Deep Culture

“Man is the measure of all things”

I used to believe that the work of a TESOL teacher was to teach English and that was all. However, I realized we deal with cultural issues more than any other type of teacher. Languages are part of what makes a man therefore language its part of culture.

The benefits of teaching our students that there are many different ways to interpret the world are many. There is probe that a positive correlation between highly creative individuals and exposure to cultural diversity exist, it makes perfect sense because when a person is exposed to different points of view then there is a higher chance to question everything.

This sound like something we all wish for our students, however, when we hear (at least me) culture we think about celebrations, dances, music and food. This is essential, that is right but if we want our students to develop creativity we need to teach deep culture.

Deep culture goes beyond mariachis and the day of the dead, it is also about manners, expressivity, ought-selves, paradigms. Our students need to know that there is more than one way to think.

It can certainly be a challenge to discuss deep culture with younger students because of their maturity, their own culture paradigms etc. However, we can include culture with simple activities that hopefully enhance their view the world.

For example, we can explain how some gestures have different meanings all over the world and then play “A day in…” you can pretend that that day you will be at a classroom in Japan instead of Mexico and the whole class has to use the correct manners according to the Japanese culture.

L07: Cultural & Psychology

The culture of Social Media

During the last month I started to work as an EFL teacher with a group of teens. They are truly full of potential and dreams. More than ever these young generations have been immersed into the social media culture, this includes a broad variety of apps and sites where a person can share everything, everywhere and at any time.

I believe this is a culture, and as every culture in the world has “a big effect on psychology” Social Media has certain rules. Social media creates ought selves that are irrational like you should have more than 300 likes to be acceptable, but if you have 1000+ likes then you are pretty, what happens with those who have less than 10 likes?

My students face this irrational culturally- created ought selves and it doesn’t match with who they really are. Many teens, as we learn from the video in this blog, suffer from low self esteem as a result of this Social Media culture. As a TESOL teacher I’m a witness of how much this affects their learning process and enthusiasm. It makes them feel lonely and uncapable to learn and teach others.

I’m not saying Social Media is bad and devilish, but as with any culture we need to question what we want to take and what we want to ignore. TESOL teachers, especially those who work with teens I would said we need to teach our students about culturally-created ought selves. They need skills to question and compare cultural biases.

More on culturally- created ought selves

What is beauty? Concepts are different all over the world. “La flor más bella del ejido” is a beauty contest that happens once a year in Xochimilco, Mexico.

This beauty pageant is an example of how culturally-created ought selves vary all over the globe. The “typical” beauty would not fit in this contest. But again, is this beauty? How can we know that?

I believe beyond beauty contest we all need to accept that each person has unique, distinctive physical characteristics. We may never get to have an exact description of beauty and we shouldn’t because there is not such a thing as an exact type of person and…

“life is too short and too precious to be miserable due to irrational, culturally-created, artificial ought selves”

-John Ives 

L07: Differences in Manners

"I am not Athenian or Greek, but a citizen of the world"

-Socrates

Manners are part of culture. As cultures are completely different from each other so are manners around the world. TESOL students will not only come from all over the world but there are high chances that they will travel around the world as well. This is the importance of teaching our students to value and understand different manners and meanings.

As Socrates said we are now part of a globalize culture therefore we need to have a broader understanding about how to act with proper manners.

I believe besides reading, writing, speaking and listening our students need to leave the classroom with social and cultural skills. They need to be able to respond at different situations and being always the best version of themselves. So yes! “Intercultural manners” or at least an understanding that manners are different all over the world is something we, as TESOL teachers, need to worry to include in the classroom.  

L07: Cross cultural Students in the Classroom

Even in the same country there are differences between the subcultures, so it is a challenge for TESOL teachers to understand what is behind our student’s behavior.

As I came to understand most of what children do it’s the result of culture and family environment. For example, in Mexico, while in the city is a social acceptable norm to send children to school in the indigenous communities from the south children have to work as well. This seems unacceptable for people in the city yet for them this is the social norm.

