Integrating culture into curriculum is as undeniably indispensable aspect of foreign language education. This is why “Culture” figures so prominently into the Five C’s comprising the Standards for Foreign Language Learning. Foreign language instruction involves more than merely imparting some grammatical rules and vocabulary and sending students on their way. Students need some sort of context for the content; a pragmatic and practical framework into which they can input their newfound knowledge. In this way, the learner begins to recognize the value of the target language beyond the classroom, as he or she is able to apply the material being taught to them in a meaningful way.
Unfortunately, efforts to expose students to the target culture by instructors may be met by obstinacy on the part of the learner. The root of this reluctance to accept other cultures lies in the individual learner’s own culture. Students’ attempts to understand a new culture often involve comparing it to their own, and the end result is that they simply dismiss the new culture as inferior or “stupid”. This is particularly true with American adolescents. They are at an age when they have been more or less fully indoctrinated into their own culture and when developmentally they are still relatively egocentric. At the same time, they are living in a country that is relatively isolated and that is more accustomed to exporting it own language and culture, rather than importing others. Therefore, it is difficult to expect American students to be able to look at the world through a different lens.
Yet this is, nonetheless, one of the primary goals of foreign language instruction and it has become increasingly crucial in a world of dissolving borders and integrated economies. Educators must do everything in their power to broaden students’ intellectual horizons so that they realize, as I once read on a bookmarker, that “other cultures are not failed attempts to imitate [their] own.”
In order to accomplish this lofty goal, foreign language teachers need to first find ways to encourage students to recognize how their own culture influences their perception of the world. How does this translate into actual classroom practices, lessons, and units? It is a process of starting with the individual student’s frame of reference and moving on to investigate the target culture. For example, in a lesson about “homes and houses” a teacher might first ask students to describe their own homes or possibly even draw maps of their houses (as I once observed in a lesson). From here, the lesson can progress to examining homes within the target culture. In my case, the class might give a description of what their homes look like, and then examine photos that explore the different architectural styles that exist within France.
The class I am currently taking at RIC, as well as the school in which I am conducting my practicum, have placed a great deal of emphasis on Understanding by Design (UBD). For SED 410, I am in the process of developing my own UBD unit. Meanwhile, the school in which I have been placed, International School of Dakar (ISD), has required all teachers to input their curriculum into UBD units. Therefore, it is highly appropriate for me to address how cultural contexts relate to UBD units, specifically the one I am working on. Developing a UBD unit has certain stages, and choosing a cultural context is part of Stage one. However, I am beginning to come to the conclusion that there is no particular order within stage one. For example, I could decide what vocabulary and grammar I want students to learn, and then choose the context in which the content will be presented. From there I can build a unit accordingly. I could also reverse the order of the first step by choosing the topic or cultural context I want to explore and then deciding what grammar and vocabulary students will learn over the course of the exploration.
Right now, I am mulling over two units. The first is one about the Francophone world and I would be teaching it next March. The second is centered upon the theme of life for teenagers in France and it would be comprised of some lessons I already taught at ISD for which I generated my own material. For the Francophone unit, it has been more a matter of me choosing the context before the content. For the latter, I chose the context based upon the content I wanted to cover.
In my experiences at ISD, I try to evaluate the role culture plays in the lessons I teach and observe, and over the past three months I have noticed some things. First of all, teachers here do not necessarily face the same cultural obstacles as those faced by American foreign language teachers. The students at ISD are from around the world and most have lived in or visited several countries, so for the most part, they are accepting of the other cultures. In addition, most of them see the value in learning other languages because they have already had to learn another language at one point in their lives in order to socially interact with their peers. I should also point out that Senegal is a French-speaking country and the benefits of learning French are fairly obvious.
