Learning from Peer Observation

As  professors, we should be always looking for new strategies to improve our teaching methods and to boost our student's learning process. However, sometimes it's difficult to analyze ourselves and to see what we are doing wrong or what can be improved, or simple to "give advice ourselves." That's when peer observation comes into play, since you may have some else to observe you and to give you feedback.

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had to plan and teach a culture based class, and as part of this assignment,  we had to peer observe. And I have to say that it was a very interesting and worthy experience for me as a professor, and also as an observer. In the first case, it was very worthy since I had the opportunity of getting feedback from another professional, and in the second case because I was the one who could attentively observe and analyze my coworker's class, and then give the corresponding feedback.

Another interesting aspect of peer observation is that it is not only for giving feedback for our coworkers, but learning from them,too. For example, the day I went to observe my coworker's class, I learnt a lot.! That's because the class I attended was one of elementary school,they were first graders. I have always worked with teenagers and adults, so you can imagine I don't know much about teaching English to very young children. Something I learned was about the strategies the professor used to control discipline and to catch her student's attention; she used songs! every time kids started to get disorganized, she started singing, and a two second later all kids were singing and looking at her! This was very interesting for me since I had always wondered how primary professors got  their young students  to pay attention, I mean, I imagine that young kids always want to play, right? 

Besides, I also learned about the class content, too. For this class, the professor had prepared a wonderful class about traditional games around the world, and it was just great! I really loved her class.

She first started by asking kids about the traditional games they knew, and then, she started explaining them about one in particular, "Marbles". In her class, there were several students whose native country was not Costa Rica, and so she asked them if they played marbles in their respective countries: some of them said yes, but there were others who said that they did not know anything about marbles. It was so interesting to see little six or seven years old kids talking about marbles!. Well, to make a long story short, the professor then explained how to play marbles, and set up a space in the middle of the classrooms for kids to experience it for real. They all had the chance to learn and play marbles, and you could see in their faces and their big smiles that they just loved that class!

Marvin Mendez B

ESL Professor

Universidad Nacional

Encouraging Multicultural Students

Encouraging multicultural students

    In the previous post I shared with you about cultural encounters which can be really meaningful for students when studying another culture. Now, I will tell you a little bit about culture capsules.

Culture capsules are one of the best–established and best–known methods for teaching culture. A culture capsule is essentially a brief description of some aspect of a particular culture; for example, the food eaten in particular place. Besides, it usually includes a comparison with the student's native culture. These small projects usually involve the students carrying out some research, and then presenting the findings orally to the rest of the class. What I like most about this technique is that if you plan it carefully, your students will have the opportunity to learn many different cultural aspects in just one class. For example, I myself used this technique for one assignment of a course in my Master's, Second Language and Target Culture. The assignment consisted of planning a cultural class and then teaching it, and it also involved peer observation. So, for my culturally planning, I chose to plan a project for my class about one of the topics we were studying “ Food.” For this topic I usually taught vocabulary related to food like vegetables, groceries, fruits, dairy products, etc, and grammar about countable and uncountable nouns; however, this time I included the “culture capsules project” and it really made my class much more interesting and enjoyable.

Basically, For this project , the students had the follow the following guidelines:

1. Work in small groups, three persons each.
2. Choose a country, and research about the food most commonly eaten by its inhabitants.
3. Prepare a power point presentation in which they explained the underlying factors why people eat those foods.
4. Choose a particular dish, and bring it to class to share it with their classmates.

At first, they were kind of surprised about the project, but then they got really excited, and when the day of the presentation came, they really had fun and learn a lot. They presented about four countries: China, France, Italy and Mexico, and they all enjoy the presentations, especially when they started sharing the food they had brought!

Besides, when I asked them about how they had like the activity, they all agreed that it was very interesting learning about the food from other countries. They also mentioned that it was much better than just studying vocabulary and grammar.

So, as you can see it is not so difficult to encourage students to learn about other cultures.

Marvin Mendez B

EFL Professors

Universidad Nacional

Costa Rica.

Cultural Encounters

Cultural Encounters

Teaching Culture in our EFL classroom! How? That's the question many educators have when they are told that culture should be also taught. I myself had the same question, and usually wondered how to include cultural topics in my conversational English class. Besides, I always claimed that I did not have enough time to teach culture because there was too much grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary that I needed to cover in a certain period of time. However, now I think it's not that difficult, and in fact, culture can boost student's learning process. This is because by teaching culture, educators can make their classes more dynamic, interesting, and enjoyable for students.

