Teach Culture Later

Of course, one of the C words in the standards is Culture. Big deal. How can we teach the culture witout the language? Do it in English? That is lost time to CI. We don’t teach social studies, although some language teachers get away with that by talking about Diego and Maria in Argentina having breakfast ouside of a nice cafe.
Those teenagers don’t even exist. The book made them up. Our students sense that, and, when we start talking to them about people who don’t exist, on some level they get that. It is always more – much more compelling – when it is about them. We can get to compelling input only by talking about stuff that directly impacts our students – mainly, them.
Back to the point about culture. Language is the key to unlocking the culture. Why would I waste even one minute in the first two years by teaching culture. Why wouldn’t I set the table for the kids’ more advanced years of study so that they could experience the culture then for real because they know the language?
True, kids can learn about culture from reading in the first two years, but many teachers go off on tangents, sometimes, unconsciously, to show off. Ben been there done that. I stopped when I got how precious each minute is in the first two years for CI, the backbone of teaching grammar and eventually culture.
I also realized how important it is to stay out of L1 in a first or second year class when it struck me that the kids could honestly care less – it’s just what they do at their age – if the Eiffel Tower was constructed in 1892 or 1492. It’s all the same to them.
Columbus is a fictitious character to them whose only role in their lives is to possibly cause them to fail a test. The Eiffel Tower reminds more than a few of them – especially these days – about how poor they are. All but the upper half of the class, mainly those white girls who are 4%ers and who may even major in French one day and actually go to the Eiffel Tower because they are so good at memorizing grammar items and conjugating verbs but they won’t be able to say or understand a thing.
They may even become teachers and burn 96% of their kids into hating languages or, worse, thinking that they suck at it. If not 96%, then half. It’s true, the big problem is poverty. How insulting to talk about how great the Eiffel Tower is to a child for whom it is just an abstraction, a symbol of something they can never attain.
As our economy continues to become only for the rich, these kids don’t need to be taking tests about cultural items that they will never be able to see and appreciate for real. The time in the classroom needs to be devoted to building the kids up, because it may be the only time in their lives – in our classes – when this happens.
That is why I believe that Robert’s focus on the Three Modes is best in terms of assessment and writing curriculum and planning the best way to get kids to the upper levels. We can’t teach culture effectively if the kids don’t have the language, so let’s give them that language first, in the interpersonal, interpretive and presentation modes.
Robert said here recently in talking about the Three Modes this:
The College Board is even helpful here. The new AP Exam has seven sections. There is not a single grammar section there. Even the cloze section has disappeared. Students have to do the following:
-interpret oral communication
-interpret written communication
-interpret a combination of written and oral communication
-engage in written interpersonal communication
-engage in oral interpersonal communication
-produce written presentational communication
-produce oral interpersonal communication
And Robert, there isn’t anything on there about culture, either! Good. We can now begin to focus on teaching the language. The grammar, the culture, all the rest will follow. Notice that presentation of grammar and culture are primarily domains of the textbook. Book teachers teach grammar and culture from the beginning of a course of study. Now they have to step up to the plate and start actually speaking the language in their classrooms. Good for them.