Culture in second language learning
As future English teachers to be, it will become our job to introduce a
wide range of texts and genres, so that our pupils will not only learn the
language, but furthermore be given an insight in the different cultures values
and beliefs. To do so, it is important that we exploit historical facts
alongside the events that are happening today. This can be introduced in a
variety of different ways: through films, books, newspapers, the internet and
so forth.
But like everything else that we want to excel at in life, the golden
rule of learning a second language is, and will always be: to practice.
Therefore it is quite important to first help the students to trust
themselves, so that they won’t be too self-conscious when they make mistakes. We
have to teach them that no one excels at anything in the beginning, but that we
learn from our mistakes. Furthermore the second most important thing is to let
the pupils talk. Let them speak as much as possible through different
assignments, songs, games, group work and presentations.
Working with culture awareness in class, will provide the pupils with
some degree of intercultural competence. This is quite important and will help
the pupils to interact easier, when meeting people with other beliefs and
religions in the future. Respect is the keyword here!
If we look at the Iceberg concept by Gary Weaver he points out that the
majority of culture is below the surface. This means that to learn another
culture we need to look deeper and not only learn what food, music and crafts
they like, but to learn how they courtesy, what their rules of conduct are,
their ideals of childhood, body language and so forth.
According to Michael Byram it is important that the pupils become aware
of and are able to analyze the cultural differences of their own society as
much as those of other societies. But it is not the teacher’s job to provide
this information, but to encourage the pupils to interact with other societies
and cultures and thereby getting an understanding of the otherness that
surrounds us all. This might even help the students understand themselves and
were they come from better as well.
This can be achieved by collecting data either by interacting in real
life or by using the internet.
The conclusion is therefore to open up towards the pupils own
culture, by knowing other cultures and comparing. This will make the pupils
intercultural speakers and teach them to accept other perspectives and
perceptions of the world!
Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone
We chose the
first Harry Potter book, and movie: “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”.
We chose this because it is a great example of British literature, and culture,
as the book includes details of the British culture, namely the education
system, some of the British customs and more. Furthermore, this genre of books
has become very popular in our generation, some arguing it started with Harry
Potter himself. The 21st century has become a century of fantasy,
science fiction and all things supernatural, and people all ages and all around
the world are reading and/or watching fiction. The genres have exploded and
everybody knows who “The Boy Who Lived” is, if not by title, by name (Harry
Potter). Books of fiction have always been part of the culture, but especially
books written in England, or USA, have a tendency to become worldwide famous,
and the authors have become very good at including culture in the books, so
that the readers not only read for fun, but get to learn something about the
culture of the author’s homeland. Also, young people have a tendency to be very
interested in this genre, thus wanting to read or watch it, and therefore you
can use it in class. It is always easier to read a book in a foreign language
(here: English as second language) when you already know of the story.
John Shoeman
says: “when you've read a book in your
own language, and then read it in your second
language you can relate“
Of course we
cannot count on all of the students to have read this book, or watched the
movie, but as mentioned before, I daresay every one of them have heard of the
story. This is the reason for our choosing of Harry Potter as material in a
second language learning class.
We made a
plan for the use of the book and the movie, as shown below. We assumed it would
be a ninth grade, and that we would first read the whole book, and later on
watch the movie. The book would be read both in class and as homework, so both
vocabulary and pronunciation is practiced. Additionally we would use different
warming-up activities, like jeopardy with questions to the book, criss-cross
puzzles with Harry Potter themes, “The hot chair” where a pupil have to pretend
to be a character from the book, and the other pupils ask questions to the
character, “filling out the blanks” where the pupils will get a random page
from the book, where some of the words have been removed, and they have to fill
them in, and more. Also, we would do a drama, after reading the book, where the
pupils should act out some scenes. We would also analyze the chapters, with
questions as "who do we meet in this
chapter?", “How does he look?”, “What personal characteristics do you see
in her?” and so on. This we would do because the pupils have to learn how to
analyze different literary forms (texts, movies and so on), and they should be
able to do a person characterization.
When you
read the lesson plan below, it only shows lessons for a week. We would repeat
it for two months, but change the activities. It is just the basic plan.
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Læringsforudsætninger
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Mål
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Rammefaktorer
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Indhold
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Læreprocesser
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Vurdering
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Emne
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Harry Potter
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Vocabulary
Pronunciation
Reading
Confidence (presentation/acting)
Analyzing
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"Harry Potter and the philosophers stone"
both book and movie
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Reading out loud, Analyzing,
Writing a story in the universe
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Individual work
Group work
Pronounciation
Vocabulary
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Did the pupils learn the intended material?
What did they think about it?
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Lesson Plan - 2 months
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Warm-up
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Main Content
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Evaluation
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Homework
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Lesson 1 + 2
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"The hot chair"
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Reading aloud a chapter
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Asking the students after every class if they liked
the way it was taught.
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Lesson 3 + 4
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Criss cross puzzle with Harry Potter questions
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Analyzing, answer questions (groups or pairs)
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Asking the students after every class if they liked
the way it was taught.
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Read next chaper
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