AKITA JALT meetings in 2003
picture album page 9 of 2003

October

Guest speaker: Christine Winskowski Ph.D.
Date: Saturday, October 18th (2003)
Title: Integrating Culture into the Language Course






Haruhisa Kayama (on the right) joined us from Fukushima pref.
Mr. Kayama is Supervisor in Language Education at NTC (Nihonmatsu Training Center),
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).



Guest speaker: Christine Winskowski Ph.D.
Date: Saturday, October 18th (2003)
Title: Integrating Culture into the Language Course

10 people attended the meeting to listen to the speaker.

Chapter Report (to be printed in The Language Teacher) Akita: October Guest speaker: Christine Winskowski Ph.D. This presentation asked the question "To integrate culture into the language classroom, where does one start?" Culture, after all, is a huge topic. One could conceivably do "holidays and "food," and then go on to "customs," "religion," and "shopping," and so on. But where does it all end? And how does one know when enough culture topics have been taught, and the course is…well…finished? Prof. Winskowski began with a survey of ten culture textbooks. Three of the ten were not ESL texts, per se, but Orientation texts for visitors to the USA. There were forty-three topics covered by the ten textbooks, though eighteen of the topics were only touched upon once, and that was in one of the three Orientation texts. She proposed using a template or matrix approach for the teaching of culture in language courses. This involves identifying a limited number (say 6-12) of target country characteristics and values that underlie the customary behaviors and language being taught. These key characteristics and values are then systematically linked to the language being taught. The purpose of this approach is to leave students with a coherent outline (the template) of cultural principles that explain the language and social patterns they are learning, rather than a sequence of disconnected facts and customs. Prof. Winskowski illustrated this by showing some scenes from a video 'Connect with English', which has an accompanying workbook. Discussion followed the presentation and a break. In attendance was Mr. Haruhisa Kayama, Supervisor in Language Education at NTC (Nihonmatsu Training Center), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He is in charge of training Japanese JICA volunteers being sent to African and Asian countries. So a special emphasis was placed on practical ideas to help JICA workers understand the native cultures they would encounter in the field. Reported by Stephen Shucart

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