Canadian Culture Bow Valley College Objectives To examine the - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Canadian Culture Bow Valley College

Objectives  To examine the meaning of culture  To examine intercultural awareness and competencies  To examine the kinds of learning that are suited to teaching culture  To create a task that helps build cultural awareness

Overview  Awareness activities  Importance of teaching culture  Characteristics of culture  What our focus should be  Intercultural competencies  Stages of intercultural development  Who the culture ‘experts’ are  Awareness activities  Types of learning that work  Creating a task  Points for reflection

Importance of teaching culture  Empowers newcomers with the ability to interact more effectively  Helps with integration  The 5 th skill?

Characteristics of Culture  Culture is learned  Culture and its patterns change  Culture is a fusion of material, social and subjective elements  Not all culture is evident to an 'outsider' - many aspects are hidden  Culture is not distributed uniformly among all members of a group  Culture is context driven  Culture is diverse within a given country  Culture is very closely related to language

So, what should we teach? Some considerations  Our multicultural environment  The impossibility of learning everything about Canadian culture  The characteristics of culture  The stages of acculturation The answer?  Building intercultural awareness and competence

What is intercultural competence? According to Barrett et al. (2013): “It is a combination of attitudes, knowledge, understanding and skills applied through action which enables one singly, or together with others, to:  Understand and respect people who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations from oneself  Respond appropriately, effectively and respectfully when interacting and communicating (---)  Establish positive and constructive relationships (---)  Understand oneself and one’s own multiple cultural affiliations through encounters with cultural ‘difference’ “

Bennett’s stages of intercultural development Ethnocentric Ethnorelative  Denial of cultural difference  Acceptance of cultural difference  Defense against cultural  Adaptation of cultural difference difference  Integration of cultural difference  Minimization of cultural difference

Who is the culture expert?  Can culture be taught by a volunteer tutor in a non-formal setting?  Can culture be taught by someone who hasn’t traveled much?  Can culture be taught by an immigrant tutor?

What works best? Learning that is:  Experiential  Interactive  Cooperative  Task based  Reflective  Pedagogically sound  Engaging

Points for Reflection Keep a journal on:  Where you are on this continuum: ethnocentric ---------------------ethnoreflective  Critical incidents you encounter  Actions/lack of actions on your part. Reasons.

References Barrett, M., Byram, M., Lazar, I., Mompoint-Gaillard, P., & Philippou, S. (2013). Developing intercultural competence through education. Retrieved from Hub.coe.int Bennett, Milton J.(2004). Becoming interculturally competent. In J.S. Wurzel (Ed.) Toward multiculturalism: A reader in multicultural education . Newton, MA: Intercultural Resource Corporation. PDF retrieved from www.idrinstitute.org Byram, M., Gribkova, B. & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teacher. Retrieved from http://www.coe.int Peterson, E. & Coltrane, B. (2003, December). Culture in Second Language Teaching . Retrieved from cal.org Sauvé, V. (1996). Working with the cultures of Canada in the ESL classroom: A response to Robert Courchêne. TESL Canada Journal, 13 (2), 17-23. Retrieved from http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca