I'm willing to bet that as foreign language students and teachers, we've all been confronted with
nomothetic statements about our target cultures. Some are positive ("French people are so tasteful and refined!"), others are negative ("The French are bunch of radical socialists!"), but none are true. Or to be more accurate, no stereotype is universally true. Stereotypes often contain a grain of truth about a group of people, but the intersections between people's cultural and individual identities are much more complex. And cultural complexity goes a long way towards explaining why cultural stereotypes persist and continue to capture people's imaginations -- because they're easy. What's hard are the challenges and risks that come with learning about and engaging with people of another language and culture in all their vast complexity.
As an inexperienced French TA, I'm sometimes
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| Robert Doisneau - Paris 1956 |
amazed but how unprepared for these challenges and risks some of my students appear to be. They ask me for tips about mastering French as if there were a magic key that could unlock it for them, making the language and culture easily accessible. I'm reminded of a student I had my first semester of teaching who was genuinely enthusiastic about learning French but whose efforts were very inconsistent. When she met with me outside of class to ask me how she should best study (
a lot? thoroughly? conscientiously?) she insisted, "I really want to be fluent!" I was struck by the way she said this, as if she expected to achieve fluency by the end of the semester.
An important responsibility that we share as language teachers -- and one to which we often don't give enough attention -- is to raise our students' awareness and understanding of the complexity of culture, and of the complex interrelationship between culture and language. Until students can appreciate that mastering another language and culture is a process that takes a lifetime, one that offers setbacks as well rewards, they will not approach learning a language with the necessary patience, humility and determination. So the question is: how do we help students gain this insight? Any ideas?
PS - this may be a bit of digression, but I wanted to share this
article from the UK newspaper
The Gaurdian about how even so-called positive stereotypes about groups of people can be damaging.
Great read! Thanks so much for your humility in admitting that you feel inexperienced at times. As a returning student it's easy for me to feel that way amongst a sea of ungrads grad students that are on top of their game.
ReplyDeleteI do think that we have a daunting task in front of us when we try to educate people about another culture. Most of us have lived not only in the USA, but in Arkansas our whole lives, and we'd still struggle to construct a holistic picture of Arkansas culture. Try doing that with a foreign culture that we've spent very limited time in...YIKES! I would've liked to hear a little more about the stereotypes of France. I love to learn about new cultures, specifically, the way those cultures are perceived by other people. Good stuff!
Jason, you're right. We can't even definitively explain our own cultures - it's a never-ending task trying to understand ourselves much less other groups. As for French stereotypes, I think a lot of outsiders are intimidated by the French culture because it places more emphasis than most on aesthetics. For example, they tend to have this idea that there's a "right" way to speak, eat, dress, etc; that good taste is not as subjective as Americans might try to argue. This, at least, has been my experience in France. So I think the French sometimes get stereotyped as being snobs and kind of insular for expecting people from outside of their culture to conform to their standards. There is some truth to this and if you're not expecting it you can end up feeling a little uncivilized among French people, but the upside is that there culture has a lot of exquisite and beautiful experiences to offer, which is why I suppose so many people romanticize French culture. Bearing in mind, of course, that these are all just stereotypes and don't apply to all French people to the same degree.
DeleteKate,
ReplyDeleteI think you raise an important point here, and one we've touched on a little before -- in order to speak a language, you also need to speak a culture. But even more complex than that, as you pointed out, we have to take into account that even though there are tendencies within a specific culture, there is one's individual culture that may not align perfectly with the larger group. I think there's no easy way to do this (is there ever a simple solution?), but as instructors I think we have a responsibility to expose students to this idea, and hopefully to guide them in that direction. If we can instill a sense of cultural sensitivity, and remind students that the target language and culture, much like this so-called "real world" to which people are constantly referring, is not in black and white, we can call that a success.
Katie, I like how you say we have a responsibility to "expose students to this idea." You're right that there is no easy way to teach students to "speak a culture" or to understand and anticipate its complex manifestations. I think it's more about helping students cultivate the right attitude and the right approach. Like you say, the goal should be cultivating awareness and sensitivity so that ultimately students have a more mature and sophisticated world view.
DeleteWe all agree Foreign language and Culture cannot be separated. In French 1013, we are currently having discussions on Health Care. In order to shed light on the students perspective, I had to explain to the class how the French Health Care (Securite social) worked. The students were able to compare the American system and the French System. In addition, teaching students on Culture, helps in different ways. For instance, It will prepare students when they travel to other countries, they will have an idea on what to expect. On the other hand for students who will no travel, they will get an idea of what another country looks like, through pictures, videos etc
ReplyDeleteNii, Kudos to you for taking the time to talk to your students about the French health care system. We did not have much time to talk about that in my classes. Students should be informed about how other countries govern themselves and what benefits their citizens enjoy because it will help them to better evaluate their own society. And as you say, this kind of awareness is also an important aspect of their cultural sensitivity, whether or not they ever travel abroad.
DeleteI think as TAs, we can all relate very well to this train of thought, and the predicament that follows. Students do think there is some magic somewhere that we aren't telling them just because we want them to learn it a harder way. We all know that sometimes, it just is. I feel like students have a false sense of how quickly they would be able to pick up a language just because they may be a "good student" otherwise. To me, people seem to want to learn the language but really they only want the "cool" things to go along with it (i.e. not all the grammar involved). I think you captured this idea very well with your post.
ReplyDeleteRandi, your comment got me thinking: why is it so difficult sometimes to tell students that something "just is," as you put it? Whether you're talking about a grammar rule, an idiomatic expression or other cultural convention, most features of language are arbitrary; it doesn't accomplish anything to ask "why?"
DeleteYou also got me thinking that it's discouraging to students -- maybe to good students especially -- how long it takes to learn a language. It's really only in the last year or so that I've stopped feeling discouraged with French, probably as a result of going abroad. I think we need to teach students to have realistic expectations -- not so that they won't aim high, but so they'll have the patience to stick with it.
Wonderful dialogue, all... A tough topic and you have come up with some great examples! Kudos to you all!!
ReplyDelete