Week 12
Teaching Culture through CALL

Language teaching usually goes hand-in-hand with the teaching of culture and in fact learning the target culture can help the improvement of the target language proficiency. With the readings and the discussions about teaching culture through CALL, I once realized how difficult it might be to teach culture and I also realized that through computers and internet, it has become easier to have access to different culture which makes the teaching process easier.

Today, students can find many different types of websites with authentic information and these websites provide lots of cultural elements in them. With so much information available on the internet, teachers can find ways to integrate them into the classroom. For instance, assigning students tasks to be completed using the information online, scavenger hunts, activities to analyze some cultural values and behaviors could be some of them.

Also, I think virtual worlds are great platforms to learn culture. Having access to native speakers of the target language and the target culture is quite easy today with many virtual worlds available. These can be used in and out of class and can be assigned as homework. In addition, I believe there are great sources for motivating the students.