Culture of English Speaking Countries - Week 5 - Cultural Practices

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 5 of the course Culture of English Speaking Countries for the bachelor's in English teaching at ULACIT. This week we will discuss the topic of cultural practices, compare traditional practices regarding remedies, describe a cultural place, and consider differences in customs between the US and Costa Rica.

Today's Goals:

• Compare cultural products, practices, and perspectives regarding traditional remedies.
• Create a culture map to examine the interaction between products, practices, and persons in physical space.
• Describe the linguistic and extralinguistic features of a cultural act.

Guiding Questions: 

• How do products, practices, and persons intersect in a cultural place that I visit often?
• How is my culture represented in the actions people perform?
• What are the linguistic and extralinguistic features of a cultural act?

Warm Up: Folk Remedies

Many cultures have a rich and detailed repertoire of products and practices related to traditional folk remedies for common physical ailments. These products and practices are informed by cultural perspectives about the causes of illness and what keeps a person healthy. In this activty you will explore some of the folk remedies of your own local and family culture. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE

I was curious to learn if there were similar perspectives and practices in other countries. I asked friends from Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Finland and here is what they told me. As you listen, identify similarities and differences between the products, practices, persons, and perspectives. 

• CLICK HERE and contribute to the Jamboard. 

What about US traditional remedies? Well, there's nothing special except for the importance of chicken soup! CLICK HERE to see an image. It's so associated with comfort, care, and feeling better that there was a famous series of self-help / motivational books with that name (CLICK HERE).

Task 1: Group Recall

Let's take a moment together to recall the topics we explored last week.

• What is a cultural product?
• Artifacts?
• Places?
• Institutions?
• Art Forms?

• Moran says that products can be portals to help us explore the other cultural dimensions. Think of a product and let's see what associations you can make with the other dimensions:

• Product: What is it? Where do you find it?
• Practices: How do you use it? When?
• Persons: Which people use this?
• Communities: Which groups of people use this object?
• Perspectives: Why do people use this? What significance does it have in the culture?

• Gun ownership is a politically and culturally divisive topic but it is an essential cultural feature of the US. CLICK HERE to read some statistics. Can you think of any issues that are as politically and culturally polarizing in your country?

• How do people in your culture view the role of guns in US culture?

• How does your culture view the topic of gun ownership?

Theory Break: Places

• "Man-made settings are populated with numerous artifacts, arranged in particular ways within the physical space. The organization, layout, or interpretation of this physical space is a critical feature of places, just as much as the artifacts and their arrangements in these places (Moran, p. 52)."

• Places are interesting cultural features to explore because of the reasons mentioned in the quote and also because it is within places that different cultural practices are carried out by communities and specific persons.

Task 2: Culture Mapping

Let's explore the topic of places in greater detail by drawing a culture map. Choose a public place that you are familiar with and draw a map of it from a top-down perspective. Be as detailed as you can and include the cultural artifacts in their locations. If your drawing skills are not great, just use simple shapes and symbols. 

Suggested Places: You can choose any public place but be sure it is a specific real place that you visit.

• Bus station you use
• Pulperia in your neighborhood
• Soda/restaurant you are familiar with

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE
• Teacher's Example: CLICK HERE

Exploring the Culture Maps: Now share your maps with your partners and explain the following aspects.

• Where is this place located within your city or neighborhood?
• Describe the physical layout of the place and the artifacts found there.
• What is the significance of the location of the artifacts?
• What are the "hot spots", the points in the map where actions occur?
• What can you say about the products, practices, perspectives, communities, and persons associated with this place?

Task 3: Cultural Place Video Podcast (15%)

Your first group project is due on July 11 at 11:59 pm. Consier the following information about it.

• Learning Objective: Demonstrate your ability to analyze a cultural place in an English speaking country by creating a 7-9 minute podcast describing its physical layout, the cultural products it contains, the practices that occur there, and the underlying perspectives that the people of the culture have about it.

• Justification: Cultural products are the most visible forms of culture but they take on a wide variety of forms and do not exist in isolation from other items of the cultural pentad (practices, perspectives, persons, and communities). The analysis of a cultural space will provide the opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of this cultural framework as a tool to analyze the features of a cultural place in an English speaking country.

College Football Stadiums in the US 

• Podcast Evaluation: Now click your group link below and evaluate your teacher's sample podcast. It is not perfect so think carefully about the score it deserves for each of the criteria in the rubric.
• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE

Task 4: Exploring Cultural Practices

For homework this week you read Chapter 6 Cultural Practices in the Moran book and completed a study guide. Open your study guide and respond to the following prompts with your partners. 

• What is a cultural practice?

• What are the characteristics of the four types of practices?

• Operations
• Acts
• Scenarios
• Lives

• Share the scenario you described in your study guide and say how it fits within some of the following categories:

• Time-Based
• Event-Based
• Group-Based
• Institution-Based
• Live-Cycle Based

• What are some examples of operations and acts within your chosen scenario?

• In the chapter you also learned some new terminology for linguistic and extralinguistic features of practices. What were some of the new terms you learned?

• Describe a practice you are familiar with. How can the terms be used to describe what happens (or not) during the practice?

Theory Break: Cultural Practices

• “Practices are organized and implemented in preordained ways according to the expectations of members of the culture. They involve a linguistic dimension (written or spoken language), and extralinguistic dimension (paralanguage and nonverbal language), manipulation of products, and specific social circumstances, and often occur in particular physical settings or places (p. 59).”

• “Operations describe practices that involve manipulation of cultural artifacts. Acts are specific communicative functions with both linguistic and extralinguistic features. Scenarios are practices enacted in specific social situations, involving operations, acts and other sets of specific practices. Lives are sets of practices organized by individuals through the ways they live their lives in the culture (p. 59).”

Task 5: Exploring Cultural Acts

Click your group link below to explore the linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic features of common cultural practices. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE

Task 6: Differences in Customs

For your Culture Learning Journal this week you were asked to read a brief chapter called "Differences in Customs". Discuss the following prompts with your teacher and parters.

• The author described an uncomfortable moment between four immigrants in the US from different cultures who decided to have a potluck dinner (US custom). What happended? Why?

• The article mentions some US holidays. What are some operations and acts associated with holidays in your culture?

• What do you think of the following quote? How do parents in your culture treat their children? How do your cultural values appear in the ways you communicate?

• "Americans value independence and self-reliance, for example, so it is customary for them to encourage their children to speak up for themselves. They assume all people are more or less equal, so it is customery for them to talk in relatively informal ways with nearly everyone."

• What else did you learn about the following US customs? How do they compare to customs in your culture?

• Punctuality

• Keeping your Appointments/Plans

• Distance when standing and talking

• Topics to avoid in polite conversation:

• Politics and religion
• Woman's age and weight
• Personal income
• Price paid for things they own
• Details about one's health, especially bodily functions

Differences I Noticed

• Entering a room or someone's house with "con permiso". 
• Saying "buen provecho" to someone who is eating.
• Greating everyone in the room individually.
• Greeting with a kiss.
• Navigating levels of formality in 2nd person singular (usted, vos, tu*).
• Showing care for others through diminuitives (papi, mami, papito, mi tata, lita).
• Using diminutives for almost everything. 
• Making plans and never following through.
• Differences in punctuality. 

References:

Althen, G. (2011) American Ways: A Cultural Guide to the United States (3rd ed.) Intercultural Press.

Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectices in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning.