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Running head: Colombia, a different view; a creation and interpretation proposal
Colombia, a different view: a book creation proposal for teaching English as a foreign
language exploring cultural products
Yeison Andrés Sánchez Sánchez
Graduation project
Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas
School of Science and Education LEBEI
Bogotá
2015
2 Colombia, the other view
Colombia, a different view: a book creation proposal for teaching English as a foreign
language exploring cultural products.
Author: Yeison Andrés Sánchez Sánchez
Advisor: Paola Andrea Murillo Serrano
Graduation project
Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas
School of Science and Education LEBEI
Bogotá
2015
3 Colombia, the other view
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Justification and Purpose ............................................................................................................ 6
Chapter 3 ...................................................................................................................................... 9
Theoretical and epistemological principles ................................................................................. 9
Cultural products. ................................................................................................................... 9
Culture ................................................................................................................................. 10
Identity ................................................................................................................................ 10
Cultural identity .................................................................................................................... 11
Communicative competence. ................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................................... 15
Creation process ....................................................................................................................... 15
Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................................... 21
Implications in educational context and language ..................................................................... 21
Chapter 6 .................................................................................................................................... 26
Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 26
References .................................................................................................................................. 27
Annexes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….29
4 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 1
Introduction
This project deals with the topic of material design for the English as a foreign language
classroom and more specifically with the design process of a book which includes
Colombian cultural products; a book which has two main purposes, the first one is to help
students in their English learning process as well as the development of their four language
skills (Reading, writing, listening and speaking) and the second one is to provide language
learners aspects from their own culture within this material.
The main objective of this project is to create a material for English learners which presents
stories based on Colombian cultural products and activities which enable students explore
their culture in the EFL learning process and prepare them to not only reproduce linguistic
patterns but communicate effectively their traditions and customs using English as a tool.
This project is conceived after a reflective process which has been done during my
teaching experience, both in my pre-service teaching and at work; this reflection made me
wonder about the appropriateness of English textbooks in Colombia, taking into account
the cultural setting provided on them. This was the inquiry that led to the development of
the project.
I expect with this project to obtain a textbook which helps students in their learning
process while they get immersed in Colombian cultural products, and also encourage them
to learn English in order to communicate and preserve our traditions and customs
communicating and sharing their own experiences and perspectives as the book does.
5 Colombia, the other view
Therefore, this study looks into the contribution of the social factors to the foreign
language learning; as language is a cultural product, so through the development of a
material that would be used in the EFL classroom I pretend to show how the inclusion of
cultural content engages students in the learning process, prepares them to confront the
challenge of the intercultural communication and finally allows them to increase cultural
awareness.
6 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 2
Justification and Purpose
As English as a foreign language teacher, we have been dealing with a lot of aspects
which have emerged from our classes. Every day we face challenges which in a long term
helps to improve our way to teach, methodology, didactics and pedagogy; this is why the
role of teacher/researcher is very important nowadays, especially when we are facing
changes in our society such as technological development, globalization and many others.
These aspects are challenges we have to turn into strengths including them in the English
classroom.
During my teaching experience I have noticed that a lot of teachers use textbooks in the
English classroom as a didactic tool to support the learning process. Even though textbooks
have been used for years in the education, there are some problems with the way they are
being used in the English classroom in Colombia; the first one I noticed is the drilling-
oriented use, when teachers leave aside most of their functions in the classroom and in
some way are replaced by books, whose only function is to be filled up by students.
The second one is related to the content, in Colombia we usually use textbooks made by
British or American publishing houses, these books present texts, stories and in general
content based on their culture, as it is stated by Corbett: “most of the English course-books
are oriented to the target language, leaving aside the intercultural dialogue” Corbett (2003).
However, books are an important resource in the Language learning process, but most
of the books are presenting aspects from the foreign cultures, this was the motivation to
7 Colombia, the other view
start a journey to the discovery of stories that reflect aspects that most of us have forgotten
from our culture during the learning process
In terms of culture, some language course-books are only focused on one culture, the
foreign, these were the words of PhD Carlos Rico (2012), he analyses the role of the
materials in the English learning process regarding culture and intercultural competence.
An English classroom is a place where cultural discussions take place, language teachers
have to be prepared to deal with intercultural communication since globalization allows not
only us but also students to access information of many different cultures.
