This course continues to address research, theory, and standards advocated by the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages and Alabama Standards as organizing principles for curriculum development. Readings and discussions develop a deeper understanding of the five dimensions of culture defined by Moran (2001) as the products, practices, perspectives, communities, and persons that exist in all cultures. Our principal focus is on discovery learning.  During the five-week intensive segment of the course, students will investigate a self-selected topic, to explain, and reflect on the relationship between the observable and tacit products and practices of their own culture or subculture and the underlying perspectives that drive their manifestations. The purpose of this project is to develop an understanding of the tools of ethnography and their usefulness to investigate a cross-cultural topic.

 

During the second five-week segment, students will investigate and complete a cross-cultural ethnographic project for the same topic. Foreign language students will investigate the same topic in their L2 culture during their five-week study abroad program. Other students not going abroad will investigate the same topic in a narrow community or subculture that is of interest to them here in the U.S.  After students complete their observations and interviews in both cultures or subcultures, they identify, explain, and reflect upon the themes they have found during their observations and interviews in both cultures. To support their choices of themes, they will have at their disposal Zanger’s Values Framework, Kluckhohn  Strodtbeck’s Values, Orientation Theory, and Hofstede’s Six Dimensions Model. These resources will help students support their choices of themes and their comparisons of possible similarities and differences between cultures that they see in their data.

Instead of a final exam in this course, students create a Four-Year Culture plan that counts as 1/3 of their final comprehensive examination. This paper must include 1) an introduction with a statement of your philosophy for teaching culture; 2) how your activities will help students understand the relationships between perspectives and the products and practices of the culture; 3)an explanation of the themes you have chosen with the beliefs, values, cultural assumptions, and/or orientations that you expect to include; 4) a few examples of critical thinking activities to develop each theme; 5)a separate section in your paper for Levels I through IV; and 6) a conclusion and reference page.