#13 - Element 10: Culture | 10 Elements of Proficiency-Oriented World Language Instruction

It's here, the one we world language teachers have been waiting for - culture lessons! However, culture is complex. Our solution to exposing students to widely diverse cultures should be equally complex and thoughtful. Here's some practical ideas to get you started.
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What's up, Kelo k E. Salut, world language teachers. Welcome to the Practical Proficiency podcast, where we make the transition to proficiency oriented instruction in your world language class in a way that works for you, your unique context and teaching style, and doesn't sacrifice your well being along the way. I'm your host, Devin Gunning, the teacher author, conference host, curriculum creator, and consultant behind La Libre language learning. This podcast is for the creative world language teacher like you, who's ready to ditch the overwhelming pressure of switching to acquisition driven instruction and CI overnight, you're ready to discover how using more target language in class can actually bring you and your students more joy. Instead of adding to your plate with practical, authentic, and down to earth strategies that don't require reinventing the wheel or more training, we'll work together towards the magic of a community target language rich classroom rooted in the power of community and comprehensible input. Let's go. Salut, meshach. this is it, y'all. This is element ten. We are in it. This is the very last element of world language proficiency instruction, and I'm sure that you are excited to talk about this one because it is culture time. Now, when you're talking about world language, language and culture are inextricably linked. It is impossible for you to have a language class without talking about culture because culture is embedded within the fabric of language itself, which is what makes it so gorgeous and interesting. And we want our students to have that same experience as well. So the more you try to separate it, the more unnatural it is and actually, the more stressful it is. So let's see if we can make this a little bit easier for you by giving you some ideas on how to make sure that culture really is interwoven into everything that you do. One of my favorite sayings from the early days of La Libre, it's something that I still stand behind, is that nobody puts culture in the corner. Like, for world language teachers, especially since we have, you know, not great curriculums and support to work with most of the time. You know, we, as the, the world language department, usually get billed in with the electives and we get put in the corner. Well, nobody puts culture in the corner. So since we don't have a lot of great resources to teach culture, I want to make and you can't really teach culture anyways. Let's make sure that we are talking about this in a way that helps your students to not only understand themselves, but understand all of the humans that they can possibly interact with in the world. Around them and make connections in that beautiful way that, you know, think about the reason that you teach a world language. For me, the reason that I loved teaching a world language, and I love working with you and world language teachers, is because learning a language and acquiring a language and then using that language with others, albeit imperfectly, is the best way to understand what it means to be a human. And the fact that there are so many different ways to be a human. Like, it's. It's so linked with our human identity to have language and how we express ourselves is a huge part of language itself. And so cultures tangibly express themselves through language. And your students want to experience all that, too. And I know that you're dying to show them that, right? So let's talk about some ways that this looks different in a proficiency environment and ways that you can reel students in better with this. So here's the guiding light that I'll give for you. Students interact with the target culture in the target language as much as possible. Also use the mirrors and windows method. This is where students have an opportunity to both see themselves and better understand other ways of being a human. The mirror is them. Oh, I feel seen. And then the windows are. Oh, that's how others think, feel, and move through the world. I feel like I better understand not only myself, but how others feel. And it's such a great empathy builder. Okay, cool. Like, that's great and all. But how, though? Let's zoom in a little bit. Whenever possible, your students are interacting with the target culture in the target language. What does that look like? You know, I'm practical, so I'm going to give you some examples. And this, of course, is from the high school setting. That's where my jam is. That's where my vibe is. So here is how I used to make culture a part of our classroom and a part of how we interacted with language on the first day of class. For French one and French two. And this. This lesson is available for free on teachers pay teachers for. For my french friends out there, the riem. This lesson is actually a song, and I use it to teach high frequency verbs. And then after we learn the high frequency verbs from the song, I'll put the link in the description below for this so that you can see it. I actually use two. I use chamois by Black And I also use merci. by monsieur and monsieur. Both really great, and they are fabulous ways to start exploring culture through the target culture's eyes, their own words, their own feelings, their own expressions, then we experience a little bit of the target culture in different ways that they are interacting with the world, but we're using pieces of the language within the song in order to acquire more language and get those repetitions. So it can really be that easy. Like, let it be easy. It can be as easy as just doing the things that you love to do, like playing music in class, but using it with a purpose, using it with a routine that kind of deal, as well as reading books by the own voices, movement people who are a part of that culture and have stories to authentically share, as well as anything that you can find, really from the target culture. Like, that's the whole purpose of authentic texts and media. Now, how do you handle that, though, and make that an easy piece of your classroom? Because the number one difficult piece of culture is not any lack of love in that department