Why are we teaching culture?
What are the most important topics to include in our "short" programs?
What are our ideas about a paradigm shift away from our Chinese teachers learning about culture to finding ways to incorporate cultural teaching/learning into their classrooms?
What are your ideas about finding ways for our Chinese teachers to find ways to teach students in their classrooms about culture topics?
Should we introduce
ReplyDeleteChristmas,
an American Wedding,
Thanksgiving,
Easter?
I think those are all good. Maybe some in classrooms and some in big group. I've got two short new Easter presentations with ppts.
ReplyDeleteDo we need to be careful to present both religious and secular themes? Should we also talk about July 4th or some other patriotic type holiday? I'm thinking, by doing so, we would have an opportunity to talk about US history, patriotism, etc....if the students are interested in that topic.
ReplyDeleteFrom Roxanne:
ReplyDeleteIn order to work more collaboratively with the CT's, perhaps we could work together with them on the culture topics. For example, take Christmas and Spring Festival, or an American Wedding and a Chinese Wedding, and work together to find similarities and differences (2/3 of each?), juxtaposing them in a mini-presentation somehow. This would also be a good way to model teaching different topics in the CT's classroom.
Expanding on Roxanne's comment - Depending on how many classes there are and the number of culture lessons we present, for each culture lesson we present, one class could be responsible for presenting a similar lesson. Roxanne already mentioned weddings and Christmas/Spring Festival. Values and educational systems would be 2 more topics. If we present Easter and Thanksgiving, the CT's would be responsible to suggest and plan lessons dealing with Chinese holidays.
ReplyDeleteWe could prepare the CT's for the presentation the day before. And from the questions/comments the CT's offered, we would know the direction(s) to take with the presentation.
ReplyDeleteThe CT's always prepare the Chinese presentations extremely well. We could use volunteers from each class for the U.S. presentations, making sure that the volunteers are different each time (and making sure that each class sends a volunteer each time).
One of the amazing parts of this program is how the program seems to fall into place, thanks to our relationships with each other during the week in Beijing. And another amazing aspect is the opportunity to work together in Hanyuan before dividing up for Ningxia.
The only difficult part of this program will be trying to explain what we see and hear and experience as gifts and talents are revealed within each of us and each CT.
What do you see as the benefits of having our student present Chinese cultural programs?
ReplyDeleteFrom Roxanne
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to ask the Chinese teachers this question.
I'm basing these benefits on an intentional effort on our part to work together with the Chinese teachers on culture. Some benefits would be that it equalizes value in cultures. It encourages teacher interactions. It encourages tolerance of differences. It increases language acquisition. It could give more awareness of, and confidence in, their culture -- to pass on to their students who are such a part of a global society.
Those are valid benefits.
ReplyDeleteHow do the presentations help them as teachers?
What do we expect them to teach their students about culture?
As I see it, cultural lessons are primarily a means through which the CTs can take English "out" of their textbooks. Rather than merely teaching "about" English, they will have a chance to "use" it in real life settings. By participating in culture lessons (both their own and by helping the NA teachers) the CTs will use English for various functions such as agreeing, persuading, organizing, etc. Hopefully, the CTs will also realize the importance of non-verbal language. The CTs might not teach their students factual cultural information, but vocabulary and non-verbal skills are all part of North American/English speaking culture.
ReplyDeleteHaving the CT's talk about their culture in English provides them with a very familiar topic. By explaining/sharing the Chinese cultural topic in English, they become the managers of the information, not the American teachers.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that CT's of any level of English proficiency are more likely to use the English language effectively in familiar, self-selected circumstances such culture.
As teachers in their own classrooms, they will know the value of providing their own students with familiar topics for English discussion, particularly topics of their students' own choosing.
As a second-language learner, I disliked role plays, but I always appreciated group discussions/presentations of topics I considered meaningful, especially multicultural ones.
I need some help regarding the question, "What do we expect them to teach their students about culture?" Are we talking about Chinese culture as topics to learn English, or English culture as it relates to the English language?
ReplyDeleteI was musing about what we might do with our students to help them teach their students culture topics. They have bits and pieces in their textbooks. Do we want to help them go further? I don't know the answer, but wonder if, for example, we might prepare them to involve their students in a Christmas lesson?
ReplyDeleteI feel there is a lot of value in having the CTs present culture as John stated. We also can encourage then to can use this in their own classrooms.
ReplyDeleteTheir students would work on presentations out of class time, maybe in their evening study times or whatever.
I liked John's comments as well as Jene's -- perhaps to work on presentations on their own to present. And... David's musing about preparing the teachers to involve their students in a Christmas lesson, as an example, would offer a whole new dimension, not only for us in preparing the CT's, but also for them in actually doing it in their own classrooms. It likely wouldn't be familiar territory, but the idea is attractive. Yes, how might that play out?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about our quandary of trying something different with culture and have something I'd like to purpose. If you like it, we could go over it in Beijing.
ReplyDeleteA bit of background, though:
A few years ago, Brad Barain was teaching in Vietnam with ELI and edited a publication entitled Teacher's Edition which was published by ELI. The contributors were ELI career teachers and Asian teachers they worked with. It is an excellent publication. One spring while visiting ELI sites, I met Brad and luckily got on the mailing list.
In going through these, one contribution is a lesson on teaching Thanksgiving. It's highly interactive, informative, well-planned, and involves almost all the techniques, skills, and methods on our orange tip sheet. Besides, it's great fun. Throughout the lesson, in this case, the Chinese, are as physically involved as the Americans -- not in role playing, although it could be added, but activities such as vocabulary, food, manners, etc. The Chinese are involved by paralleling their culture in different ways. No actual food is involved. It would probably take 1 1/2 hour, or more or less if we wanted.
That's a very sketchy idea of it, at best, but I can see where it could be presented as a culture lesson, actively involves the Chinese, and could certainly be used by the CT's to teach their own class. It's so diverse, it could be adapted for a number of culture activities.
I think including Fourth of July for culture would be good and timely since we will be there at that time. They would certainly learn about American culture and traditions with all the different ways we celebrate across the country.
ReplyDeleteoops - sent it before I finished. Talking about the Fourth of July also gives us the opportunity to talk about some of the basic principles the US was founded on :-)
ReplyDeleteI have taught this in my Adult classes and they are very interested in the Declaration and the Bill of Rights, etc. Any feedback on this?
An idea from last summer - I liked Sylvia's very simple room decoration on the day of culture presentations tacked to the podium- a background of colored tissue paper with a focused picture
ReplyDeleteRoxanne, your lesson on Thanksgiving sounds great.
ReplyDeleteJoanne, if you do a July 4 lesson, let me know and I'll bring some American flags -
4- 20 x 30 in. and 2 - 4 x 6. Let me know if you'd like to use them.
Merlynn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the offer of flags. I'm not sure about presenting this topic, yet. From reading the comments above, it seems we are leaning more towards cultural ideas the CTs are familiar with. I will still bring all my scanned documents and photos about our Independence Day on my flash drive just in case . . . If others post favorable comments about a possible Fourth of July lesson, then your flags would be very helpful. I don't want you to take up space and weight in your luggage if we aren't going to do it. Any feedback from the rest of the team on this idea?