Universitat Internacional de Catalunya - BarcelonaEnglish Language and Culture
Main language of instruction: English
Head instructor
Dra. Christina Angela HOWES - chowes@uic.es
Office hours
Dra. Christina Howes
chowes@uic.es
Martes y Jueves 10.00-11.00 (by appointment)
Culture partly constitutes our identity; it plays a role in how we define ourselves, how we perceive ourselves, communicate, understand, classify and describe everything around us. As such, any communicative act can also be looked at simultaneously as a social act that frames a cultural reality of a language speaker.
Hence, the role of culture is especially important in the acquisition and teaching of a language based on a communicative approach.
This course aims to introduce students to 1) some basic theories of culture applied to language teaching 2) history and culture of the English speaking world (principally the United Kingdom: history, literature, music and other key cultural elements 4) the application of history and culture into the primary classroom.
B2 level English according to CEFR in the four basic areas of evaluation: oral comprehension and production and written comprehension and production.
The main objectives of this course are:
1) To raise awareness of the way culture and history profoundly influence language and thus knowledge of it is vital to both teaching and learning English.
2) To improve students' knowledge of the main cultural and historial moments of the U.K and the U.S.A to enable them to transfer this to the primary classroom.
By the end of this course students will have reflected and developed their own personal opinions over a range of relevant subjects. They will also have learned about history and culture of the British Isles and the U.S.A. Additionally, students will have participated in many debates and presentations that rely heavily on their communicative abilities in English as well as their teaching competence and their ability to integrate culture in the classroom.
1. Introduction
a. What is culture? Why is it important in the classroom? Discussing methodologies and other issues in teaching culture. English as an international/global language. The English-speaking world.
b. Theoretical considerations: Some theoretical frameworks. Discussion of issues involved in cultural pedagogy in the foreign language classroom through academic articles and conference proceedings.
2. Culture and History in the English-speaking world: A brief overview of History, Festivals, Literature, Music, Film and Art through audiovisual material, readings, lectures, blogs, individual and group research.
3. Approaches to teaching history and culture. Practical implementation and an analysis of course book material.
Students will be provided with weekly academic articles posted on Moodle, among other handouts and materials.
Optional readings:
•Baker, C. (2008). Knowledge of language, bilingualism and multilingualism. In J. Cenoz & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Knowledge about Language (Vol. 6, 2nd Ed., pp. 315-327) . Berlin: Springer. •Boroditsky, L., (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 1-22. •Bourdieu, P. (1991).Language and symbolic power. Cambrdige: Polity Press. •Byram, & Kramsch, C. (2008). Why is it so difficult to teach language as culture? The German Quarterly, 81(1), 20-34. •Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua Franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. Modern Language Journal, 91, 923–939. •Castro, P. et al. (2004). Integrating culture-and-language teaching: an investigation of Spanish teachers' perceptions of the objectives of foreign language education. Intercultural Education, 15(1), 91-104. •Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. (2011). Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 185–209. •Fernández, D. (1998). Culture in the classroom. The ACELT Journal, 2(2), 3-9. •Green, M.C. (2004). Storytelling in Teaching. •Khubchandani, L. M. (1997). Revisualizing boundaries: A plurilingual ethos. New Delhi, India: Sage. •Pavlenko, A. (2000). Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in L2. In V. Cook (Ed), Portraits of the L2 User (pp. 277-302). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. •Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 10(3 ), 209-231. •Singh, R. (Ed.). (1998). The native speaker: multilingual perspectives. New Delhi: Sage. •Zipes, J.(2013). The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
History:
Cunliffe, Barry (2004): The Penguin Illustrated History of Britain and Ireland: From Earliest Times to the Present Day. Penguin Reference Books.