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274 Raising cultural consciousness
play the role not only of reflective practitioners but also of trans- formative intellectuals (cf. Chapter 1). Teachers have to allow them- selves to bring the full range of appropriate sociocultural issues as topics for discussion in their classroom and use their learners’ var- ied experiences as sources of data for furthering their instructional goals (cf. Chapter 11). More specifically, teachers need to consider the following criteria from a practical pedagogic point of view:
• how they can make their learners aware of the complex connec- tion between language use and cultural identity;
• how they can sensitize themselves and their learners to the cul- tural richness that surrounds their classroom environment;
• how they can create conditions to enable and encourage their learners to participate in the negotiation and articulation of their cultural meanings and values;
• how they can treat learners as cultural informants, and recognize and reward their cultural knowledge and individual identities;
• how they can design tasks and assignments to dispel stereotypes that create and sustain cultural misunderstandings and miscom- munications; and finally,
• howtheycanhelplearnersto“read”culturaleventsandactivities in ways that resonate with their experience.
The set of criteria listed above has the potential to inform teach- ers in their principled attempt to design location-specific, context- sensitive microstrategies aimed at implementing the essence of the macrostrategy of raising cultural consciousness.
Reflective task 12.3
Consider the problems and prospects of designing microstrategies that re- flect the essence of critical cultural consciousness in the L2 classroom. In what ways can you actively involve your learners in selecting the cultural topics and activities to be included in the learning and teaching agenda?
Microstrategies for Raising Cultural Consciousness
Most human activities, ranging from individual beliefs to social cus- toms to national celebrations, can potentially constitute the theme