The next thing I noticed in my time at ISD is that the cultural aspects of lessons do not necessarily have to be glaring. Sometimes, the cultural component is extremely subtle. The French department at ISD only teaches in French; in part out of fairness to English Language Learners, and in part trying to strike a balance between language “acquisition” and “learning’ (i.e. introducing students to words before they use them in class). In doing so, they bring French culture into every lesson. As TLC points out, students’ attempts to equate other cultures with their own is similar to assuming that every word in a foreign language can be literally translated into their native language (Hadley, Alice Omaggio Teaching Language in Context; Third edition, pg 347). In French, people do not say “I AM 15 years old” or “I AM hungry.” They say “I HAVE fifteen years” or” I HAVE hunger.” There is really no such thing as literal translation and by conducting lessons entirely in French and rarely providing English equivalents of new vocabulary, the ISD teachers avoid the misconception that such a thing exists. My only question is how does that bode for “Comparisons”, which insists that students should be encouraged to make comparisons between the target language and their own? When I talked with my cooperating teacher about UBD and my difficulties grappling with how to inject culture into lessons, this is what she said. “The entire lesson is culture. Their binders are not ‘binders’. They’re ‘classeurs’. I use French songs and gestures to do everything from teaching the alphabet, to scolding students who misbehave. Simply doing everything in the French exposes them to French culture.” Of course, that is not a literal translation of what she said.
Incorporating culture into French curriculum can be potentially complicated for me. Culture is dynamic and though I have spent a significant amount of time in France and other Francophone countries, I am not French and I am by no means an expert on French culture. The Francophone world is vast and the influence of French language extends well beyond the borders of “l’hexagone”. There are Francophone countries in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, and Southeast Asia, and each of these countries and regions has its own unique culture. For me this creates two problems. First, it requires me to have at least a basic understanding of a very large geographic area, to be able to identify the majority of these countries, and to be capable of explaining the role France played in their history.
The other problem revolves around the question of how much time I should devote to each of these countries and regions. If my lessons focus almost exclusively on places like France and Canada, it would only provide students with a narrow glimpse of the massive Francophone world. At the same time, doing so would inherently assign a greater value to what some may deem to be “real” French culture, implying that one culture is “superior” to others. All of this could certainly be difficult. However, as much as the size and scope of French culture poses a challenge for me, it is precisely what I think I will enjoy most about being a French teacher. In the end, it will create countless opportunities for me to encourage students to look beyond their own back yards.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Overview
While the idea of me completing my practicum and student teaching in Senegal may sound like a noble act for the benefit of those less fortunate than me, this is hardly the case. I just want to be clear about this because credit should be given where credit is due. There are plenty of Aid workers, members of NGO’s, and Peace Corps volunteers who are here in Africa sacrificing their time and comfort in order to help some of the less fortunate people of this world, and they deserve the accolades; not me. My wife and I came here because we wanted to live abroad in a non-Western country and have a cultural experience. She found a job teaching at the International School of Dakar (ISD), and I was able to find a program that allowed me to finish my teacher education coursework at the school.
The International School of Dakar is by no means a mud hut with dirt floors situated in a jungle (or desert) for local children who show academic promise. It is a private non-profit school offering American curriculum that has been plopped in the middle of the poorest reason in the world: West Africa. The facility bears a striking resemblance to a military compound. It is tucked away behind a private American club on a dead end road surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire, and it comes complete with a gate and a guard shack. The school itself consists of newly built, brightly painted buildings; a large athletic field (with one of the greenest lawns in all of Senegal); lush gardens; a nice gymnasium; well equipped music and art rooms; a good-sized library; a couple of fancy computer labs; and classrooms with a new computer and projector in each one. In this sense, ISD seems incongruous amid all of Dakar’s poverty and pollution- like a shiny coin in a pile of dust.
Dakar is the cultural and commercial hub of West Africa and ISD draws its student body from the numerous expat families living here. The construction of the school was spearheaded by the US Dept. of State so its employees could have a place to send their children while completing the standard three year assignment. ISD is run by a director and a school board, and according to the school charter, the majority of the board members must be American nationals. Meanwhile, anyone else who can afford to pay the schools’ $16,000 tuition is welcome to enroll, and in a country where the average annual income amounts to about $1500, it is fair to assume that very few locals are sending their kids to ISD. Almost all of the students have maids, most have chauffeurs, and one hundred percent of graduates go on to attend (mostly prestigious) colleges in America and Europe.
ISD takes good care of its teachers and makes every effort to keep their employees happy while living in Dakar. After all, the board does not want a high turnover every year, because recruiting teachers to work in West Africa can be difficult. My wife and I were given an enormous apartment in a ritzy neighborhood populated by embassy workers, business people, and other expats. We do not pay for housing, her salary is tax free, and working for the school gives us certain diplomatic privileges. Most teachers end up hiring maids who cook, clean, and do laundry. Some are members of private clubs, while others golf at a posh golf course attached to the most prestigious hotel in town. My wife and I have not got to the point where we are willing to become that detached from reality and live in the “bubble.” We do not have a maid, are not members of any clubs, and prefer to find things to do in Dakar with the little free time that we have.
