1. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross Cultural Communication
Legends in Language Teaching and Culture Learning
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 147
At some point in our lives, especially when we were children or we became parents, folktales and legends were part of our daily bedtime stories. As a kid, we probably enjoyed listening to an adult recounting an old tale that was probably transmitted by a distant relative or that was heard in another town or far-away place. As parents, we probably used these stories to amuse our kids and prepare them for sleeping and to somehow teach them something that was encoded in the story, some sort of moral or hidden teaching, which is part of our children’s enculturation.
Since legends and folktales are part of a culture’s folklore, “folklore constantly reinforces cultural lessons” (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel 2010). And folklore can be spotted in a great variety of settings within society; it can be witnessed in school, at home, etc. As proposed by many language teachers, legends can be used to reinforce students’ four skills; we can have students respond to a story in writing
2. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross Cultural Communication
or by giving a short presentation. If the instructor is an experienced storyteller, folktales can be used to practice listening comprehension and why not, some interpretation of the facts provided in the story. Reading is indeed another option to teach the language but the culture synchronously.
As suggested by Rodriguez (quoted by Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel 2010), “Folktales are not only regarded as some of the best keepers of our language and cultural memories, they are also helpers in the process of socialization.” Through this process of socialization and/or enculturation, we the culture outsiders, along with our students, can get to see what a culture labels as important, irrelevant, funny, ironic, sarcastic, etc. All these can be taught to language students in class to be better fit to interact with the target culture, and even with any other culture the learners are bound to encounter in their future. This, depending on the level of the students, can become a great asset in their work-readiness training.
But if we were dealing with children rather than adult learners, Rabbidge & Lorenzutti (2013) point out extensive reading, which can no doubt be applied to folktale and/or legend reading as part of the English class, “benefits the development of speaking, listening, and writing languages skills, as well as involuntary acquisition of vocabulary.”
No matter what the level of students could be, legends, folktales, and the like are great sources of enculturation patterns that can be taught to students so they can better understand the target culture. These stories have benefits that go beyond the mere comprehension of the story, benefits that are intrinsically related to language development and cultural understanding. Legends and folktales can indeed be great sources for teaching in the EFL classroom along with the teaching of cultural tolerance.
3. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Cross Cultural Communication
Rabbidge, M. & Lorensutti, N. (2013). Teaching Story without Struggle: Using Graded Readers and Their Audio Packs in the EFL Classroom. English Teaching Forum, 2013, Number 3 [28-35]. Retrieved from http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/51_3_6_rabbidge_lorenzutti.pdf
Samovar, L., Porter, R., & McDaniel, E. (2010). Communication between Cultures. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning
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