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CULTURE AWARENESS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLURICULTURAL COMPETENCE
Name of author: Fernando TRUJILLO SÁEZ
E-mail address: ftsaez@ugr.es
Institution and country: Facultad de Educación y Humanidades de Ceuta, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Target audience
q Pre-service teachers
o Primary teachers
o Secondary teachers
q In-service teachers
o Primary teachers
o Secondary teachers
Itineraries
q Identity exploration
q Developing knowledge about languages and cultures
Abstract :
Five activities are presented here to stimulate the development of pluriculturalism in teacher trainees. The first one tries to uncover the definition(s) of culture we bear in mind in order to incorporate an updated, anthropologically-sound definition for language teaching. The second one keeps reflecting on the idea of culture, now about one of its main assumed features, that culture can be transmitted; the analysis of that transmission in the family can help us understand it more deeply. The third one deals with identity and stereotypes, trying to see how easy it is to invoke stereotypes and how deeply they can determine our interpretation of other people’s lives. The fourth one invites us to make an “examination of identity” to see the presence of cultures in our lives and to compare it with our fellow mates. Finally, the fifth one proposes an analytical activity to consider whether certain teaching practices promote pluriculturalism and rich socialization (and in which degrees) or not.
Rationale
The concept of «pluriculturalism» is one of the most important educational innovations present in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Language learning can help the individual understand her/himself better thanks to the contact with other people. That connection can promote pluriculturalism, the development of a rich conception of identity. In this set of activities we assume that a reflective and critical approach to culture can help in the construction of a rich and sound pluricultural identity.
Personal and social dimensions
· To observe the linguistic and cultural diversity of contexts and individuals;
· To recognise the linguistic and cultural complexity of individual and collective identities;
· To recognise linguistic and cultural diversity as a positive characteristic of groups and societies
· To enhance each individual’s language and culture by considering language and culture as a means of human development (aimed at social inclusion and as preparation for exercising their citizenship).
Professional dimensions
· To be aware of the need for a new linguistic and cultural education capable of promoting plurilingualism and pluriculturalism;
· To know and defend the reasons for an education favourable to the development of a plurilingual and pluricultural competence;
· To observe, analyse and make use of – in didactic terms – the diversity that exists in one’s teaching environment (individual and collective repertories).
The definition of culture
Timing / durée: 60 minutes
Material required: paper and pins
Grouping : (individual) (pair work) / (group work/)
Description of the activities
Prepare a poster with your own definition of culture. Don’t look it up in any book. Hung each poster on the walls so that everybody can read and compare them. Look for similarities and differences.
In pairs, first, and, then, in small groups (4-6 people), build a “shared” folk definition of culture.
Finally, try to write a large group definition.
With that group definition in mind, check if these statements are included in your definition:
1. culture is a way of life
2. culture comprises traditions and customs
3. culture is the behaviour of a group
4. culture comprises the main features of a society
5. culture is the knowledge one must learn to belong to a society
Notes for teachers:
“Culture” is a fashionable term nowadays. However, many old-fashioned definitions of culture still coexist with other more updated ones. An anthropologically-sound definition of culture describes it as a shared system of meanings and symbols human beings use to interpret reality and behave accordingly.
The statements mentioned (1. culture is a way of life; 2. culture comprises traditions and customs; 3. culture is the behaviour of a group; 4. culture comprises the main features of a society; 5. culture is the knowledge one must learn to belong to a society) above are based on two metaphors: “culture is an object” and “culture is an enclosure”. On the one hand, we should remember cultures are not objects (they are sets of ideas and symbols) which can be transmitted untouched but dynamic systems in constant change (even those ones which seem to be unchanged for centuries, such as religious cultures); on the other hand, cultures are not enclosures; in fact, most of us participate just partially of a wide number of different cultures: we are not exclusively national beings, religious beings or ethnic beings. We have multiple identities and we belong to multiple groups with different degrees of identification.
This multiple-identity perspective is the basis of pluriculturalism. Depending on the situations, we adopt and use a “cultural face” to interact with other human beings. Awareness of this fact can help us understand ourselves and others as well as the different communicative situations we may get involved.
The ‘transmission’ of culture
Timing: 60 minutes
Material required: pencil and paper
Grouping: (individual) / (pair work)
Description of the activities :
Think of the differences and similarities among your grand-parents, your parents and you about
a. religion;
b. politics;
c. sex;
d. the family and generational relationships;
e. civic compromise;
f. ...
Then, write a short text to summarize those differences and similarities and share it with your partner.
Notes for teachers:
How can we explain these similarities and differences among members of a family if “culture is transmitted”? The culture of a group is managed (created, maintained and modified) through communication, which is a process of interpretation, open to negotiation of meanings. That is, culture is not transmitted as such, but created and re-created in people’s minds.
Furthermore, thanks to this activity we can observe some interesting cultural phenomena: 1) individuals enjoy many different cultural groupings; being part of a family and being part of a generational group (grandparents, parents and children) are two basic groupings which can explain these similarities and differences; 2) our participation in a cultural community is partial and normally linked to our distance to the “power nucleus”: if power in a family is represented by parents (or grandparents) the family culture is more strongly determined by their actions than by the rest of the members; consequently, children belong to the family culture but in a more peripherical and partial way than parents and grandparents; 3) cultures are dynamic and it may happen (it does) than the actions and ways of thinking of children modify the family culture gradually through the on-going process of communication which maintains the family together.
Identity and stereotypes
Timing: 60 minutes
Material required: Pictures of different people; pencil and paper
Grouping: (individual) / (whole class/)
Description of the activities
Who are these people? Fill in the following table making up the personality and the social life of three of these people. Describe them using just the graphic information you may receive from their image
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Name
Place and date of birth
Educational background
Language(s)
Hobbies
Other details
Adopt now one of those three identities and explore it. The whole group stands up and everyone introduces her/himself using that new identity. The activity can take place in a circle or walking along the classroom in pair conversation. At the end of it everybody must choose one of the “new identities” to get to know her/him better.
Notes for teachers:
The objective of this activity is to reflect on how easy it is to create a whole identity from an image just using our stereotypes. Stereotypes are not negative by themselves; they are shortcuts used in quick thinking with very limited information. However, social relations cannot be affected by stereotypes, particularly in educational contexts because stereotypes reduce identity to a small number of interpretative guidelines, keeping it away from the rich pluricultural perspective mentioned in the activities above. Awareness, reflection and criticism must be our constant objectives in relation to stereotypes.
In this sense, the group might like to come back to this activity after the teacher educator reflection on stereotypes in order to build new identities from a pluricultural perspective.
Examination of identity
Timing: 60 minutes
Material required: paper and pencil; a text by Amin Maalouf (2001 – see annex) ...
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