In spite of how all of this may sound, the school community is by no means a microcosm of an American society transplanted into Africa, and ISD is not a pretentious, exclusive private school full of snobby uppity rich kids. ISD is a very diverse place. The teachers are interesting, intelligent, and educated people from all over the world. Many have been living and working abroad for years and speak a number of languages, and all of them are excellent teachers who are highly dedicated to their students and to their craft. There are also “local hires” - Senegalese teachers, aids, and workers who are glad to tell you about Senegalese culture and teach you a few words in Wolof- employed at the school. The student body is even more diverse than the faculty. There are 370 seventy students representing over 40 different nationalities. A number of the kids have dual (some even have triple) nationality and have visited and lived in several countries during their short lives. Most of them have been more places than I have, but what is more astounding is that the vast majority speak anywhere from two to six languages. In fact, over sixty percent of students are English language learners, which is absolutely amazing when you consider that all classes (except for French and Spanish) are conducted in English and that there is only one ELL teacher in the entire school!
While it is clear that ISD students are exceptional individuals who come from extraordinary backgrounds, ISD is not an “elitist” institution. It is not an IB school and over 90% of those who apply are accepted. The keyword here is “growth.” Senegal is a “developing” country and as it develops, the International School roster swells with the children of families coming over to Africa to do business, contracting, or to work for their respective governments. This trend causes ISD’s rolls grow at a rate of about 20% every year. With this growth comes increased revenue, and the money is used so that teachers and students can have sophisticated technology at their disposal. As mentioned earlier, all of the classrooms have computers and projectors, and some even have smart boards. Like many public schools, ISD has its own intranet, but it has other programs which are new to me. There is “Focus” which is essentially an online grade book into which teachers must input all grades and assessments. Students and their parents are given passwords to Focus so that they always have access to their grades and can never claim they do not know which assignments are missing. For curriculum mapping, ISD uses another program known as “Atlas Rubicon”. Instructors are required to individually and collaboratively map out their curriculum for the entire year and post it on Atlas. In addition, each teacher has been told that all curriculum most be comprised of UBD units that include standards, philosophies, approaches, and references. Actually, the template provided by Atlas is none other than the UBD template itself.
I am very impressed with the way teachers are given the means and encouragement integrate technology into instruction, and how technology has been incorporated into and assessment and curriculum design. By giving parents direct access to students’ grades, Focus encourages parental involvement in academics while increasing accountability and transparency on the part of the teachers. At the same time, Atlas Rubicon is conducive to good cooperative planning and collaboration on the part of faculty. ISD truly is on the cutting edge in that sense. Unfortunately, having such lofty technological ambition can be difficult in Africa. There is limited bandwidth, which makes computers slow on campus, and power outages are a constant problem. I often hear teachers complain about how they lost power in the middle of doing grades or inputting a lesson. While I do believe that is important for schools to keep up with technological trends, I also think that a school must have the means to support the technology before it becomes a mandate that teachers use it. If not, it can be counter-productive and take away from valuable planning time.
Now that I have given a fairly detailed description of the International School of Dakar, I can move on to talk about my actual placement. I am here in Dakar to do my practicum and student teaching in French. My ultimate goal is to be certified in Middle School and SED French with a MS endorsement to teach Social Studies, and I cannot be emphatic enough when I say that ISD is the ideal place for me to finish my coursework. First of all, Senegal is a Francophone country and living here certainly helps me keep up on my subject area. At the same time, being in a Muslim country in Africa offers me a glimpse of a neglected part of the world that most people never see. This is a cultural experience will undoubtedly benefit me as an aspiring Social Studies teacher.
Next, the French department at ISD is exceptional. There is only one Spanish class; everyone else begins to learn French as soon as they enter the school. The classes range from beginner to Francophone (for native speakers) and are taught to every age group. The department has a rule that only French is allowed in the classroom to the extent that some students do not know that their teachers can speak English. Teaching beginner French entirely in French has been quite a challenge for me, but the more I do it, the more comfortable I become with the idea of teaching entirely in French when I get back to the US. I know that the question of whether beginner classes should be taught in the target language is still an ongoing debate in the field of foreign language education, yet I am witnessing firsthand that teaching this way is possible and it can work. The jury is still out on which approach is better.