Having said that the English learning process deals with intercultural communication, it is a
big concern the fact that textbooks leave aside the intercultural dialogue, but the first step
to reach this goal is recognize and explore our own culture; in this vein Corbett (2003)
claims that “learning materials have to incorporate aspects of the home culture”, he asserts
that the intercultural component in second language education “requires teachers and
learners to pay attention to and respect the home culture and the home language” (Corbett,
2003).
Taking into account the words said by Corbett, it is important to respect the home
culture, English textbooks usually present us texts whose context is clearly set on the
foreign culture, this helps us to creates a certain kind of sensitiveness towards the foreign
culture, but sometimes we do not understand the context in which these texts are presented
because we do not have a reference in our own culture.
In order to foster the intercultural communication in the English classroom, first we have to
increase the cultural awareness in our own culture, so there will be a dialogic process of
8 Colombia, the other view
interaction when students have the experience to interact with foreign people, presenting
aspects from their culture, paying attention to the foreign culture and establishing
differences and similarities to finally become more sensitive toward the foreign cultures.
In conclusion, the project will prepare students to join a global community where they will
have the opportunity to share aspects from their culture, some of these aspects could be the
one presented in the book which was designed, and at the same time they listen and learn
about foreign cultures.
9 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 3
Theoretical and epistemological principles
This project, as it was mentioned before, deals with the creation process of a material
for English as a foreign language learners which explores cultural products on their texts,
since the purpose is to reflect culture in the English learning process, it is important to
explore and define the constructs that will be the basis for the theoretical foundations of this
project.
The book I designed deals with cultural products, according to Patrick Moran,
“products of a culture range from isolated objects, artifacts, tools or places, they are also
related to other constructions such as art, literature, architecture and music … members of a
society use the language in order to manipulate them” (Moran,2001). As literature is
considered by Moran as a cultural product, this construct will be used to define the myths,
stories and recipes which are included in the textbook; these cultural products are closely
related to Colombian culture and are a reflection of our identity.
Many different authors have already defined and explored the definition of cultural
identity, as this term is a construction which comes from two different terms; first I am
going to explore different authors’ perspectives about culture and about identity in order to
contrast them, to finally create a definition which will explain and fit best the context of my
project.
10 Colombia, the other view
Culture is a term which has been explored by many different authors, Campbell on his
part defines culture as “a complex web of information that a person learns and which
guides each person’s actions, experiences, and perceptions”(Campbell, 2004); Banks
defines culture as “the behavior, patterns, symbols, institutions, values, and other human
made components of the society” (Banks, 1991); and finally, Patricia Marshall defines it as
“consistent ways in which people experience, interpret, and respond to the world around”
(Marshall, 2001). Campbell explores culture from a wider perspective talking about it as a
complex web of information learned by people; Banks narrows the concept of web of
information defining it as the behaviors, patterns, symbols, institutions and values, this
complex web of information is formed by all of the items mentioned by Banks, and
Marshall says that all of this information learned by people helps people to experience,
interpret and respond to the world, therefore I can affirm that culture is a set of patterns
which are shared by a group of people in a social group and defines their actions towards
the world surrounding them.
Now I have to define the term identity, it is important to clarify that I am going to
define identity from a social perspective; identity is “people’s concepts of who they are, of
what sort of people they are, and how they relate to others” (Hogg and Abrams,1988), we
also have a broader definition given by Jenkins, he says identity “refers to the ways in
which individuals and collectivities are distinguished in their social relations with other
individuals and collectivities” (Jenkins, 1996), we also have identity defined and linked
with the term culture, “Identity is used in this book to describe the way individuals and
groups define themselves and are defined by others on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion,
language and culture” (Deng, 1995). Finally Tomlinson says:
11 Colombia, the other view
Identity was something people simply ‘had’ as an undisturbed existential possession,
an inheritance, a benefit of traditional long dwelling, of continuity with the past.
Identity, then, like language, was not just a description of cultural belonging; it was a
sort of collective treasure of local communities. (Tomlinson, 2003)
Taking into account the definitions previously given, I can say that identity is the way in
which individuals in a social group are distinguished and defined, using the language to
mediate in their social relations, reflecting their beliefs and perspectives about the way they
see the world (Sánchez, 2015).
Regarding the construct of cultural identity, I can briefly summarize it as the way in which
members of a social group define themselves using language to share their beliefs which
could be also defined as customs and traditions.