world language teachers love culture, but what usually ends up happening is, oh, my gosh, I have so much language to teach on my plate that I don't have time for the cultural activities that I want to do, as well as there's not great guidance on where I could find all of these great resources. You know, there's all kinds of obstacles with this. So I'm going to give you one way that you can make this a little bit easier on yourself. The first thing is to start building yourself a bank of authentic texts, songs, and documents that you can start to use year after year after year. Like, I had the same 6D Muertos videos that I would use every single year. And because they were good, you know, like, you use. You use one just because you need it one year, and then you ditch that mediocre one for a better one next year, and you start to build up a library. And the other piece of this, too, is that when you're working with these cultural texts, these very rich cultural texts, a way that you're working with them is following the intercultural guidelines and the five cs with ACTFL, where you are asking students to, as they experience these cultural items, to reflect on and compare. What does this say about this community? And how is this similar or different to something that I do in my own life or my own community? Like reflection. Reflection. Reflection is a huge part of culture. And what we're trying to get students to do, because the whole goal of culture is to move towards in your curriculum that enduring understanding, which is also another great way to get to really good, deep culture, a nice, tangible, practical way that you can do this, too. Is think about both of those songs have to do with, like, pretty deep cut social justice themes. So a thing that people get tripped up about a lot with culture is I don't know how to talk about, like, the deep themes with culture with my students unless I'm using the target language. True. I see you for that. But know that many themes, especially with social justice, like, you can use cognates for that, and you can talk about the surface level. True. Untrue facets of things, like ce just, c'est pas just. And have students sort a lot of statements in the target language in order to still make any kind of position statements about what they're seeing and experiencing. The thing to avoid when you're working with culturally rich items, artifacts, perspectives, products, practices, any of that, is that you are not there to tell students what to think or to summarize or feel about what they're experiencing. Like, the beauty of your job is you're opening the window to them, to this whole backyard, this whole garden that they just never had access to before. So you're just opening the door and letting them run wild a little bit and helping them in their processes, themselves, that self reflection, that growth mindset, as well as figuring out how to navigate new ways of thinking and being. What does that look like? It looks like you very often asking, what do you think that says about this situation? What must they think is important? What must they feel is not important? What must they prioritize? Or where do you think that comes from? Like, what element of history do you think you could pull that from? Or an important question to ask, too, of course, is, who's represented here and who's clearly not represented here? It's a very, very good question. Like, you're not here to tell students what to think. Students are smart. They are very observant, and they know a lot about the world. And sometimes they know more about the world than we do. Especially, students have a lot to bring us and to teach us. So our job is to open the door, show them the windows and mirrors, and let them explore and give them focused opportunities in a safe space to explore these things. You also will get a lot more bang for your buck if you use the principles of deep rather than wide. That means that the age of trying to figure out an entire country is gone. Instead, go visit a city with your students. Go look into a specific community within that city or a specific undercurrent of culture within that city. My favorite example of this is recently when I was creating a resource, a virtual field trip to Senegal. I didn't even know where to start. I was like, oh, my God, there's so much cool stuff to talk about in this place. Like, where do I start? And I said to myself, let's go deep rather than wide. Like, let's completely. Let's go down the full rabbit hole of the. Fashion here is insane. Let's do that. Because, like, we could do food. You could do food in any place. Like, that's always an option to you. But fashion has a really interesting story here, and it is thriving in Senegal. And there's. There's a lot going on in Dakar, too. There's so many other things that you could talk about. Specifically in Senegal. I found so many things on fashion that I was like, boom, that's where we're going. And sure, you might miss out on other things, but if you turn your focus in and you, like, really focus in on that lens, it's kind of like a picture. If you try to capture everything in the moment, the whole picture looks blurry. But if you focus on one thing, the entire picture actually becomes more beautiful, especially if other things might be blurred in the background. So your job is to pique interest, is to get them asking questions right, is to ignite that love for exploration. Or if you're like me and you live in a place where many people never, ever leave the place that they were born and have no desire to do that, your job is to show them that there's a big ass world out there and that there are many people that they will interact with who have been to many, many different places and have many different versions of what it means to be a human, including what are different versions of politeness? What are different versions of being a good friend? What are different versions of honesty? Like, that's. That's what culture really is. There's a whole iceberg to it as well. There's that surface level, and then there's that secondary level and a tertiary level. And with that in mind, also be diving into yourself. Dei principles to guide which materials you use to help students explore. Explore a culture themselves. Like, you're not in charge of making sure that students understand this, that and the other about places that you are studying and cultures that you are diving into. It's more your job to help them figure that out themselves, and they will