There are lots of strategies professors can use to teach something about the target culture, USA culture in our case, or about any other culture around the world. In future posts, I will be sharing with you some of the strategies that you can use to start promoting not only bilingual students but and multicultural students. In this particular post, I want to share with you about one activity which I consider to be the most powerful and meaningful for students, multicultural encounters.

I myself had the pleasure of experiencing it. Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to share with three guest speakers during a class in one of my Master's courses. One of the speakers was from Texas, USA, and she shared with us many aspects about Texas's culture and her particular culture. The other two speakers were from Germany, and they shared some particular aspects of Germany Culture as well.

It's wonderful how much you can learn about a culture when you have the opportunity to engage in a conversation with a person from that culture. Sometimes, when we are researching about a culture in books or the Internet, there are certain peculiarities that even we professors cannot fully understand since we are still outsiders to that culture. That's when we see how useful and rewarding can a cultural encounter be since sharing directly with subjects from the culture under study will allow students to have a deeper and more complete understanding. That's why I really encourage you to plan this kind of activities for your classes, I can assure you that your students will really love it.

Marvin Mendez

EFL Professor

Universidad Nacional

PocketCultures is looking for regional contributors | PocketCultures

PocketCultures is looking for regional contributors | PocketCultures

Gringo Pinto

Hi, this time I'd like to share with you this video that was made here CR by Escuela de animacion digital, Universidad Veritas. It shows some of the differences between ticos and North Americans. Enjoy! and leave your comments.

Culture Shock: The Second Stage of Culture Acquisition

    I know that this video is very comic, and it was meant to be like that. However, the purpose of this video goes beyond causing you to laugh your head off.  I always liked to learn things while having fun, and that's why I decided to share with you this video. So, We are going to analyse the video to understand what acculturation means.

Acculturation

  There are many complex and long definitions to acculturation, but I like better a simple an short one: Acculturation is the process of getting adapted to a particular culture. In the video we can see the four stages of acculturation which are discussed  in an article I read called "Sociocultural Factors."

  The first stage we can appreciate in the video is when the outsiders experiment great excitement and  joy over the newness of the place and the surroundings. In this phase, the outsider is just starting to know the culture and is easily impressed by the beauty and uniqueness of the surroundings. Besides, there is usually a lot of curiosity and anxiousness to know the new place. This usually only lasts for a short period of time.

   The second stage is the one most represented in the video, culture shock. In this stage, the outsider starts feeling in a great deal the cultural differences between his own culture and the target culture. This cultural differences may be very simple ones that the outsider can adapt to his own necessities like when the toaster adapted the size of the bread slice, or more complex which can not be easily adapted; in this case, it is  the outsider  who has to change in order to fit into the new culture. In the video, this is also represented  when the toaster found out that the electrical outlet was different and did not work with its plug.

   The third stage is one of gradual recovery in which there is general progress in regards to solving some the problems, self adapting, and accepting the differences that surround the outsider. It was difficult for the toaster at the beginning, but then it accepted the differences and sat down resigned.

   The four and last stage of acculturation is when either assimilation or adaptation, or both have taken place. This usually means that the outsider has regained his self-confidence and accepted the new culture; therefore, he feels more comfortable and less troubled by the differences.

  But the toaster did not get to the last phase! you may say, and that is true. The process of acculturation differs from individual to individual, and from culture to culture. There are some individuals that for some reasons can never really get adapted to a new culture. Or there are others who try to adapt or force themselves to fit into the  new culture, but those efforts do not always work, and sometimes end up with terrible results like in the case of our poor toaster.

Marvin Mendez

 

Videos: Culture Shock

Here you will find six videos which present different beliefs, ceremonies and traditions of several parts of the world. The host and film actress Shenaz Treasuryvala and and the producer Roye Segal are the ones in charge of the series of videos they call "Culture Shock." I hope you really enjoy the videos, and learn something new about culture. For watching the videos, just click  below on Read more »

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Acculturation?

How far would a person go to be accepted in a new culture? What do you think?

To leave your comments click HERE

Rituals of Manhood: Male Initiation in Papua, New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

How difficult is it for you to understand and respect other cultures?

Well, I think that many of you will agree that it  is sometimes a little difficult to see other cultures without judging them.  In my opinion, we should always do research before judging because once we know all the underlying factors for a ritual or a belief, it will be easier for us to understand them.

In the previous videos, you could witness one of the most peculiar rites done in a place called  Papua, New Guinea, a place many consider unique in regards to its beliefs,traditions, rites, celebrations, and lifestyle.I think many outsiders  will immediately judge those rites, and qualify them as  unacceptable or will claim that those rites are  a clear violation to human rights. That's why I will give you some information about Papua and about this particular rites of manhood which will give you an insight into this culture.