Since Cultural identity is related to ones groups’ sense of recognition, this implies each
social group creates, defines and shares his own identity; as I mentioned on the introductory
chapter of this paper, language teachers are facing challenges nowadays, one of these
challenges is globalization; even though globalization has been associated with the
“destruction of cultural identities” (Tomlinson, 2003) Language teachers have to find the
way to transform this challenge into an advantage in the English classroom, the way I
propose is to exploit the social dimension of the globalization, more specifically the access
to the information in order to share our beliefs, patterns, customs and traditions at the same
time we reinforce our cultural identity exploring what maybe not all of the people
remember from our culture using English language as means to communicate and share our
culture.
12 Colombia, the other view
This process of exploring our cultural identity in the classroom leads us to a broader
concept that is essential to achieve in the language learning process; since exploring is the
first step to create a sense of the cultural awareness in the learning process, we as “teachers
are mediators between cultures” (Byram & Risager, 1999); professor Bonilla and Alvarez
add, “…this involves the responsibility to help learners to understand other peoples and
their cultures. Teachers work as mediators between cultures; we needed to foster in our
students a critical approach to culture” (Alvarez & Bonilla, 2009). So according to this, we
as teachers have an important role in the classroom, act as mediators of culture in the
foreign language learning process.
According to Straub (1999), what educators should always have in mind when teaching
is “…the need to raise their students’ awareness of their own culture”, to provide them with
some kind of metalanguage in order to talk about culture, and “to cultivate a degree of
intellectual objectivity essential in cross-cultural analyses”. DeVos and Ross (1982) argue
that “Identities are negotiated through a process of contrast of self to others and one's group
to other groups”. The cultural identities of interlocutors are a function of their self- and
alter-ascriptions in cultural terms (McCall, 1976). DeVos and Ross (1982) note that
identities function to define rules of comportment, create a moral commitment, and
reinforce a sense of common origin.
When language learners have the opportunity to interact with foreign people, they
usually wonder about the differences among cultures, customs and traditions mainly, if the
students establish interaction processes with foreign people, they will have the opportunity
to learn about others’ cultures, but to make this process dialogic, it is important also to
know about their own culture. At the end, if the student not only learns but also shares his
13 Colombia, the other view
own culture, he reinforces his cultural identity and creates an environment not only for
communication but for intercultural communication.
If students have a material in the EFL classroom which provides cultural products from
their own culture, they will be able not only to share, but also compare and contrast the
differences among cultures, this would raise students’ cultural sensitivity, making them
“…aware about the differences and similarities among cultures and the effects on values,
learning and behavior” (Stafford, Bowman, Eking, Hanna & Lopoes-DeFede, 1997).
Identity can be revealed through rules and patterns; when individuals identify a
conversational partner as culturally different, the interaction process becomes more
complex. Intercultural communication is a process of comparisons, judgments, ascriptions,
and negotiations of both persons’ identities. One’s own cultural identity may include
stereotypes, opinions and meanings, and norms about other cultural groups that have been
passed down and are then modified and negotiated in intercultural contact.
The material I created is not only a source to help students reinforce their cultural
awareness and recognize their identity; this material will help them to be competent in their
communication. Communicative competence is a what a person knows about the language
or what she or he must know “when to speak, when not, ... what to talk about with whom,
when, where, in what manner” (Hymes, 1972); in other words, communicative competence
refers to the capability of understanding the speech context in order to produce an accurate
speech taking into account the context the speaker is involved.
Communicative competence is not isolated; actually, it is closely related with culture,
Saville-Troike for example defines communicative competence and classifies it into three
14 Colombia, the other view
types of knowledge: the linguistic, the interactional and the cultural. The former refers to
the values and attitudes attached to the language use (Saville-Troike, 1989, 1996).
So at any rate, the “foreign language learning is at the same time foreign culture
learning and, in one form or another, culture has, even implicitly, been taught in the foreign
language classroom”. (Thanasoulas, 2001) Kramsch explains how culture is addressed in
the classroom:
Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to
speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The Importance Of
Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom It is always in the
background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good language learners when
they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative
competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around
them.(Kramsch, 1993).
As a conclusion I can say that this project is exploring the matter of cultural awareness
raising while it pursues two objectives, the first one is to help students remember, recognize
and preserve their cultural identity through authentic texts based on cultural products from
Colombian traditions and customs. The second one is to develop cultural sensitiveness
preparing them to face intercultural communication processes. It is important to mention
that this project will not only help students, it is also a guideline for teachers who want to
work on culture and material design and adaptation in the English as a foreign language
classroom.