come to different conclusions than you. And that's wonderful. And my last tip for you is that you provide the opportunity for students to expand their worldview through meaningful cultural resources. Lead with varied and useful images, rather than trying to explain typical aspects of a culture. So let's take the french teacher conundrum that we always have. I don't find this as much with spanish teachers, although it certainly does exist. But for french teachers it's not as bad as it used to be, but we still have to have this motto of, you know, like, french class is not about France. There's. There are more registered french speakers in the country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone than the entire population of France. So it is not. It's. It has never been just about France, and it most certainly is not today. So it's also. It's not going to be the whole focus of your class, and it might be evenly, like in my class was, like, uplifting the radar because we've got a whole big world to talk about. But you will have a lot more success with conveying and helping students, conveying the. The reality of a place and what it means to be a. Be a person from that place. If you actually show them images from that place, rather than you know, doing a PowerPoint where you say, you know, people from this culture tend to do this, this and this. Like, could you imagine if somebody did a PowerPoint about what it means to, like for me, like, what it means to be an American? Like, oh like, makes my heart hurt or like, what it means to be a Canadian? It's a little. It's, like, kind of hard to swallow when you think about. So it's made me rethink a lot what an actual culture lesson means, because we're not just talking about, like, remember, you're not a history teacher. We're talking about people's ways of being and ways of life. Like, my identity as an American is a very multifaceted and complex thing, and you can't put that into a PowerPoint. So I would instead, if I was teaching about Americans, I would instead take students to a city in America and show them a bunch of videos of different Americans talking about what it means to be an American. And all of the different issues as well as positive things that we have about our identity, like that, I think would be a lot more meaningful. And I feel like you get a much better idea for that. So, like, remember your own identity when it comes time for you to teach, quote unquote, teach culture, that it's. Culture is so personal and is really culture at the end of the day, is just putting a term to help explain, describe, and codify how people express their identity through both tangible and intangible things. So, like, it's a. It's a big deal. And you also don't have the responsibility of making sure that students, students are, you know, quote unquote, well, cultured and know absolutely everything about a place or that, you know, they sound mega intelligent about, say, Senegal after they leave your class. Like, that's not your job. Your job is to make sure that whenever they interact with somebody from a different culture than their own, with a different identity than their own, they know enough that they know nothing. That is your job. Like, if you can get your students to the point where they finally recognize that, especially Americans, because this is a huge problem for us. so for like, my north american friends, you know, and if you have a different identity, I'm sure that you've experienced this with Americans before. that especially with. If you're working with american students, our main role is to make sure that whenever they interact with people who have complex intersectional identities, as we all do, but especially if they have a non american identity, that we as Americans actually know nothing. And that will set them up for so much success. It really will. It will set them up for so many aspects of being a global citizen, of having healthy relationships and interactions with people from different cultures and avoiding so many misunderstandings. Because at the end of the day, like, this is one of the things that we do in our class that has the biggest impact on our students future success is fighting xenophobia, fighting racism on many different levels, and embracing all types of linguistic, ethnic and socio cultural diversity. Like, we have a huge, huge role to play to that in, in world as world language teachers. So if you feel after talking to your students and being with them for a year, because many of us in the high school sphere only get our students for a year, if you can move them through your class, and after a year, they finally understand that they actually know nothing about what it means to be a human and that there are so many different ways, vibes and forms of expressing this. You did your job, that's great. I would say that that's your top priority more than making sure that they can, you know, name the different foods that come from different places or that they're well versed in different holidays and festivals. Like, those are cool too, and those are great ways to help get them to that point. But that's really going to make the most impact for them in their life. And I know will mean the most for you because I know that the reason that you're a teacher is you care about them as people like you want to help be a part of the movement, of changing how people interact in the world with the other, with the different, with the person, with the accent. So, since I know that you're so passionate about this, your culture moments, lessons, we'll call them in your classroom, are pivotal part of that. And with that, that's our series, y'all, for the ten elements of world language proficiency instruction. I can't wait to hear about how this has helped you in your classroom and thoughts that you have on this. And I'm so excited to start our next series, which is going to be listener questions. I've been getting some really fun ones from you and things, actually, that I get questions on a lot. So we'll be diving into some goods about anything and everything, about what it means to start jumping into proficiency, especially when you don't have a lot of support. There's a lot of good questions that I got coming your way, so that's gonna be our next series. And in between that, we'll have some goodies along the way. So stick around for the ride. Give this podcast a rating. It's really, really good karma, and I'm so excited to see you for the next episode. Bye for now. Bye.