Culture as an Asset in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Dr Aziza Zaher Department of Arabic MLAC

Why I decided to talk about this topic?

Basic concepts: Grammatical and communicative approaches to second language learning and teaching Grammatical approaches Competence The speaker’s knowledge of the language Performance The actual use of the language in concrete situation

Basic concepts: Communicative Competence Communicative competence involves sociolinguistic, strategic, discourse, sociocultural, social as well as linguistic competence (van Ek, 1986) Cultural/Intercultural Competence Putting the learner in touch with the cultural world of a particular group of native speakers; and the capacity for reflexivity, analysing one’s own culture from an external perspective and understanding its relationship with other cultures in order to facilitate communication.

Intercultural Language Teaching (ILT) ILT is an approach to teaching culture as an integrated part of language. It implies an acknowledgement and understanding of the link between language and culture, as well as an understanding of how communication works across cultures. ILT has mad many implications for the language teaching profession, as teachers need to explore the skills learners need in order to explore culture as it is manifested in language use.

Constructive alignment and outcome based teaching and learning Constructive alignment The constructive alignment of the intended learning outcomes (ILOs), the teaching/learning activities (TALs) and the assessment tasks (TAs). Implications on teaching Which approach do we use as teachers? Which elements culture to choose and why? What are the implications on teaching and assessment?

Examples from Arabic Everything Me and my colleagues Food & Celebrations Jokes, photos, clips, etc Media (and research) Cultural exploration and research YA & TLRP

War in Gaza in

Design a product and advertise it!

Examples from other languages French Spanish Italian Chinese

Thank you! Questions?!