Culture

I have always thought that culture is essential to a language-learning classroom. In the case of French, for example, culture is a huge part of what we teach students as it provides context for the language and acts as inspiration for the students to learn the language in the first place. I think that you can infuse culture seamlessly by deliberately including authentic sources for students to study from different cultures where the language occurs.

            For example, when I taught a unit on advertising I used a lot of commercials that came from France as examples to show my students. I think that in addition to the language element they learned some things about French culture. For example, there were adds about popular French products and football which prompted discussions on the differences between French consumer products and sports versus Canadian ones. To me the most natural way to introduce culture is through authentic documents and audio files.

            I think that the article is right in that introducing it as a unit here and there will not integrate it into the curriculum but the way I see it, when you are studying a language you have to talk about something. Language does not exist without content and maximizing the amount of culture we introduce in the classroom can be easily accomplished through having legitimate conversations while language learning.