Event

TUJ Distinguished Lecturer Series: Culture in the Language Classroom: Towards an Intercultural Pedagogy for Teaching

Saturday, February 16th, 2019, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Speaker: Jonathan Newton (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

An often overlooked truth about language teaching is that the language teacher is a teacher of culture whether they know it or not or whether they like it or not. Culture and language are intertwined; language constructs and sustains culture just as culture shapes the language choices available to us and the impact of our language choices on others. In simple terms, "Every time we speak we perform a cultural act" (Kramsch, 1993). How then can language teachers do justice to culture-in-language? More to the point, how can teachers more effectively exploit the affordances for intercultural learning available through learning another language? How can they do so in ways that enhance rather than distract from core language learning objectives. And how can they manage the many challenges and constraints that often mitigate against doing justice to culture? Such questions are at the forefront of a large body of recent scholarship on intercultural teaching and learning. Drawing on this scholarship, this course critically examines theoretical models and practical proposals for engaging with culture in the language classroom. Core topics include:

• Culture and language
• Culture in the EFL classroom: affordances, constraints and challenges
• The conceptual foundations of intercultural language learning
• Principles for intercultural communicative language teaching (i CLT)
• Curricula, textbooks, and intercultural teaching
• Successful models of intercultural teaching in Asian EFL contexts (including Japan)
• Intercultural competence in the Common Framework of Reference (CFR)
• English as an International Language (EIL)--what culture?

Organization: Temple University Japan

Cost: free

Venue: Azabu Hall: 2-8-12 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0047 (map)

Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan

Contact Temple University Japan

Temple University Japan

Work phone: 03-5441-9800