15 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 4
Creation process
English as a foreign language teachers are multi-task and multi-skills professionals, the
language teachers have a lot of responsibilities in and out of the classroom which are
reflected in the learning process. One of the tasks language teachers have is the selection,
adaptation and sometimes creation of material for the classes; a good teacher is not only the
person who knows a lot about the subject or field of study he or she works with, the
definition of “good teacher” could be explored from many different perspectives, but in my
own words I have to say that a good teacher has to be wise when choosing, adapting and
creating material.
The three tasks I mentioned before have to be carried out taking into account many
different aspects, from the accessibility to the material itself to the appropriateness for the
students who are going to work with it. During my teaching experience I noticed that most
of the teachers use textbooks in the English classroom as a didactic tool to support the
English learning process, but there are some problems with their use in the English
classroom.
The first one is the drilling-oriented use, when teachers leave aside most of their functions
in the classroom and, in some way, are replaced by books, whose only function is to be
filled up by students; The second one is related to the content, in Colombia we use
textbooks made by British or American publishing houses, this books do not take into
account students’ context and present conversations and content set in their cultural
background, one that is sometimes unknown for our students.
16 Colombia, the other view
When I noticed these problems I started wondering about the appropriateness of the
materials we use in the English classroom, probably English teachers are only choosing
their material but they are not going further in the process of analysis, adaptation and
creation which are very important in our career. In order to clarify these inquiries I decided
to carry out an online survey asking both English students and teachers about materials in
the classroom, these are some of the results:
I choose a sample of 50 English teachers and students, the first question I asked was
related to teaching materials in the EFL classroom, when I asked if they use support
material in their EFL class, 87.2% of the people surveyed answered yes while only 12.8%
answered no, this is very important because this shows that a great percentage of people use
resources to support the EFL learning process.
In the second question, I wanted to go a little deeper into the kind of materials which are
being used in the EFL classroom, so I asked what kind of materials do you use in your
English class? There were no significant differences in the figures in this question, 20.8%
claimed to use textbooks and videos in the classroom. Taking into consideration this
answers I can state that textbooks are still a useful resource in the EFL classroom even
though ICTs resources are getting involved in the EFL learning process and in the
classroom.
With the questions I tried to explore both students and teachers beliefs about materials in
the EFL classroom, when I asked about advantages and disadvantages again the answers
varied, but there were some aspects which were frequently mentioned, in the advantages
they mentioned aspects such as: organization in the class and it makes the learning process
17 Colombia, the other view
easier, and in the disadvantages the most mentioned aspects were: materials do not take into
account students’ context and book-based classes, these aspects were the concerns I posed
at the beginning of the project, so EFL students and teachers corroborate my statements.
When I noticed this I was still wondering if the survey would demonstrate the necessity of
creating materials for the EFL classroom in Colombian classes, in other question I asked
the following: do you think English textbooks take into account Colombian students’
context in their learning process? The answers once again supported my criteria, 70.2%
answered no, while 29.8 answered yes, so it is necessary to design material based on
Colombian students’ context, but why? This question was still going through my head, and
the fifth question of my survey helped me clarify this inquiry. Most of the people answered
saying that it is important to know our culture before learning others’, the following are
some of the answers:
“Es importante ya que el aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera no solo involucra el
aprender la lengua como tal sino conocer sobre las diferentes culturas no solo las
extranjeras, pero si las propias para así mismo darla a conocer”
“En los libros de texto muchas veces se habla del contexto referente a la nueva lengua
y se dejan de lado las propias costumbres, sería interesante poder mostrar y conocer
nuestra cultura a través de otra lengua; muchas veces la gente que conoce una lengua
extranjera y que tiene una experiencia ínter-cultural no es capaz de hablar de su
propia cultura porque nunca se ha visto la importancia de conocerla”
“Para entender otra cultura es necesario empezar por conocer la nuestra; así, será mas
fácil llegar al fondo del "iceberg" de las dos culturas como de su idioma”
18 Colombia, the other view
“claro que es importante, hace parte del contexto inmediato del estudiante”
“porque no conocemos bien nuestra propia cultura y pues es bueno dar a conocer
nuestra cultura a los extranjeros”
Even though not all of the answers were affirmative and considered important the
inclusion of our culture in the EFL process, when disagreements appear someway they
supported my idea, as in the following example:
“No considero que sea de suma importancia dar a conocer la cultura colombiana en
este proceso ya que es bien sabido que aprender una lengua extranjera exige de cierta
manera el conocimiento de esta nueva cultura, sin embargo, pienso que la mejor
manera de relacionar estos dos procesos va a partir de la comparación. Por ejemplo,
al aprender partes de la casa, casi siempre aparecen partes como el sótano o el altillo
y es evidente que la mayoría de la población colombiana no tiene en sus hogares, sin
embargo es importante hacer una comparación en la que ellos puedan encontrar
diferencias entre su propia cultura y la otra”
With the support given by both students and teachers to my inquiries about the material
in the EFL classroom I decided to start my process designing my own material. I decided to
create a reading material because one of the things I enjoyed the most when I was a child
was listening to my grandmother telling me stories, legends and fantastic anecdotes about
people and characters in Colombia, so this was my first step, start gathering stories.