The French department and the school keep me pretty busy. I have two cooperating teachers- one for middle school and one for high school and I spend about 10 every week in the classroom observing and teaching lessons. I have designed many of my own lessons after being provided with objectives and I recently taught a MS class a series of eight lessons as part of unit about “le week-end”. The people at the French department are even nice enough to include me in all of their meetings and I attend bi-weekly PD conferences about UBD with the rest of the faculty at the school. The fact that the school is so intensely focused on UBD really helps me with my practicum because it provides me with insight into the stages of creating a unit that I might not get if I were still in the states.
As a token of my appreciation, I make every effort to give back to the school. Every Monday night, I teach French lessons to some of the teachers (free of charge), and I coach the boys’ varsity soccer team the rest of the week. The other coach is Senegalese guy who used to play for the national soccer team. He does not speak English, so I function as his translator at practice and at athletic meetings. Actually, I do a great deal of translating. I have sat in on a couple of conferences to interpret for French speaking parents, and my neighbors often ask me to translate for them when they need to talk to their maids. Being a soccer coach has also given me the opportunity to help organize some fund raisers and next week, the school is flying me to Ghana for a tournament! I guess it is fairly obvious that this is truly a positive experience for me.
The International School of Dakar is by no means a mud hut with dirt floors situated in a jungle (or desert) for local children who show academic promise. It is a private non-profit school offering American curriculum that has been plopped in the middle of the poorest reason in the world: West Africa. The facility bears a striking resemblance to a military compound. It is tucked away behind a private American club on a dead end road surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire, and it comes complete with a gate and a guard shack. The school itself consists of newly built, brightly painted buildings; a large athletic field (with one of the greenest lawns in all of Senegal); lush gardens; a nice gymnasium; well equipped music and art rooms; a good-sized library; a couple of fancy computer labs; and classrooms with a new computer and projector in each one. In this sense, ISD seems incongruous amid all of Dakar’s poverty and pollution- like a shiny coin in a pile of dust.
Dakar is the cultural and commercial hub of West Africa and ISD draws its student body from the numerous expat families living here. The construction of the school was spearheaded by the US Dept. of State so its employees could have a place to send their children while completing the standard three year assignment. ISD is run by a director and a school board, and according to the school charter, the majority of the board members must be American nationals. Meanwhile, anyone else who can afford to pay the schools’ $16,000 tuition is welcome to enroll, and in a country where the average annual income amounts to about $1500, it is fair to assume that very few locals are sending their kids to ISD. Almost all of the students have maids, most have chauffeurs, and one hundred percent of graduates go on to attend (mostly prestigious) colleges in America and Europe.
ISD takes good care of its teachers and makes every effort to keep their employees happy while living in Dakar. After all, the board does not want a high turnover every year, because recruiting teachers to work in West Africa can be difficult. My wife and I were given an enormous apartment in a ritzy neighborhood populated by embassy workers, business people, and other expats. We do not pay for housing, her salary is tax free, and working for the school gives us certain diplomatic privileges. Most teachers end up hiring maids who cook, clean, and do laundry. Some are members of private clubs, while others golf at a posh golf course attached to the most prestigious hotel in town. My wife and I have not got to the point where we are willing to become that detached from reality and live in the “bubble.” We do not have a maid, are not members of any clubs, and prefer to find things to do in Dakar with the little free time that we have.
In spite of how all of this may sound, the school community is by no means a microcosm of an American society transplanted into Africa, and ISD is not a pretentious, exclusive private school full of snobby uppity rich kids. ISD is a very diverse place. The teachers are interesting, intelligent, and educated people from all over the world. Many have been living and working abroad for years and speak a number of languages, and all of them are excellent teachers who are highly dedicated to their students and to their craft. There are also “local hires” - Senegalese teachers, aids, and workers who are glad to tell you about Senegalese culture and teach you a few words in Wolof- employed at the school. The student body is even more diverse than the faculty. There are 370 seventy students representing over 40 different nationalities. A number of the kids have dual (some even have triple) nationality and have visited and lived in several countries during their short lives. Most of them have been more places than I have, but what is more astounding is that the vast majority speak anywhere from two to six languages. In fact, over sixty percent of students are English language learners, which is absolutely amazing when you consider that all classes (except for French and Spanish) are conducted in English and that there is only one ELL teacher in the entire school!
