Integrating Culture into your Language Instruction

Culture is one of the goal areas from the World-Readiness Standards for Language Learning and it defines cultural knowledge as "knowing how, when, and why to say what to whom" (p. 11).
Let's get started with an article by Sandy Cutshall which appeared on ACTFL's The Language Educator on April 2012. In this article, she discusses the 3 P's as well as incorporating some tools for Culture integration in your curriculum. After reading this article, take the Pop Quiz and see how well you know this goal: Culture!

How can you infuse Culture into your classes?

Watch this video excerpt from classroom teachers as they discuss how they have integrated culture (3 P's) into their language curriculum. 
Also take some time to reflect or take action on some of the questions posted below the video.  
Source: Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 workshop
Read more about Intercultural Communicative Competence.
Following the above-mentioned title about interculturality, MIT created an online intercultural project called Cultura which allows students from the United States to connect with students from other countries to share and collaborate through various tech tools the 3 P's (product, practices and perspectives) of their cultures and thus deepen their understanding of each others' culture.

Nowadays, their online intercultural project has also generated new projects and ideas at other institutions and/or schools in order to empower students in our ever-changing and interconnected world. As stated in their site, "We, language teachers, are particularly well-positioned to play a key role in helping our students understand another culture since we teach both language and culture. However, more often than not we tend, in our language classes, to focus our attention on developing our students' linguistic skills and we spend rather limited time developing their understanding of the "foreign" culture. Cultura is an attempt to make culture the core of the language class, so as to respond to the increasing needs of our students within our global world." 

I invite you to check out their Cultura site and navigate through their tabs and/or access a Cultura-inspired ePub focusing on Asian and Pacific languages.

.. and if you are wondering what an intercultural exchange may look like, check out this Google+ Hangout or this Cultura-inspired Online Café.

The following video excerpt is taken from the online institute I attended: "Fundamentals of PBLL" developed at the National Foreign Language Resource Center with assistance from the Center for Language & Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa:

Are you ready to connect internationally?

You may want to start here:
  • Connect All Schools has a page dedicated to international collaboration and exchange which could be an excellent place to start. 

Other possible resources include:

What platforms may be used?

  • Google Groups: This is a very simple, free platform for hosting discussions; it does require a Google (GMail) account for all participants.
  • Wikispaces: Create a Wikispaces classroom and simply have all the participants join. You can click “add discussion” at the bottom of any page.

For videoconferencing:
  • Appear.In: The simplest, easiest Web-based conferencing you can imagine!
  • Google Hangouts: Also for Web-based conferencing; requires a Google account for all participants.
  • Skype

21st Century Skills

21st Century Skills continue to be an integral part in the wholesome education of students. As our worlds become more interconnected and globally competitive, there will be a need to know how to act on any given situation. Please find herein a list of readings that may aid you:
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