Context and Culture in Language Teaching

Claire Kramsch

Winner of the MLA Kenneth W Mildenberger Prize

Description

This is an attempt to redraw the boundaries of foreign language study. It focuses attention not just on cultural knowledge as a necessary aspect of communicative competence, but as an educational objective in its own right, as an end as well as a means of language learning.

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Preface and Chapter One, pages 1-14 (PDF: 73 KB)

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Dubious dichotomies and deceptive symmetries
The importance of context in language education
A discourse perspective
Notes

1 Educational challenge
Of challenges and conditions
Challenge as action
Challenge as paradox
Challenge as dialogue
Double-voiced discourse
Dialogic breakthrough
Notes

2 Contexts of speech and social interaction
What's in a context?
Discourse and culture
Contextual shaping
Conclusion
Notes

3 Teaching the spoken language
Five case studies
Problems and paradoxes
Teaching language as (con)/text
Notes

4 Stories and discourses
Dimensions of particularity
Understanding of particularity
Conclusion
Notes

5 Teaching the literary text
Current practices
Defining the reader
Teaching the narrative
Teaching poetry
Post-teaching activities
Conclusion
Notes

6 Authentic texts and contexts
What is cultural authenticity?
The communicative proficiency approach
The discourse analysis approach
The challenge of multimedia
Notes

7 Teaching language across the cultural faultline
Cultural reality and cultural imagination
C2, C2': reconstructing the C2 context of production and reception
C1, C1': constructing a context of reception in the learner's native culture
C1", C2": in the eyes of others
Of bridges and boundaries
Notes

8 Looking for third places
A popular culture
A critical culture
An ecological culture
Conclusion
Notes

Appendices
Bibliography
Index