Cultura: Teaching Culture

Rich Garcia & Carter Snowden

NERCOMP 2006

SuburbsEnglish-French dictionary translation:Suburbs = Banlieue

Americans picture:

•Safe

•Pretty

•Wealthy

French picture:

•Dangerous, crime-ridden

•Sad, grey

•Poor

IndividualismIndividualismEnglish-French dictionary translation:Individualism = Individualisme

Americans picture:

•Creativity

•Free thought

•Bold

•Strong

French picture:

•Egocentrism

•Selfishness

•Isolation

•Bad

Pedagogical challenge

• How to get past the dictionary definitions, to the way people think and view the world.

• How to teach similarities and differences.

• How to help students discover cultural biases for themselves.

Cultura: A method

• Developed by Gilberte Furstenberg, professor of French at MIT

• Consists of:– Pair MIT class with a partner school in France– Prepare questionnaires on the Web: word

associations, sentence completions, reactions to situations

– Post students' answers on the Web– Use discussion board to promote conversation

and discovery

Cultura: A tool

• Web application, developed by MIT's Educational Technology Consultants

• Instructor interface:– Build and publish questionnaires– Monitor/edit student responses– Initiate/watch discussions

• Student interface– Answer questionnaires– Compare/contrast other students' responses– Discuss responses for in-depth understanding

Questions

• Can I get that tool?Yes—We're soon to release a public version.

• Is there a cost?No—It will be offered without charge.

• Can it be customized?Completely. It's an open-source tool released under a public license.

More information

• Cultura method: http://web.mit.edu/french/culturaNEH

• Cultura tool: contact et-consult@mit.edu

Copyright notice

Copyright Richard Garcia, 2006. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.