While it is clear that ISD students are exceptional individuals who come from extraordinary backgrounds, ISD is not an “elitist” institution. It is not an IB school and over 90% of those who apply are accepted. The keyword here is “growth.” Senegal is a “developing” country and as it develops, the International School roster swells with the children of families coming over to Africa to do business, contracting, or to work for their respective governments. This trend causes ISD’s rolls grow at a rate of about 20% every year. With this growth comes increased revenue, and the money is used so that teachers and students can have sophisticated technology at their disposal. As mentioned earlier, all of the classrooms have computers and projectors, and some even have smart boards. Like many public schools, ISD has its own intranet, but it has other programs which are new to me. There is “Focus” which is essentially an online grade book into which teachers must input all grades and assessments. Students and their parents are given passwords to Focus so that they always have access to their grades and can never claim they do not know which assignments are missing. For curriculum mapping, ISD uses another program known as “Atlas Rubicon”. Instructors are required to individually and collaboratively map out their curriculum for the entire year and post it on Atlas. In addition, each teacher has been told that all curriculum most be comprised of UBD units that include standards, philosophies, approaches, and references. Actually, the template provided by Atlas is none other than the UBD template itself.
I am very impressed with the way teachers are given the means and encouragement integrate technology into instruction, and how technology has been incorporated into and assessment and curriculum design. By giving parents direct access to students’ grades, Focus encourages parental involvement in academics while increasing accountability and transparency on the part of the teachers. At the same time, Atlas Rubicon is conducive to good cooperative planning and collaboration on the part of faculty. ISD truly is on the cutting edge in that sense. Unfortunately, having such lofty technological ambition can be difficult in Africa. There is limited bandwidth, which makes computers slow on campus, and power outages are a constant problem. I often hear teachers complain about how they lost power in the middle of doing grades or inputting a lesson. While I do believe that is important for schools to keep up with technological trends, I also think that a school must have the means to support the technology before it becomes a mandate that teachers use it. If not, it can be counter-productive and take away from valuable planning time.
Now that I have given a fairly detailed description of the International School of Dakar, I can move on to talk about my actual placement. I am here in Dakar to do my practicum and student teaching in French. My ultimate goal is to be certified in Middle School and SED French with a MS endorsement to teach Social Studies, and I cannot be emphatic enough when I say that ISD is the ideal place for me to finish my coursework. First of all, Senegal is a Francophone country and living here certainly helps me keep up on my subject area. At the same time, being in a Muslim country in Africa offers me a glimpse of a neglected part of the world that most people never see. This is a cultural experience will undoubtedly benefit me as an aspiring Social Studies teacher.
Next, the French department at ISD is exceptional. There is only one Spanish class; everyone else begins to learn French as soon as they enter the school. The classes range from beginner to Francophone (for native speakers) and are taught to every age group. The department has a rule that only French is allowed in the classroom to the extent that some students do not know that their teachers can speak English. Teaching beginner French entirely in French has been quite a challenge for me, but the more I do it, the more comfortable I become with the idea of teaching entirely in French when I get back to the US. I know that the question of whether beginner classes should be taught in the target language is still an ongoing debate in the field of foreign language education, yet I am witnessing firsthand that teaching this way is possible and it can work. The jury is still out on which approach is better.
The French department and the school keep me pretty busy. I have two cooperating teachers- one for middle school and one for high school and I spend about 10 every week in the classroom observing and teaching lessons. I have designed many of my own lessons after being provided with objectives and I recently taught a MS class a series of eight lessons as part of unit about “le week-end”. The people at the French department are even nice enough to include me in all of their meetings and I attend bi-weekly PD conferences about UBD with the rest of the faculty at the school. The fact that the school is so intensely focused on UBD really helps me with my practicum because it provides me with insight into the stages of creating a unit that I might not get if I were still in the states.
As a token of my appreciation, I make every effort to give back to the school. Every Monday night, I teach French lessons to some of the teachers (free of charge), and I coach the boys’ varsity soccer team the rest of the week. The other coach is Senegalese guy who used to play for the national soccer team. He does not speak English, so I function as his translator at practice and at athletic meetings. Actually, I do a great deal of translating. I have sat in on a couple of conferences to interpret for French speaking parents, and my neighbors often ask me to translate for them when they need to talk to their maids. Being a soccer coach has also given me the opportunity to help organize some fund raisers and next week, the school is flying me to Ghana for a tournament! I guess it is fairly obvious that this is truly a positive experience for me.
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