The Bus Pass is Cheaper: Learning and Acculturation

• Published in: Radical teacher (Cambridge) no. 56; pp. 7 - 12
• Main Authors: CLARK, GLORIA B., HERNANDEZ, CARLOS
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brooklyn Institute for Critical Education, Inc 31.10.1999; Center for Critical Education of NY
• Subjects: Acculturation; Advertisements; Attitudes; Brazilian literature; Classrooms; Connotation; Consumer culture; Creative writing; Cultural Differences; Cultural instruction; Cultural studies; Culture; Culture Conflict; Culture shock; Curricula; Education; Foreign Culture; Freire, Paulo (1921-1997); Language acquisition; Language culture relationship; Language teaching methods; Mathematical problems; Mathematics; Memorization; Minority & ethnic groups; Motion pictures; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Multiracial people; Nonnative languages; Politics; RADICAL TEACHING PRACTICE; Rituals; Scientific Methodology; Second language instruction; Second language learning; Second language teachers; Second Languages; Statistical Significance; Students; Syntax; Teachers; Teaching Methods; Tourism; Mexico
• ISSN: 0191-4847

A "real-world" bus schedule used in order to teach students mathematics is called, in foreign language acquisition theory, "realia." Realia in the classroom includes anything from books to music to movies to menus to postcards to, in short, any cultural artifact, even corporate advertisements. Realia, to continue the example of language acquisition, gives the students an opportunity to engage their lives and experiences with the culture of the target language, as opposed to rote memorization methods in which students are expected to replicate the language, exclusively using the diction and the syntax of the instructor. Further, realia presents the target culture "in its own terms" rather than as always seen through the eyes of tourists and travelers, "foreigners." As Shrum and Glisan point out in Contextualized Language Instruction, "We often have difficulty integrating culture into our teaching because we have stripped language of its authenticity and hence its culture." 9 By using materials that are authentic to the living experience of native speakers, students learn the target culture as it actually functions for people within it, from their own perspectives. Realia embodies, through "observable linguistic conventions," the "rituals of events, the connotations of rites of passage, the meaning of `family,' and the dynamic nature of culture." 10 As we hope to show, realia's ability to help foreign language classrooms convey the socio-political contexts of the target cultures can provide teachers from any field with a whole new conceptual framework for bringing learning into the actual, material lives of their students. Because realia, in all of its various possible forms, literally presents a small but living part of the "culture" in which it is currently serving a function, it can serve as perhaps the most powerful teaching tool toward acculturation that the teacher of a new language has available to her. If Paulo Freire is correct in Pedagogy of the Oppressed when he states that a "problem-posing" pedagogy "involves a constant unveiling of reality," and that this process of unveiling "strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality," 2 then what problem-posing presents to students is nothing less than the opportunity to actively engage a meaningful relationship with a new target culture, wherever and in whatever circumstances it is encountered. "Problem-posing" is in direct opposition to traditional "banking concept" methods of instruction, "in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits" of knowledge. 3 In a problem-posing pedagogy, the instructor decenters the classroom so that, rather than having her dictate the pace of the class, the class as a whole decides for itself how long, say, it needs to spend studying irregular verbs. And by having the class decide how it will conduct itself, students necessarily play an active role in their immersion in the target culture, taking ownership of their own learning and "gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed." 4 Students who are committed to their learning do not merely reproduce the opinions of their instructors, nor do they seek to achieve some sort of facile consensus with all members of the classroom, since, like the foreign language students in Mexico, this sort of classroom is not merely "sight-seeing" into a subject, but learning to conduct radical, cultural critiques. Problem posing, in short, yields critical students.