Culture and SLA - Week 11 - Social Contexts of SLA

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 11 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIC0 2023. This week we will follow up on the topic of pragmatics that you saw in many of your reading group articles last week in order to look at the social contexts the shape the second language acquisition process.

Today's Goals:

• Analyze cultural differences in communication styles and pragmatics.
• Discuss the ways that sociocultural contexts can influence the process of SLA.

Guiding Questions: 

• How do social factors influence the second language acquisition process?
• What areas of second language acquisition research intersect with sociocultural phenomena?
• What cultural feature am I thinking about including in my lesson plan?

Task 1: Analyzing Pragmatic Considerations

As you know, becoming communicatively competent involves more thant just linguistic knowledge. Pragmatic and interactional competence are essential to ensure smooth social interactions among cultures. Click the link below to read a brief handout adapted from Stringer and Cassiday (2009).

• Digital Handout: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Social Context of SLA

For homework you focused on the "Macrosocial Factors" that affect the out comes of the SLA process. Let's take a moment to focus more on each of these factors in a class discussion. Click the link below.

• Discussion Task: CLICK HERE

Theory Break: The Culture Learning Process

• Culture Learning Models: They highlight the adjustment process as learners learn about and change to meet the requirements of the culture, while they are immersed in it. If they progress, learners pass through stages, phases, or passages, gradually accumulating knowledge about the culture, appropriate cultural behaviors, fluency in the language, and ultimately changing their attitudes toward the target culture, their own culture, themselves, and cultures in general (Moran, 2001, p. 123)."

• Culture Teaching: "The key to teaching this unique experience is self-awareness, knowing one's self. At some point in this process, learners need conscious awareness of themselves. They need to recognize what they are going through and to purposefully take action. As teachers, we can help learners bring their experiences to the surface, to expression and articulation, so that they can decide how to respond to the culture. When learners do name their experiences - what they perceive, think, or feel - we need to be ready to help them situate this within a larger framework (Moran, 2001, p. 123)."

• Moran's Framework: The process of culture learning consists of an ongoing series of encounters with cultural differences presented through structured participation in the language and culture curriculum (products, practices, perspectives, communities, persons). these differences can trigger emotional reactions. Guided by the teacher, the learners engage in description, interpretation, and response, consistent with the states of the experiential learning cycle and cultural knowings. Over time, through repeated encounters and explicit reference to models of culture learning, learners acquire more knowledge of the target culture, develop more appropriate linguistic and cultural behaviors, attain greater understanding, and enhance their awareness of their own culture, their intentions, and their competence as culture learners (Moran, 2001, p. 124)."

• This model is based on the following assumptions:

• Culture learning can be a conscious, purposeful process.
• Culture learning requires managing emotions.
• Culture learning depends on cultural comparisons.
• Culture learning requires making the tacit explicit.
• Learner characteristics affect culture learning.
• The relationship between the learner's culture and the target culture affect culture learning.
• The instructional context affects culture learning.
• The teacher-student relationship affects culture learning.

Task 3: Prepare Your Culture Lesson Plan

Your homework for the week is to submit your culture lesson plan based on the Four Cultural Knowings and the Experiential Learning Cycle. A few weeks ago, you participated in a demo lesson on the topic of tipping in US culture that followed the same cyle. Take a moment to brainstorm some possible cultural topics you would like to explore in your lesson plan.

The final chapter in in Moran's book can be very helpful for thinking of possible activity types, question prompts, outcomes, and teacher roles in the four stages of the plan.

Click to see full size image.

Click to see full size image.

Feel free to also take a look at the lesson plan for the Demo class as inspiration.

• Demo Lesson Plan: CLICK HERE

Your other pending assignment is the group project to analyze a textbook. Do you have any questions about this?

• Textbook Analysis: CLICK HERE

Task 4: Cultural Features of US 

In case we have extra time this week we are going to look at two areas of US culture, traditional values and communication styles. This task is meant to be informative and also to help generate additional possible topics you could explore in your culture lesson plan project.

• Traditional American Values: CLICK HERE

• Communication Styles: CLICK HERE

References:

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

Savile-Troike, M. (2012). Introducing Second Language Acquisition. (2nd Ed.) Cambridge University Press.

Stringer, D. & Cassiday, P. (2009). 52 Activities for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication. Intercultural Press.