Can you guess what world cities we’ll be studying this semester?
Last semester, I asked my students what content and what language skills they would like for me to teach them. I really wanted to use English to teach towards their interests. (In the TEFL scene, this is nothing unusual. In fact, it’s highly encouraged.) Across the board, I was asked to teach some version of world culture. My background is in International Relations, so I was more than happy to grant their request. On the other hand, I was paralyzed by the fear of teaching into a stereotype or giving them a stereotype, which would be even worse. After a couple of weeks of research, I could not work out how to responsibly teach world cultures. Like an angel providing manna from heaven, a fellow volunteer, Kati Stevens, shared her world culture semester plan at a Peace Corps training session. Her semester plan focused on teaching about the major world CITIES. It took me no time to take it and adapt it for the needs of my freshmen.
In addition to teaching about some of the major world cities, I wanted to learn how to better create an environment where my students felt comfortable sharing their opinions without the fear of being wrong or being an outcast among their peers. I took the time this week to gather more information about their current cultural knowledge base and was quite surprised with what they were willing to express. In my Oral English class, we focused on learning more about how cultures influence each other, specifically what cultures have influenced American culture and what cultures have influenced Chinese culture. To end the week, we focused on exploring what the word “culture” means in my Writing class. In this post, I’d like to share two lessons that went better than any lessons I’ve given thus far, and I’d like to share some of the work my students gave me permission to share. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed being a facilitator and allowing them to explore their own understanding of culture. I have organized student work based on course and activity.
My Horse, My Home 