Page 285 - Beyond Methods

Raising cultural consciousness 273
contexts not only expands one’s cultural horizon but also clarifies and solidifies one’s own cultural heritage. This critical self-reflection helps one to identify and understand what is good and bad about one’s own culture, and what is good and bad about other cultures. It eventually leads to a deeper cultural understanding, not just su- perficial cultural knowledge. In understanding other cultures, we understand our own better; in understanding our own, we under- stand other cultures better. Therein lies real and meaningful cul- tural growth.
Teachers and Learners as Cultural Informants
The above discussion points to one unmistakable conclusion about raising critical cultural consciousness in the L2 classroom: instead of privileging the teacher or the native speaker as the sole cultural informant, as the traditional approach to culture teaching would do, we need to treat the learner as a cultural informant as well. We can privilege our learners by identifying the cultural knowledge they bring to the classroom, and by using it to help them share their own individual perspectives with the teacher as well as other learn- ers whose lives, and hence perspectives, differ from theirs. By treat- ing learners as cultural informants, we can encourage them to en- gage in a process of participation that puts a premium on their own power/knowledge.
Raising critical cultural consciousness in its true sense then en- tails going beyond the textbook’s frame of reference and attempting to bring the learner’s home community into the classroom experi- ence. As we saw in the previous chapter, using the learners’ home language and culture to inform classroom activities enables stu- dents to become motivated and empowered. In addition, raising cultural consciousness in the L2 classroom will help learners to critically reflect on their own culture and (re)view it in relation to others, thereby gaining fresh perspectives about their culture and about themselves. Cultural consciousness thus becomes a tool for both self-reflection and self-renewal. Such a process of cultural self- reflection and self-renewal is not confined to learners alone. In re- sponding to their learners’ heightened cultural awareness, teachers are also challenged to reflect on their cultural selves as deeply as they expect their learners to do.
In a culturally conscious classroom, teachers are required to