In a conversation with my mother this past weekend we happened upon the topic of teenage weekend activities. In the 70's, with two older, much older, sisters, my mother was introduced to cigarettes and beer around the age of 11 or 12. This was just normal. For me, at the age of 12, I was most likely riding bicycles with my friends, playing video games, or going to summer camp.
At 17 my mother would slip into her bell bottoms and go out to the bars with her girlfriends.
At 19 I would slip out to an apartment party in my skinny jeans.
We both flat ironed our hair, but she actually used an IRON!
We are mother and daughter, Jewish, Americans, feminists... but we are part of different cultures due to our generational differences. Where we see eye to eye on many things, style of dress and dance is not one of them, but does not rip our family bond apart.
Culture = a means of unification under one 'flag' with a set of ideals that guide our mannerisms, beliefs, creations, and communications
Culture = "power to sow the seeds of dissension between members of a familly, between communities in a nation, and between nations in this world" (Kumaravadivelu, 2010:9).
Are we united and separated under the headings of 'culture' or are do we define and redefine ourselves then choose an appropriate heading?
Kumaravadivelu (2010) goes on to discuss the mindbending notion that it is not that culture is but it is what culture does that is important. If culture is not a noun, what is it? Wintergerst (2011) proposes that "culture is a far-reaching dynamic concept" (3) and as a "complex frame of reference that consists of patterns of traditions beliefs, values, norms, symbols, and meanings that are shared to VARYING DEGREES by interacting members of a community" (cited from Stella Ting-Toomey 1999).
Culture does. Members of a culture share beliefs to varying degrees. Generations share culture but each new generation incorporates patterns of interaction from those other intersecting peoples and ideas (and here comes mass media as a player! - not to mention youtube...)
Each of these authors touch on culture as an inexplicable entity, and then propose ways to explain it in a classroom! Does anyone else see this as counterproductive?
The standards for language education propose incorporating "culture/Culture" into the classroom, but there is no way to accomplish student comprehension of what it is to be a part of another mind set without living through certain experiences. I believe that, as nearly all our authors studied thus far, students should discuss the idea of culture as an iceberg and detail what culture means to them. In this way, in reading their course texts, they can take all they read with the proverbial grain of salt; hopefully understanding that the small boxes shoved into textbook margins or short online videos featuring the same cast of characters at the end of each chapter is NOT representative of an entire people, its generations, its history, and even its present!
How often do we read something in an English textbook (TESOL professionals) that is so outdated that we have no idea to what it refers? Or perhaps the English textbook is British English or Australian English and we haven't a clue as to what certain vocabulary items mean?
This goes to show that there is so much more to a people than what can be demonstrated in reading a textbook and in 50 minutes of instruction... or even in 100 hours of instruction.
Language instruction is an opportunity to get a glimpse at the tip of an iceberg that is the studied language. Language study opens the door so that each student might pass through and learn firsthand what the global perspective has in store on his/her adventure through Wonderland.
Discussion of cultural 'norms' is helpful to students in understanding actions or ways of speaking which they might otherwise view (through ATTRIBUTION) as bizarre or offensive. Helping students to enter into appropriate conduct during conversations will eventually help them to integrate into other societies without being viewed as the ethnocentric cowboys that most people think Americans are!
Here Lantolf (1999) picks up the baton and runs with the linguistic door-opener: we are not learning language-culture so we can better assimilate, but so that we can better understand ourselves! Second language learners' "development of tolerance and understanding of other cultures as well as in the degree to which the study of other cultures enhances cultural self-awareness" (28) shows interesting insight to our opening issue of culture as glue or means of dissent. Here I think it is important for teachers of languages to realize that it is the tone, manner, and acceptance that they portray while discussing culture in the classroom that will lead students to see other cultural attitudes and mannerisms as either bizarre or as acceptable.
We are mirrors.
I found Kumaravadivelu's discussion on "Culture and Language" interesting, but somewhat obvious. Our language does not define who we are, rather we define ourselves for the audience on paper (or listeners) through the choices of language we employ.
For me, this means I discuss banking, health, economics, and fashion in English. I discuss food, cooking, literature, and farm equipment in French.
This does not mean that I have a split personality, it means that my life experiences have lead me to learn certain vocabulary for things, which already touched me personally, in different languages.
So while I dance Gangnam-style, my mother boogies, and my roommate salsas, we all manage to dance, and we all like to party!
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