Pedagogy of folklore in foreign language teaching

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Pedagogy of folklore in foreign language teaching

• Demonstrated in the case of Vietnamese folklore

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Foreign Language Learning as Foreign Culture
Learning

• much more than grammatical and verbal
  proficiency
• must understand unspoken communication, such as
  gestures, behavior patterns, beliefs, values,
  etc.
• gain empathy and respect for a new culture
• challenge ones own perspective while learning
  new perspectives

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What is folklore?

• Folklore is the traditional art, literature,
  knowledge, and practice that is disseminated
  largely through oral communication and behavioral
  example. Every group with a sense of its own
  identity shares, as a central part of that
  identity, folk traditionsthe things that people
  traditionally believe (planting practices, family
  traditions, and other elements of worldview), do
  (dance, make music, sew clothing), know (how to
  build an irrigation dam, how to nurse an ailment,
  how to prepare barbecue), make (architecture,
  art, craft), and say (personal experience
  stories, riddles, song lyrics).
• The American Folklore Society
• folksongs, customs, proverbs, dances, etc.
• unofficial, widespread, and without regulations
  or restrictions

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Why folklore?

1. Culture is always changing folklore is
   relatively stable and resilient.
2. Folklore is the foundation of culture.
   Understanding folklore can show the whys, hows,
   and wheres of current cultural changes
3. Folklore transcends recent changes in history,
   including political strife and war that may have
   divided the nation.

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What students can learn from folklore

• straightforward lessons such as customs,
  behavior patterns, traditions, etc.
• More importantly, by comparing folklore, we can
  learn nuances between cultures that make give
  each culture its distinct identity
• Ex T?m Cám
• How relationships start
• Punishment of antagonists
• Ex Anh-em relationship
• Gender roles

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Heritage Learners

• Heritage Learners are particularly interested in
  studying culture in order to investigate and
  discover their own identities
• sometimes just participating in a custom is not
  enough to understand it having a teacher can
  help students really understand the meaning
  behind practices
• Culture is our social legacy as contrasted with
  our organic heredity (Dimitris Thanasoulas)

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Activities

• singing folksongs together
• performing skits of folktales
• eating and learning to cook delicious
  traditional foods
• analyzing and using proverbs
• celebrating holidays
• performing dances, wearing traditional garments
• participating in rituals with the community
• discussion about meaning afterwards

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Issues/ Points

• Students may believe folklore is archaic and not
  worth learning because times have changed.
• Folklore is still very much prevalent in modern
  society
• Proverbs play a much more significant role in
  Vietnam than in America, they are a indirect
  mechanism to communicate which still watching
  social etiquette
• 2. Students may believe tales are all in jest
  and do not hold any truth.

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Thank you toVietnamese SEASSI teachersBac Hoai
TranNguyen Thi Thuan