Culture is one of my favorite aspects of language learning, and CALL is highly useful for teaching this. In this post, I'll talk about the some of the advantages and disadvantage of teaching culture via CALL.
CALL is useful for teaching culture mostly because of the plethora of materials available to both students and teachers. With assets like Youtube and live interaction websites like LiveMocha, learners can access culture readily and without time constraint. Of course, these materials need to be scaffolded and purposeful, but they can be useful for learners, especially in an EFL context. There is also the added benefit of being able to break down cultural stereotypes through the use of CALL.
That being said, nothing beats actually traveling to the target culture and experiencing it in real time, and as good as CALL is, it cannot do this completely. Sure, computers can allow learners to speak via video chat, for instance, with learners, but I am a firm believer in culture being present in one's surroundings. Though the people themselves are the main element of a culture, the culture itself is also reflected in that groups' music, architecture, art, and so on. CALL can aid in an introduction to these factors, but it cannot substitute them entirely.
Another disadvantage is that culture is not so easily defined, and there can be a number of cultures present within any group, which means that determining a target culture to teach is difficult, if not impossible. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Despite these glaring disadvantages, there are plenty of situations in which students are not able to travel to any given target culture, so CALL is perhaps the best introduction they get to that culture. As such, CALL should not be discounted when planning cultural lessons.
No comments:
Post a Comment