Culture in Second Language Teaching - Response Paper 4

Culture in Second Language Teaching

Teaching culture in a second language can be challenging, but it is part of teaching a language. It is more than focusing on holidays, customary clothing, folk songs, and food. It depends on how or what you teach on your lessons. The main idea of teaching culture is to reach its goal of completely understanding the target language. Teachers of a second language always have to incorporate culture to their lessons, mostly its linguistic and its cultural norms.

The study of linguistics is indispensable, because of its importance. It covers a wide variety of terms, the study of the language structure and its meaning. How it has evolved: sociolinguistics. I do agree on what it says on the article about language. It says it is not only part of culture, it reflects it. You cannot teach a culture you do not know, you have to get to know it and understanding the cultural context of day-to-day, thereby to make it real or believable for students.

When we teach we have to consider every cultural background of every individual, especially to avoid cultural issues in classroom instruction. Also, there are culturally appropriate ways to address people and communicate accordingly to the situation. Vocabulary, greetings, farewells,forms of addresses, formal and informal speaking or writing... are just part of the learning of the target language; but most importantly culture in a second language teaching needs or requires REAL LIFE to be incorporated in students' learning.

Seminar - "Ambientes de Aprendizaje Inteligentes" - Response Paper 3

Seminar - "Ambientes de Aprendizaje Inteligentes"

We attended to the seminar "Ambientes de Aprendizaje Inteligentes" by Sylvia Castro. It could be translated as Intelligent Educational Environments. There it was explained to us the capability of the human brain. It was shown different experiments, in order to point out how the brain it is constituted and how it works. These investigations were made with several laboratory mice and humans to get some data according to brain functions.

It was also said we all are different in terms of learning skills, and that we as a teachers have to maintain balance among our students in terms of learning. We should care more about our teaching styles, and how to get to our students' minds in a positive way. At the end of the seminar there was a question regarding the IQ. She said the IQ is not necessarily in our genes, and it can be improved by studying.

In addition, it is completely possible for a person who has a very low IQ to surpass someone who has a high IQ, just by enhancing their skills. Do you agree with it?

What do I think about...? - Response Paper 2

What do I think about...?

How do your beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing influence the way
you behave?

I think my beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing have completely influenced the way I behave. They all could be related to my cultural autobiography, because it would be based on my cultural learning experiences throughout my entire life. I do believe it is very important to consider how our parents raised us, the environment that surrounded us, and our personal interests. The way I behave will tell you my general background (the experience of living=my culture).

How does it feel when others see you as different—or as an outsider?

I like that feeling. I think it makes us special and at the same time it is challenging, because you have to deal with different personalities. There are going to be some who do not like to get to know the "new" Costa Rican girl, as well as the ones who are going to be curious to get to know the outsider and his/her culture, like me. I believe is all about beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing of every individual what will make the difference on how you will feel.

How do others' beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing influence the way
they behave?

When talking about others' beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing influence the way they behave, we all have those characteristics as part of our background, good or bad, it still ours. They reflect their experiences on their behavior, so it does not matter what we think of them. Everyone has a specific feature that is part of their personality. What we could do is to learn about their behavior in matters of enrichment to our cultural experiences. We all have a different and special piece of culture (beliefs, values, and cultural upbringing) within ourselves, which we can share with others and influence their own perspective or behavior itself.

First Class Experience - Response Paper 1

First Class Experience

Our first class of American Culture and Society course was very motivating to me. Though it was too late, the professor turned our time into a proactive lesson, in which we all had fun (I guess so). We first started with an explanation of the course itself and later we performed an activity assigned by Mrs. Nelly. She gave us advice of what we have to take into account while teaching a class, and a general background of culture.

The first activity was about "classifying" ourselves on the right position regarding our birthdays in a chronological order, and then in regards of our ethnic background. Among the techniques we should consider are specifically emphasized to behavior the most: Not answering the phone while you are teaching (do not go outside the classroom); monitoring what students are doing while walking around, and it is unacceptable to prepare yourself at the same time you are teaching your class. We talked about the definition of culture and other aspects of it. We were thinking about the phrase "If culture lies at the heart of the cultural experience, what then it is culture?" stated by the professor. We concluded that culture is the experience of living, and analyzed the five dimensions of culture: products, practices, perspectives, communities, and persons.