Dr. Thomas Garza Brown Bag Lunch Write-Up

Photo caption: Dr. Thomas J. Garza

On Monday, November 4th, Dr. Thomas Garza was the guest speaker at our final brown bag lunch for the Fall 2013 semester. Dr. Garza is the director of the Texas Language Center and Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at UT.

FLESA would like to thank Dr. Garza for his engaging and informative talk at our November brown bag lunch. We all learned a lot of great, practical teaching tips for the classroom.
Thank you also to the FLESA members who attended.




The following is a synopsis of the major points of Dr. Garza's talk.

"Getting from Good to Great: Cultural Literacy and Advanced L2 Proficiency"

Cultural literacy should be part of advanced proficiency in a foreign language. To move from an intermediate to an advanced level, language learners need a big dose of cultural literacy.


Part I: Which C(c)ulture?

Big "C" culture: literature, films, music
Little "c" culture: ephemera, popular culture, contemporary mores

Russian perspective: Linguoculture

"In the process of learning, the union of language and information relating to the national culture is called ‘linguocultural’ teaching”
-Kostomarov and Vereshchagin, Language and Culture, 1983

Linguoculture in FL contexts

• A baguette is not merely a "bread stick". It is part of a culture of eating.
• A piñata does not have a one-word definition in other languages. It is part of a culture of celebration.
• A matryoshka doll symbolizes a culture that values children and mothers who produce many children.
• A driver's license in the U.S. is a symbol of coming of age and a part of law enforcement culture. Driver's licenses do not necessarily carry these connotations in other countries.

How to proceed?
Having separate "culture days" or even "culture modules" in FL classes gives the message that culture can be put into a separate box, apart from language.
Enhancing learners' cultural knowledge is what instructors should be striving to do. To be proficient linguistically, cultural knowledge is what learners need.

The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines provide a visual reference of how much learners should know (in terms of grammar, lexis, semantics, pragmatics, and cultural knowledge) at each of the following levels: novice, intermediate, advanced, and superior. Language learners need a great deal of cultural knowledge to move from the intermediate to the advanced level.

Learners require hundreds of hours of instruction in the language before they can reach an advanced level. Unfortunately, the number they require exceeds the number of contact hours in a 3-year university foreign language program.


Part II: Cultural Literacy, Cultural Competence, Global Competence

How do we help learners achieve cultural literacy without increasing the number of instruction hours?

One thing teachers can do is bring in texts (including audio/video texts) that are valuable from both linguistic AND cultural standpoints.

(Dr. Garza gave some examples of authentic texts. You can see the texts he used, and his explanations of why they are useful, on the COERLL website.)



Part III: Video-based Instruction of Language and Culture  
We want to help our learners become active learners.
When we find ourselves in a new, unfamiliar situation in an L1 context, we usually observe those around us to determine how we should behave. This is a strategy that L2 learners should use as well. Teachers should help them become better observers.

Authentic video materials should be essential components of the FL classroom. They simulate a "real life" environment to facilitate the acquisition of linguistic and non-linguistic elements of communication.

When choosing a video, here are some characteristics to look for:

• high audio/visual correlation
• video track is essential to complete understanding
• video track facilitates comprehension of text
• visuals may stand alone
• the scene contains multiple layers that encourage repeated viewings
• high production values
• entertaining
• would maintain the interest of a native speaker
• the scene presented should be a complete, discrete segment

Exploitation of video materials

• preview (e.g. introduce new concepts, provide background information)
• task viewing (guide the learners in "peeling away" various layers through repeated viewings)
• follow-up (help the learners understand the broader application of the material covered in the segment)

The law of authentic media use: Adjust the task, not the text!

What can your students do with the text? (Dr. Garza uses a Russian movie scene in the very first week of a first semester class!)

• novice level - can pick out cognates; get exposure to what L2 sounds like
• intermediate - can derive meaning from text
• advanced - can comment on text in detail

Our goal as teachers is to create autonomous learners. We should teach them how to learn so they do not have to depend on us.


Questions and answers (paraphrased) from the Q&A session:

Question: What about teachers who are non-native speakers (NNSs) and who are not from the L1 culture?
Answer: For learners, there are advantages of having both NSs (native speakers) and NNSs as teachers. NSs can provide a perfect model of the language. NNSs can share valuable information about how they learned the language. Often, they can explain grammatical issues better than NSs. Learners will see NNSs as role models who have successfully learned the target language. In an ideal situation, there would be NS-NNS team teaching, or the two types of teachers would at least collaborate to create teaching materials. NNS teachers have a lot to offer students.

Question: When you assign a video as homework, what do you tell learners to do?
Answer: The most important thing is to give them a watching guide. Let them know what they should watch for during each viewing. When they get used to using watching guides, they can also make their own for the rest of the class.



Here are some useful links:

More on Dr. Garza:
https://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/slavic/faculty/garzatj
https://webspace.utexas.edu/garzatj/index.html
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/experts/profile.php?id=731

Dr. Garza's culture module on the COERLL website (highly recommended if you missed the event):
http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/

The Texas Language Center:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/tlc/ 

The BLC Library of Foreign Language Film Clips
(NB: It seems that you can only access this if you are a current FL instructor at UT or another participating institution. For those of you who are instructors, this is might be a great resource for you!)
http://blcvideoclips.berkeley.edu/ 

Photo credit: Jenna O'Connor

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh