| This paper presents,
discusses, and analyzes a unique Web-based, cross-curricular initiative designed to
develop, understanding into foreign cultural attitudes, concepts, beliefs, communication
patterns, and ways of looking at the world, within the framework of a foreign language
class. The primary focus will be on the pedagogy of electronic media, and in particular on
the ways in which the Web can be used as a powerful conduit for bringing out the invisible
aspects of a foreign culture, giving a voice to the elusive "silent language",
and facilitating the development of cross-cultural literacy. It will examine how the
electronic medium makes new areas of cultural knowledge and understanding accessible to
learners. This paper will provide background into the creation of the Cultura web server,
the development of an associated methodology for the classroom, and an analysis of the
data which has been generated over a three year period from a perspective of cultural
literacy. Cultura is a collaborative
Web-based language learning tool, bringing together groups of learners and their teachers
in France and the United Stated. Students simultaneously analyze a shared set of resource
materials designed to help them gain insight into the problematics of cross-cultural
communication more specifically focused on a comparison of France and the United States.
The teaching methodology follows a five-step format carried out over a 9 weeks period.
Step 1: French and American students respond, in their native
language, to an identical series of three questionnaires that appear on the Web. These
questionnaires have been designed to ascertain some basic cultural differences toward such
topics as family relations, power structures, work, etc.
Questionnaire 1: Word Associations
Questionnaire 1: Sentence Completions
Questionnaire 1: Situation Reactions
Both American and French students submit their answers on the Web which are
subsequently posted by side on the web for reference.
Step 2: Students make preliminary observations, analysis, and
formulate initial hypotheses about the reasons for the differences in the French and
American data.
Step 3: Students, into an asynchronous dialogue with transatlantic
partners via the Web, in which they share and discuss their observations and hypotheses.
These forums are open to all students participating in the project.
Step 4: A larger set of materials, such as comparative French and
American opinion polls dealing with many societal issues are then made available to
students. This data allows them to place their own initial observations as well as their
transatlantic partners' comments and findings in a broader and more objective
socio-cultural context.
Step 5: Students continue expanding their spheres of investigation by
examining an increasingly wider array of materials (many accessible on the Web). These
materials ainclude:
- French films and their American remakes, as well as press articles on those films.
- A "kiosque" or newsstand offering many American and French articles on similar
topics taken from magazines and/or newspapers a variety of anthropology-based texts (read
in book form), such as Cultural Misunderstandings by Raymonde Carroll.
The five-step format forms a whole
making it possible for students to assemble different data into a coherent whole for the
purpose of gaining insight into target cultures. For example, it is possible for students
to relate data generated from the question "A good friend is someone who...", to
the relationship of the friends who share an apartment in the films, and to the chapter
entitled "Friendship" from Cultural Misunderstandings.
As can be inferred from the above, this
methodology brings about a new pedagogy, where culture is not reduced to a series of facts
to be learnt about the other country and where knowledge is not based upon just being
"taught" what American or French cultures are like. It is the result of an
interactive process that involves interactions with multiple materials: raw or mediated,
and multiple partners: learners, teachers, other students, other teachers and experts.
This multiplicity of voices is meant to lead users, under the skillful guidance of a
teacher, to gradually construct and refine their own understanding of the other culture,
in a continuous and never-ending process. Nothing is forever cast in stone but either
confirmed or questioned or contradicted in the light of new materials being studied and
discussed. |