[SleepyLP]

Hello everyone out there. I am teaching at a junior high and once a week I teach a “culture class”
to each of the third year classes. During the first class I handed out a questionnaire to try to find out
what English the students want to learn. The top answers were

1. Talking with friends.
2. Travel English
3. Music
4. Moveis/TV

I know I can teach a lot with these subjects and I am glad to have an idea of what the students
want to learn, even if it’s rather vague. I plan to use music throughout the class and to teach some simple travel English
and use the movies/TV once a month or
so to change the class up and keep it interesting.

At the moment I feel as if I have a lot of material, but any ideas would be great. Have any of you out there taught any “culture classes” and what did you teach?

[DaveESL]

One problem that I've had with culture classes is that I like to look at culture kind of critically. Students here in China don't have a lot of experience with critical thinking, so I sometimes get blank stares if I ask things deeper than "What movie do you like?"

Instead of asking them their thoughts, opinions or experience with critical issues directly, I've had a bit more success by making it very personal. For example, I describe a situation in my own life that relates to the issue and then ask them for advice.

Take care,
Dave

[susan53]

I?ve been working with 15/16 year olds and tend to focus on a comparison between their own lives and experiences and those of British teenagers - I get the info from the teenage kids of friends in Britain. I e-mail them with questions like - How much money do you have to spend each week? Where do you get it? What do you spend it on? etc, then ask my students the same questions. After they've discussed it I give them the reply E-mail to read, to compare (sometimes a "cleaned up" version, I admit). It brings out differences like the fact that older British teens often have evening or Saturday jobs - which in Italy is unheard of, and so on. Other topics I've used have been school subjects, school regulations, gap year plans, and the Duke of Edinburgh award system.

Another good source of info, especially for younger teens, is the CBBC site. I've linked for example to a section where they asked the kids to tell them their experiences on school trips - another topic you could use contrastively. I also once used a good one from the same site written by a 14 year old who was a keen actor and about to audition for the National Youth Theatre. Can't find the link unfortunately but it will give you some idea of the stuff that's on the site.

Being in Italy a lot of the kids go to Britain for summer courses, so I also do some work to prepare them for the cultural differences they're going to come up against when they stay with host families etc. You can find the quiz I use here.