"Culture" as a Construct: Two Teachers' Stated Beliefs About the Teaching of Culture in a Foreign Language Classroom

• In Event: 79.050 - MTCC Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: 79.050-1 - Pedagogical Practices for Bilingual Youth

Abstract

Students in a foreign language classroom must be explicitly taught how to successfully engage with speakers of the target language. Researchers and language teaching organizations such as ACTFL agree that learning linguistic functions does not guarantee cross-cultural understanding or develop intercultural competence (Byram & Wagner, 2018, Kramsch, 1996, ACTFL, 1996). Thus, most empirical research around cultural instruction explores what to teach and how to do teach it. My study, instead, explores language teacher cognition as it relates to phenomenon of culture teaching in a secondary foreign language classroom. Interviews, observations, and documents gathered from two participants confirm the complex web of influences on language teacher cognition as well as the complex nature of “culture” itself.

Author

• Rachel Moody, Boston College