Week 12 Reflection: Culture

The main way that I learn about culture these days is through the internet, especially now that I am looking at jobs abroad. One of my favorite hobbies has become finding tiny, random cities in remote places on Google Maps, and then looking the name of the city up on Google. I first look at pictures of the city and if it looks interesting,  I'll look at the Wikipedia page about that city and try to learn about what life there is like. I'm doing something similar this semester with my CBI students. Our unit now is on maps and their main project is to choose a city that they have been to and are familiar with and to make a map of the 4 most interesting points in that city. About half the class chose their home cities, but the other half chose cities here in America or in Europe. Through making the map and doing a small amount of research on the cities and points of interest, the students are gaining a better understanding of what life in that city is like. One of the main ways students learn about culture today, especially in the EFL setting, is through the internet. The moment I found out that I was going to Romania for two years, I got on the internet and buried myself in research on the country, and it was research that never really stopped, even when I got there. That's the thing with learning about culture, instead of language items, via the internet - one topic can lead to another, which can lead to another, which can lead to another, so that the research and learning never ends. Such internet searches on language items would eventually get boring. As a teacher, I like the ideas that Guth and Helm presented with regards to teaching culture. I have used the access and produce strand numerous times - especially when I was teaching abroad, but I have never had the chance to put my students in contact with native speakers of the target language. It seems like a wonderful, yet potentially time consuming and difficult to monitor process. The idea of bridging is iffy for me. I think it's important for students, as well as teachers, to maintain separate spheres of life. I certainly would not want to bring my facebook page into my teaching, and would not expect students to be interested in bringing their facebook accounts into their classrooms. Learning goes on all the time, in and out of the classroom, and the students' social lives are learning opportunities that do not need to mingle with their classroom learning lives, in my opinion.