For most of us, curiosity to learn about a new culture is what brought us to this field of world language teaching. Maybe you were attracted to learning about new cultural food, architecture, art or language.
I remember feeling so thirsty for knowledge when I was a student… I still show that characteristic and joke that I could be a forever student.
Culture is a key component of world language classes, and so is discovering and empowering our students’ voices. So where do we start? I’ve had students that say they don’t have a culture; they don’t feel they identify with any practice or perspective. But when we start asking questions and challenging their cultural beliefs, interesting answers come forward. A way we teachers can start the discussion is by using the cultural tree model, found in Zaretta Hammond’s book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. The tree model can help us explain to students how different aspects of culture range from being surface level to deep level.
My work with cultural literacy in the classroom is guided by the ACTFL Cultural Standards of products, practices and perspectives. This means that students need to be acquainted with these terms and understand their meaning before they proceed to higher order thinking skills or write essays about cultural comparisons.
Think: What definitions of culture do you use in the classroom?
The definitions that we use in class for products, practices and perspectives are the following:
PRODUCTS: Are the things people make and use. They can be tangible (an item of clothing, a dish, a craft, a monument) or intangible (laws, the education system or other institutions).
PRACTICES: Are people’s actions. The way they celebrate festive days and events like birthdays and weddings, but also daily activities such as the way members of a culture greet each other, learn, work and interact daily.
PERSPECTIVES: Signal how people of a culture view the world around them, what are their values and beliefs. For example, the relationship between man and nature, attitudes towards life and death, religious beliefs, the concepts of family and friendships, the value of work. Even if we can’t observe perspectives, we can infer them by observing products and practices within a culture.
We need to break down the three Ps and this can be done in numerous ways. One of them is to bring to class an object that has cultural significance, it could be linked to your heritage even. Being Argentinean, one of the cultural products I like to share with my students is the mate, a traditional drink in my country. Not only do I bring the mate and talk about its cultural value, I also show how it is prepared (a cultural practice) and how the ritual of drinking mate is viewed in my community (a cultural perspective). I enjoy explaining how, to drink mate, we require different components (products) that make the cultural practice.
Source: Mamá, quiero mate by Catalina Di Cocco, 2017
Analyze: Why is it important to teach these cultural standards?
It is important to teach these cultural standards mainly for two reasons:
–To encourage critical thinking: students develop critical thinking skills through analysis and interpretation of cultural phenomena.
–To foster global citizenship: cultivate global citizenship by fostering respect for diversity and promoting intercultural understanding and communication.
Some actionable ideas to work with the three Ps in the classroom through student voice enhancement:
1 Warm-up activity. Have students run a relay race by mentioning as many products, practices and perspectives they can think of in a given amount of time. Make sure you introduce the meaning behind them first. The groups will then need to explain their answers
2 Bring a cultural product that you value, it could relate to your heritage. You can ask students to bring their own cultural product to share with the class, explaining why they chose that specific product. Have students think about the relationship between the product and a cultural practice. We can then help them think how it relates to a cultural perspective.
3 Read an article as a class that touches on cultural products, practices and/or perspectives, and guide the discussion using prepared questions. Remember that perspectives are usually the hardest ones for students to think about on their own. To help you search for an article in the target language, you can think of some of the AP themes crossover (for example: global challenges, beauty and aesthetics, etc.). Don’t be shy to include data and statistics that could add more layers of depth to a topic.
4 Storytelling and research. Ask your students if they can remember a time when they were struck by how something was done differently in another country/community. Ask them to share how they came to know about the said practice and what were their reactions. Instruct them to research that practice to gain a deeper understanding of its cultural value. This can be presented to the class afterwards.
5 Compare two celebrations. Have students compare a celebration from their country/community and one from a different culture. They can do this via a visual representation such as a Venn diagram (to add a TPR approach, you could use hula hoops to represent the Venn diagram and cut out words). Make sure they are considering the three Ps when doing the comparison. This is a good practice step before writing essays. Have students explain their comparisons.
6 Case studies and debates. Deliberate first on a case study (consider a multitude of options to a given issue). Consider how the three Ps will be intertwined. After deliberating, have a classroom debate based on the case study.
Some challenges you might encounter and how to avoid misinterpretation, judgment and incorrect evaluation:
1 Stereotyping – Encourage critical analysis and avoid generalizations. All stereotypes have some level of truth, so teach about them first by giving examples your students might know.
2 Cultural Insensitivity – Promote respectful language and avoid offensive comparisons. Give a couple of concrete examples or stories for students to grasp this concept and its consequences of not practicing it.
3 Lack of resources – Use online tools and collaborate with cultural experts. There are wonderful videos like the TED talk “The danger of a single story” that would greatly help expand students’ understanding. Provide your students with interesting, current and authentic resources.