Teacher's Guide : First Stage
I. CHECKLIST BEFORE STARTING
Make sure you have the following in place:
- a partner and a class with whom to work
- access to the web for yourself, your partner and the students (in the Lab, in the classroom, from the dorms, from home)
- very little technology support
You will need to finalize the content of the questionnaires, in agreement with your partner. You will then upload your questionnaires (with the Cultura Exchange Tool). Your exchange will be hosted at MIT.
II. PRELIMINARY ACTIVITIES
Cultura will most likely present new territory for your students. We therefore suggest that you spend a week preparing them to the notion of cross-cultural understanding, with a number of activities designed to sensitize students to such notion. These activities below need not be done in the order they appear, nor do they all need to be done.
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY 1: BARNGA
This is a card game which simulates cultural clashes, and we strongly recommend you use it in your class. It is played in teams of four or five students, who make the assumption that they are playing with the same set of rules, but gradually discover that each team has received different instructions from the other teams. It is a very easy game which perfectly illustrates what happens when one encounters a foreign culture. To find out more about the game and to purchase it, check the cultural Press: www.interculturalpress.com (isbn: 1931930309).
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY 2: ARTICLES
You can give your students any article from your local press (in English) that talks about another country or a different culture or a subgroup within a culture.
Have students read it and - depending on the content of the article - make comments about :
the way the "foreign" culture is portrayed
the clash of values that is being illustrated,
etc...
NOTE: If you know of such article which you want to share, please send a reference on to the Teacher's Forum. We will try and obtain the copyrights.
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY 3: HYPOTHESES/ASSUMPTIONS
One of the main mental activities students will perform with Cultura is to make hypotheses about what they observe, before asking their foreign counterparts for clarification. The following exercise will sensitize students to looking at a particular phenomenon from different perspectives.
Students are presented with facts about certain countries (found in magazine articles discussing other cultures), and then have to come up with as many explanations as possible (probable or silly), that could explain these facts, putting the most plausible explanation first. NOTE: This should be done in the target language, if possible.
When students are finished, ask them to share their more plausible explanation with the others. Elicit a general class discussion about the "plausibility" of the explanation presented. You may want to have students vote. Afterwards, give students the "real" answer (provided below) as well as the source of the information. Also tell students that these "facts", although recorded in the press, may not necessarily be correct. The fact that they were printed does not make them the "truth". Tell your students that with Cultura they will be able to ask questions to their foreign partners and therefore check on some facts, with the caveat that the answers they receive may not always be correct either.
Example taken from the French/American exchange: “The French are the greatest consumers of medicine in the world” (Les Français sont les plus gros consommateurs de médicaments au monde). Possible reasons: they are the sickest of most stressed out people in the world; French doctors favor providing medicine for treatment over any other treatment, such as psychiatry; medicine is free. The last reason is the real one: most medicine in France is free or reimbursed at a rate of 80%.
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY 4: LOOKING AT THE UNDERLYING MESSAGE
Example taken from the French/American exchange: Have students form groups of 2 or 3 and distribute the following excerpt from a book by Alain Bosquet, entitled Les Américains sont-ils adultes? "Ailleurs [que chez lui], c'est entendu, il [l'Américain] est mal à l'aise, et peureux de commettre mille erreurs: il lui est difficile, en voyage, d'apprendre les formules de politesse, de serrer la main au moindre bonjour et au moindre bonsoir, de ne pas parler au portier comme on parle à son cousin germain, de distinguer le vin rosé du beaujolais, de ne pas faire sonner ses dollars en dèsespoir de cause. Oui, l'Américain s'exporte mal".
Have your students read this passage. Make sure they understand the structure and vocabulary of the sentence, and clarify whatever needs to be clarified. Then ask your students to do a critical analysis of it:
what does the text say?
what does the subtext say? (= what is implied?)
Possible remarks:
Americans do not know how to behave when they are away from home, i.e. in a foreign country (Les Américains ne savent pas comment se conduire en dehors de chez eux, c’est-à-dire à l'étranger.) Subtext: this text tells more about the French than about the Americans, it describes what it important for the French people: manners, the importance of shaking hands, the importance of keeping separate what is separate: doorman and first cousin, rosé wine and Beaujolais. Talking about money is frowned upon. Other comments: the author is judgmental, he uses clichés (dollars), and over generalizes (l’Américain).
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY 5: TRANSPOSING A STORY FROM ONE CULTURE TO ANOTHER
Example taken from the French/American exchange: Have students form groups of 2 or 3 students, distribute the text below, have some students read it aloud, clarify any vocabulary or structure problem, and give them some background to the text (see NOTES below). Ask the students to try and elucidate the passage: what does it mean? What is going on?
NOTES: This is an excerpt from a book in French by André Makine, a Russian author, entitled Le testament français (from chapter 3). In the passage below the author, who understood French perfectly, relates what he imagined when his French grandmother who was living in Russia would tell him about Neuilly-sur-Seine, where she was born:
"Neuilly-sur Seine était composée d'une douzaine de maisons en rondins. de vraies isbas avec des toits recouverts de minces lattes argentées par les intempéries d'hiver, avec des fenêtres dans des cadres en bois joliment ciseles, des haies sur lesquelle séchait le linge. Les jeunes femmes portaient une palanche... [.....] car notre grand-mère nous avait bien dit, un jour en parlant de sa ville natale: - Oh! Neuilly, a l'époque, c'était un simple village... Elle l'avait dit en français mais nous ne connaissions que les villages russes. Et le village en Russie est nécessairement un chapelet d'isbas [.....] La confusion fut tenace malgré les eclaircissements que les récits de Charlotte apporteraient par la suite. Au nom de "Neuilly", c'est le village avec ses maisons en bois, son troupeau et son coq qui surgissait tout de suite. [......] "
Follow-up class activity: Have groups share their interpretation of this text. Have they had similar experiences? If, yes, have them relate them to the whole class.
III. ANSWERING THE QUESTIONNAIRES
This constitutes the first real step of Cultura. After you have finalized your choice of words, sentences and situations with your partner-teacher and decided together what the deadline for answering those questionnaires is, ask your students to go to the Cultura web site and respond to the three questionnaires you have designed.
- Show them the web site in class if possible and read aloud the instructions posted. Tell them to:
- answer all three questionnaires in one sitting (this should take approximately one half-hour).
- be as spontaneous as possible.
- write the first two or three things that come to their minds.
- write in their "native language" or more precisely, in the language of the country in which they are studying.
- Give them sufficient advance notice, but give them a deadline for answering (you and your partner will have decided together on a specific date and time) and tell them that after that day and time, they will no longer have access to the questionnaires.
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