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UNIVERSIDAD DE TARAPACÁFACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN Y HUMANIDADESDEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS EXTRANJEROS PROGRAMA MAGISTER EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉSLENGUAJE E IDENTIDAD CULTURAL
FINAL ASSIGNMENT:“CULTURE SHOCK”
LESSON PLAN
M.A. STUDENT : Liliana Lema LarraguibelPROFESSOR : Julia Menard- Warwick
Arica, August 2010.
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INTRODUCTION
According to the readings we have studied in class, my own experience
and the ones from people I know; I think 'Culture shock' is an interesting
topic to be developed in an adult EFL class. We have all gone through
the stages this phenomenon describes and have sometimes wished we
would have stayed home when visiting a foreign country, especially for
the first time. But, on the other hand if we started learning English we
also expected to practice it in real life situations, hopefully in an English
speaking country.
I’ve always been interested in this particular topic but in this course I got
to think what happens the other way around. What is it like for
foreigners to come to our country as tourists or to spend a longer period
of time? What are the things that shocked them the most, how can we
learn to cope with our own anxieties by understanding that we also are
part of a society with different habits and traditions? To be on the other
side certainly makes a difference.
My lesson plan includes the development of the four skills through the
analysis of “culture shock”. Students will be able to talk about their own
experiences and think about others’.
This topic is of great interest for my students at the Academia de Inglés
in Universidad de Tarapacá, Iquique since they’ve all been abroad more
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than once and pretend to travel or even find a job in a foreign country.
Therefore, I believe they’ve all faced these stages in different ways and
will be happy to share their experiences.
BACKGROUND
This class will be carried out in a pre intermediate level at the Academia
de Inglés in Universidad de Tarapacá, Iquique. The students’ ages are
between 25 and 45. All of them are men and work in the Chilean Air
Force. Their goal is to take the PET (Preliminary English Test) in
December and get the international certification given by the University
of Cambridge to apply for a promotion, a specialization in their areas of
work, or maybe a job abroad.
Most of them came from the south part of Chile. Their traditions are not
always similar in terms of food and celebrations (for instance;
Independence Day) than the ones we have here as Northerners. The
weather in their hometowns is different, their families are bigger.
They’re conservative, responsible and hardworking men. Some of them
are married so their lifestyles are different from the ones who are not.
They are good at sports and enjoy having barbecues and spending time
with their relatives and friends.
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These students have a very good sense of humor so I use a lot of
playfulness in the classroom. Comic strips, funny readings and jokes are
common in the classroom. They also like to talk about sports and what
they do at work. They are airplane mechanics and really enjoy talking
about their everyday lives, especially anecdotes. Students have a very
strong intrinsic motivation, since they decided to take this course on
their own; they are very responsible and hardworking. The only issue
that I’ve had to deal with is that they are a little bit narrow minded and
want language to work as the Math tables. I’ve come to make them
understand meaning changes depending on context, but it’s been the
most difficult thing to do here.
The course is completely structured. This is an advantage but it also
demands you to follow it, sometimes not being able to include more
appealing materials. As a teacher I am allowed to include or modify
certain aspects, but the time is little and the activities planned a lot.
Besides as my students work near the airport outside the city and by
shifts, it is difficult to keep a steady pace since sometimes I don’t have
the same students in two correlative classes. I have to work with the
students that are weaker so they don’t get unmotivated and continue to
study in the course. Resources are fine but as I said before there isn’t
enough time to include technology regularly. In general, the course plan
works fine.
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APPROACH OUTLINE
What I want to achieve with this lesson plan is students to leave their
stereotypes aside and try to take the other person’s place. To
understand that everybody feels lost at least once, that there are ways
to cope with feelings of anxiety and hopelessness.
When I was looking for material for this lesson plan I found this article on
the web from a magazine that helps students who are undergoing the
process of exchange programs. There was a sentence “It’s your world.
Get acquainted”. This message made me remember about the goals we
studied in class and were taken from “Culture in teaching English as an
international language” by McKay. I tell my students that they are
studying standard English, that they are being prepared to communicate
with different people from different cultures and countries who share the
same first or second language; English. So one the goals is to help
students interact in cross- cultural encounters.
