  incorporating a pluricultural dimension into
  language classes.