Your Name and Title: Eileen Kelly-Aguirre
School, Library, or Organization Name: The Gunnery
Co-Presenter Name(s): none
Country from Which You Will Present: United States
Language in Which You Will Present: English (can present in Spanish as well)
Target Audience (such as primary school teachers, high school administrators, students, etc.): high school teachers, administrators, student of world/foreign language
Short Session Description (one line): Culture-Centered World/Foreign Languages Education
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Language and culture, while sometimes separate, are best grasped in the connective tissue between the two. Culture as an add-on, as the side bar it is often reduced to in foreign/world language education at the high school level in the United States (and I can only speak to the teaching of Spanish in that context), promotes the sense that it is not absolutely central to human existence. Essentialist, reductive notions of culture also confuse young people and impede respectful engagement with people from different cultural and linguistic worlds. Finally, culture cannot be understood in isolation from the complexity that characterizes our 21st century existence or from power and its workings and flows. I am working to develop a culture-centered approach to foreign language study in which the exploration of two pairs of “sister” concepts - culture/identity and language/communication - are the compass points of the learning/teaching journey. I will share some of my basic ideas as well as a theoretical framework I have developed that might be of use to others interested in considering this approach to language teaching.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: www.cultureheart.blogspot.com (hoping to resurrect and add fresh content between now and November...be patient)
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