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In the paper written by Ros i Solé several concepts are explained such
as: subjectivity, cultural identity and adult language learners. When I
teach kids is not difficult to make them understand the importance of
tolerance and the respect for diversity. They live it every day at school,
the school I work in is full of immigrants and they are used to spend time
with people from very different cultures and backgrounds. But with
adults it’s different, they have some fixed ideas of the world and
sometimes it gets a bit difficult to break down these prejudices and start
developing the mind of an international language student. Sometimes
patriotism gets confused with a feeling of superiority. This course gave
me a lot of help in the form of ideas and theories that can help me break
through their prejudices.
In our analysis of this article we also took some goals to be achieved
when teaching culture, for example that we need to present a culture
made up of multiple subcultures that evolve continuously. This sense of
change that might be uncomfortable for adults is part of reality and
sometimes it’s difficult to go along with it but it’s part of the way the
world works and the system of globalization we’re facing.
Finally, I would like to make reference to the article written by yourself
(Co-constructing representations of culture in ESL and EFL classrooms.
This article points to the importance of letting the students now that
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when dealing when cultural aspects and representations they should not
see speaking practice as just a chance to improve this ability but as a
way to open their minds and become better listeners, comprehending
what the other person wants and needs to say. Once again the need of
tolerance and growth from somebody else’s thoughts and experiences
becomes a MUST.
“CULTURE SHOCK” LESSON PLAN
This course is divided into three lessons a week. One related to theory
and the other two to practice the language through the development of
the four skills.
Theory class:
In the first class I will ask them to play a game pretending to be a
famous cartoon character. In this game they will try to find out some
personal information about their classmates characters without asking
who they really are. Then students will be asked to discuss some
questions the teacher will write on the board, they work with a partner
to discuss them. After this, the teacher asks them if they have ever
heard the term “culture shock” and explains they are going to study it.
The teacher shows them a power point presentation on the subject. The
students will be given an article with experiences told by exchange
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students who suffered the different stages described in the PowerPoint
presentation. Students read first in silence and then take turns to read it
aloud. The class is arranged as a semicircle and the students are asked
to share their opinions about what they read. They say if they agree and
why and also explain if they do not.
Finally; students are asked to write an outline on their experiences
regarding this matter.
Practice A class:
The teacher writes the concept “culture shock” on a circle in the middle
of the whiteboard then she asks her students to come to the board and
write any of the concepts they learnt the class before beside as to form
a word spider web. Students are asked to read their outlines to rest of
the class and explain them. The teacher tells them they are going to
see a PDF file taken from the web that helps Americans understand our
country, its traditions, etc.- Finally the teacher asks them to get in
groups of 4 and design something similar (a kind of handbook) for
foreigners who want to visit our country. They can keep the most useful
information from the power point presentation and/or include new one.
Most importantly; they should write a short glossary on Chilean idiomatic
expressions and a possible translation to them. This will be presented
briefly next class.
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Practice B class:
Sts present their “handbook” and say what they chose and added.
Students are asked to write a one page essay on culture shock. They are
expected to include information studied during the week and their own
experiences when being abroad. Students are asked to exchange their
essays with a classmate and talk about them before delivering to the
teacher for grading. They can work on their computers if they want and
use a dictionary. They are also allowed to ask as many questions about
expressions, structures and vocabulary as they want. The students
comment on this activity as a class.
DISCUSSION
As I mentioned before my students are workers from the Air Force, they
have travelled a lot, met a lot of people but still have problems when
dealing with different ways of life, especially cultural traits. Their ethic
and moral formation as military men leads them to the use of prejudices
and stereotypes in society. In my opinion a huge part of making
progress in the use of the English language comes with an open minded
attitude. Language changes and evolves constantly and rules are there
for us to start comprehending how it works but nothing is 100% square.
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I expect them to gain a major understanding on the effects people suffer
when travelling or settling on a foreign country even if it is the other way
around (people coming to our country) through the activity in which my
students will have to read “A gringo’s survival guide” for our country, to
be in someone else’s shoes and be able to understand and develop a
sense of solidarity.
I believe this lesson plan is effective both theoretically and practically.
First of all, the main topic is a psychological phenomenon scientifically
proved. Secondly, I took “real life” resources from the internet to show it
to the class. Besides, the article is deeply related to all the discussions
we had in class about the readings we had to study. In makes students
think about the topic and analyse their views on it. Although my
students like to tell jokes and play in class they are also very reflective
people and enjoy talking about serious matters that are present in our
society. Practically because I’m sure these activities will create
meaningful learning and will become part of their “stock” of knowledge,
it will help them understand language through culture.
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