Thinking Culture in a Language Classroom: Teaching Gujarati as a Foreign Language

Mehta, Venu (2013) Thinking Culture in a Language Classroom: Teaching Gujarati as a Foreign Language. Language and Language Teaching, 2 (1). pp. 21-24. ISSN 2277-307X

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Abstract

It becomes indeed a pleasant experience for the learners of a foreign language to be in an atmosphere where the culture of the target language is present, or has been incorporated in the teaching. This article attempts to demonstrate the significance and function of cultural elements/artifacts in teaching a foreign language. It is an account of a promising practice where the cultural associations of the target language have been attached to language learning. It is an academic reflection, and recounts the experiences of a teacher who teaches Gujarati as a foreign language at an American university1. The article gives a detailed description of an active classroom where Gujarati vocabulary is taught by integrating cultural elements/artifacts. In the classroom, culture is the main focus of curriculum, hence influencing the content and image of the teaching material. For the purposes of this paper, Gujarati will be the target language for those whose native language is English. The goal of the article is to demonstrate to foreign language teachers how they can incorporate the teaching of cultural elements/artifacts into their foreign language classrooms.

Item Type: Articles in APF Magazines
Authors: Mehta, Venu
Document Language:
Language
English
Uncontrolled Keywords: Language, Multilinguality, Multilingual Education, Learning Classrooms
Subjects: Language
Divisions: Azim Premji University > University Publications > Language and Language Teaching
Full Text Status: Public
Related URLs:
Note: Published twice a year in January and July, Language and Language Teaching (LLT) reaches out to language teachers, researchers and teacher educators on issues and practices relevant to language teaching. The primary focus of the publication is language pedagogy in elementary schools. LLT proposes to establish a dialogue between theory and practice so that practice contributes to theory as much as theory informs practice. The purpose is to make new ideas and insights from research on language and its pedagogy accessible to practitioners while at the same time inform theorists about the constraints of implementation of new ideas.
URI: http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/1208
Publisher URL: http://apfstatic.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-...

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