General Information

Official Name: Independent State of Papua New Guinea

Geography: Land area: 462,860 sq. km.; about the size of California. Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, north of Australia, and many outlying islands. The Indonesian province of West Papua (Irian Jaya) is to the west. To the north and east are the islands of Manus, New Britain, New Ireland, and Bougainville, all part of Papua New Guinea. About one-tenth larger than California, its mountainous interior has only recently been explored.

Terrain: Mostly mountains with coastal lowlands and rolling foothills. The largest portion of the population lives in fertile highlands valleys that were unknown to the outside world until the 1930s, but that supported agriculture some 10,000 years ago, possibly before agriculture was developed elsewhere. 

People: Population (2007 est.): 6.3 million.

Languages: Three official languages are English, Tok Pisin, and Motu. There are approximately 860 other languages.

Religion: About two thirds of the population is Christian, with Roman Catholics and Lutherans; the rest follow traditional beliefs.

Male Initiation in Papua, New Guinea.

In the videos, you could watch some of the stages of  male initiation process every boy has to undergo in order to become a man and a fierce warrior.  In this culture, young boys have to go through  several stages so that they become men and fierce warriors. The stages and practices in each of the stages vary from tribe to tribe, and the described below are usually the ones that are particular of the highlands  and the Sambia tribe of Papua, New Guinea.

      The first video  represents the first stage in which boys are taken from their mothers and introduced to the first of many painful experiences they will have to face to become men. In this first stage, they will have a ceremony in which a war leader picks out a sharp stick of cane and sticks it deep inside the boys nostrils until he bleeds freely into the stream of a pool. The men believe that by bleeding  they get rid of the women's contaminated blood and fluids from childbirth, and that's considered a vital step in the process of becoming a man. In this stage, in the tribes  Sambia and Etoro, boys are also introduced into the practice of ingesting what they call "male milk" which they consider is an essential ingredient in the transition from boy to man. Most of the time, this necessary ingestion of semen takes place by fellatio performed by the newest initiates to the male elders or even by anal intercourse. 

   The second video is about the final stage some tribes located in the middle Sepik region in  Papua New Guinea have to go through to be recognized as an initiated man. This is the stage of scarification in which men will get the "Crocodile Scars." In this ceremony, the skin on the chest, back and buttocks of the initiate is cut with a bamboo sliver to test how strong they are and their self- discipline. Later, the scars will represent the teeth marks of the crocodile which mean the the initiates were reborn as crocodile-men. 

   There are several other stages boys undergo in the process of becoming men in many tribes of Papua New Guinea; However, this space will be not enough to cover all of them. Besides, the purpose of this post is for you to have an insight into the two practices presented in the videos, blood initiation and scarification initiation. I hope that now you know a little bit more about the underlying factors and meaning that these two practices have for these tribes, you will be more objective when analyzing or trying to understand their culture.

   

Sources: Rituals of manhood: Male initiation in Papua New Guinea by Gilbert H. Herdt 

             Male Initiation Ceremonies , Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea Scarification

            National Geographic Videos

            

   I will appreciate your comments and opinions about these practices in Papua New Guinea, let's share what we think about their ceremonies and beliefs, and let's be sincere. To leave a comment, just click below comments or post a comment.

What's Culture?

What's Culture?

Culture defines how a group of people think, behave and react within a specific geographical location.

Many would say that is a limited definition for culture, and you might be right, but remember, this only my humble point of view that is determined by my own culture.

Generation through generation, we are taught a large set of behaviors, attitudes, values, beliefs, meanings, and many other things which will somehow determine the way we think, behave and react. All this acquired knowledge would define how people see the world that surrounds them, and how they understand it. For example, analyze for a second how different a Buddhist and a Christian person think; I bet you are going to conclude that they have a really different vision of life and of the world, and that's because their religion and beliefs,which are part of the knowledge that is socially transmitted, determine how they think and see the world.

Besides, our behaviors and reactions towards the society we live in, and towards the rest of the world depend on everything we know, understand and believe in. That's why people continue having similar behaviors and reactions to those of their ancestors.

It is also important to mention that as human beings with the capability of thinking and learning, we are always changing and adapting our culture to our own necessities and context. However, we do keep what we consider is part of our cultural identity. And our cultural identity is that what makes us and our own society different from the rest.

To finish, let us remember a famous phrase Marcus Garvey once said,

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”