Teachers of foreign languages and teachers in general need to come to the classroom with this simple thought: The way we act is (almost all the time) the result of our culture. Most of our students mean well and we need to give them the benefit of the cultural doubt.

If we have a student from the south of Mexico who hardly speaks in class, we can’t just put an F on his record because he doesn’t participate. The reason is that in the south they tend to see the teacher as a superior and they will speak only if you ask them directly.

TESOL teachers need to be open to learn about different cultures, perhaps we can take the best from different cultures and shape this into our own classroom culture.

L06:Emotional Expressivity

A funeral is a moment of deep sadness, this is a universal well acknowledge truth. However, they way people express this sadness its quite different depending on which place or community you are.

At some parts of Mexico, especially in at the south of Oaxaca funerals can last to one week, yeah that is correct a whole week! During the week a band and mariachis will come to say goodbye to the death, the place will be filled with flowers and the invited people can stay for breakfast, meal and dinner. You will hear the loved ones crying within a mile and yet they will be singing cielito lindo at the next minute. From what I know the sadness from losing a loved one doesn’t always means crying to the beat of mariachis.

Emotional expressivity is quite an issue. The variety of emotional expressivity from culture to culture may generate unfair stereotypes. It can certainly happen in the classroom, and yet we can’t be indifferent to the feelings of our students.

We may struggle to understand some students because of their low emotional expressivity level, or we might feel like other student is being disrespectful because they consider to be ok showing their feelings. Emotional expressivity will vary, even in the same country.

Despite this as teachers we can use a variety of techniques to understand the feelings of our students. We can dismiss biases and allow students to feel like the classroom is a safe place to being themselves, some students will prefer to speak about their feelings alone, other will need to express in front of the class. We must allow and provide these opportunities for them.

L06: Attributional Tendencies

“Other people’s successes tend to be attributed to situational factors and their failures to internal factors.”

The above statement may be true for a classroom. As teachers we need to be very careful with the attributions we make about our students. We can fall into the attributions tramp really easy. If we do not evaluate our feelings and bias about the Socio-Economic Status or culture of the ones we teach our classroom it’s at risk to become the ultimate fail attribution.

For example, we may attribute to external causes the F a student got, or we might attribute it to internal causes and we say “He/she deserves it because is lazy”. On the other hand, we may think a student with a perfect score of A’s got it because of external attributions “He did it just because his father hired him a tutor”.

We can’t say either of these attributions is correct. As Ivers reminded us “Every circumstance is different. You can't just use these culturally created attributions in a sweeping way to decide what your reality is, what your self-worth is, all that sort of thing”

The same with our students we can not allow culturally created attributions borrow our view, poor people are not always lazy and rich students are not always taking advantages. But again, the main principle here is that every situation is different, and because of that we need to allow ourselves to question whether the attributions is the right one or not.

L06: Personal Space Differences

Personal space depends on a great measure from the culture and the place where we live.

If you visit a traditional market at Mexico, there is a chance you’ll feel completely out of place. Sellers come close, perhaps too close! and offer little tests of their products.

Many people will find this annoying, but for Mexicans it isn’t, it is just part of the experience of shopping at a local market.

Sometimes we assume that everyone else is the same. As teachers of a foreign or second language it is vital to have cultural awareness to avoid miscommunication.

I like the Mexican culture and its meaning of personal space, I consider this is one of its many virtues. Personal Space in Mexico is more reduced than at other countries, Ned Crouch explains that “physical closeness goes along with closer families and less sibling rivalry”

So, this is a positive aspect of my own culture that I highly value. We must remember that many social practices and behaviors are the result of several aspects from the cultures. In this case the reduced personal space is the result of the closeness Mexican families have.

This is a proof that by understanding certain social practices and behaviors we can become more sensitive towards different cultures.

I also have the biggest respect for other cultures and their concept of personal space. I heard someone saying, “Is not that someone is better than others, is just that we are different” and I agree. We must make a conscious effort to understand others without being judgmental.

More information: https://abigailwilt.com/2014/12/10/mexican-cultural-space-differences/

https://iimn.org/publication/finding-common-ground/culture-at-work/body-language-personal-space/