Margareth Marmolejo
As economy moves the world (Dwyre, 2009), being competitive has emerged as the key to achieving better work possibilities. Nowadays, being bilingual is a necessity around the world, which is why bilingual education is highly esteemed. Out of the different types of bilingual education, Immersion Bilingual Education is one of the most applied types in bilingual schools located in monolingual environments (Cummins & Swain, 1986). Nevertheless, some researchers have found that many immersion bilingual students are not bicultural and do not develop completely their expressive skills in the second language because they do not have spaces or activities to produce in spoken and written second language. Regarding this fact, it is necessary to consider the role of culture but overall the role of technology in the Foreign Language Classroom (FLC) as tools to help students to become balanced bilinguals. In other words, the purpose of this text is to consider teaching culture thought technology as a way of improving students’ skills and their language understanding. This topic can be considered relevant because it concerns current teaching problems such as developing student skills within a social context. This paper is written especially for students in training but also for practicing teachers.
First, it is
important to understand that a balanced bilingual is a person who is able to
use the languages (the native and second one) more or less with the same level
of proficiency. Now, let us take a look at what immersion bilingual education
is. This type of bilingual education is the result of some experiments done in
1965, Canada, in kindergartens where English speaking children (their first
language, L1) were taught in a non-English language (L2) in their first stages
of learning. As they went through higher grades they were taught both English
and the non-English language in a balanced way. By the end of their high school
studies, they are taught most of the curriculum in English, mainly, rather than
in the second language (L2). Children taught through this type of education
were able to understand reading and listening and to write and speak in the L2
as well as in L1, that is to say they were balanced bilinguals (Baker, 2011).
As the result of immersion education was positive, many schools throughout the
world have adopted it, especially where the environment does not allow children
to have a direct contact with the second language.
According to
Cummins, (1998) the French immersion program evaluations done in Canada, showed
there were significant gaps between immersion program speakers and native
speakers in spoken and written French as well as ignorance to some cultural
aspects of French. Harley, Allen, Cummins, y Swain (1991) have found that by
the end of sixth grade, students’ receptive skills are better than expressive
skills because in most of the bilingual immersion programs, the school and
especially the class are the only places available for students to express
themselves in the foreign language. Consequently, many authors have researched
on how to improve the students’ performance in L2 even if they are in
monolingual communities. As it was said before, teaching culture through technology
is one way of improving expressive skills. Let us see why.
Moran (2001)
defines culture as “… the evolving life of a group of persons, consisting of a
shared set of practices associated with a shared set of products, based upon a
shared set of perspectives on the world, and set within specific social
contexts” (p. 24). We can say, then, that language and culture are integral to
one another. However, people from community also determine how those norms and
values are shared because language is the one of through which culture is
transmitted. The study of culture in the classroom aims at helping students
achieve an integral understanding in order to communicate successfully in
different contexts.
Of course,
teaching culture is avoided by many educators for several reasons drawn by
Lange (1998): “they may feel that students at lower proficiency levels are not
ready for it yet; they may feel that it is additional material that they simply
do not have time to teach; in the case of formal culture, they may feel that
they do not know enough about it themselves to teach it adequately; in the case
of popular culture, they may feel that it is not worth teaching it”[1].
Although, if part of what was mentioned is true, Saluveer (2004) argue that teaching
communication and not teaching culture might be enough for “survival and
routine transactions” (Byram, 1989: 40-41). Also, communicative competence is
incomplete without cultural awareness and understanding (Mountford &
Wadham-Smith, 2000).
Moreover,
teachers have at present times the technology revolution as a tool for teaching
culture. Technology, especially the Internet, can provide fast access to
authentic sources of language that may be unavailable any other way, sources
that can be of easy and free access[2].
Via technology, students have the chance to engage with native speakers through
e-mail exchanges, real-time “chats”, video conferencing, etc. A class can be
set up on a website through which students and teachers can communicate with
each other in the target language. It is important to say that teachers should
creatively use technology but not rely on it alone.
In conclusion, immersion bilingual schools and
other bilingual schools, with the aim to create bi-literate students can easily forget that being bilingual includes also being
bicultural (Baker, 2011). Class-centered immersions, where understanding
reading and listening are the main purposes, inhibit students to produce in the
second language. One way of solving this problem is using technology as a
strategy to foster students’ expressive skills while learning the second
language culture. Some authors (Scinicariello, 1995; Hertel, 2003) have studied
the good impact technology has had on students’ written and spoken skills at
different learning levels. So why not try it.
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