The sources of my stories were close to me, however there are stories from all over the
country in the material I designed, all of them came from people and material close to me, I
decided to sit with my parents and my grandmother one day, and listen to some of the
19 Colombia, the other view
stories they know, but that not many people remember, that was how some of the stories
were written and then drafted. The stories which were not shared by my family were found
on books I had since my primary school.
After I chose the stories, I started adapting them, translating them being careful with the
vocabulary used, it took me about two months to choose the stories and adapt them for the
material, after the adaptation I asked for a revision to a professor close to me, he helped me
to correct some mistakes regarding cohesion, vocabulary and grammar.
When I finally chose the stories and adapted them, I started designing the book; I went
to the Colombo Americano’s library in order to check some reading books to shape my
idea, then I started designing the material using Corel Draw X6 which is a drawing
software, I selected some photos I had in my personal gallery and downloaded some from
the internet to illustrate the book, the process of design took me about 4 months due to the
problems I had organizing the elements to make it visually attractive.
After I finished designing the book, I decided to take it to my advisor to have a second
opinion, as the first idea was to include reading and listening in the book, my advisor
suggested me to include some exercises in order to work on reading comprehension as well
as the writing skill, since that moment I started reading books like Penguin Readers,
Dominoes, DK readers and Dolphin Readers which are books especially designed and
leveled for English learners with activities of reading comprehension. With these books I
took some ideas to design the reading comprehension activities I finally included on my
material.
20 Colombia, the other view
As soon as I finished designing the book, I took it again to my advisor and corrected
some minimal mistakes related to typo mistakes and punctuation, and then I sent the
material to the editorial in order to be printed and finally presented to the evaluators in my
dissertation.
21 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 5
Implications in educational context and language
The creation area I decided to work on this project is the materials development,
specifically the development of printed material, as I mentioned in the previous chapter,
this project arose from my inquiry supported by EFL students and teachers about the
materials in the Colombian classroom. Materials development is a process each one of us
has to carry out in the teaching-learning process and is essential in order to take advantage
of the material in the classroom in order to get positive results.
According to Tomlinson (2012) ‘Materials development’ refers to “…all the processes
made use of by practitioners who produce and/or use materials for language learning,
including materials evaluation, their adaptation, design, production, exploitation and
research”, this definition highlights the role of the practitioners, in this case an English
language teacher, in the design of material, in my specific case through the analysis of the
class and students’ needs to adapt and design a new material based on students’ needs
which will be a support to their EFL learning process.
But not all of the languages teachers design material, mainly because is a very time-
consuming process which requires dedication, imagination and planning, most of the
teachers adapt the materials to their classroom; Madsen & Bowen focused on adaptation,
when they explored the field of materials development. They made an important point
when they highlighted that:
Good teachers are always adapting the materials they are using to the context in
which they are using them in order to achieve the optimal congruence between
22 Colombia, the other view
materials, methodology, learners, objectives, the target language and the teacher’s
personality and teaching style. Madsen & Bowen (1978)
In addition to Madsen & Bowen’s words, I want to highlight the role of learners in the
development of material, through my teaching experience I had the opportunity to empower
students to design the materials to work with in class, so they designed flashcards to show
aspects of their cultures in the foreign language, regarding this process, Saraceni mentions
the importance of the students’ role in the material development; Saraceni, who advocates
providing the learners with an important role in adapting the materials they are using. In
order to involve learners in the process, she proposes that “materials should actually be
written with learner adaptation in mind, aiming to be learner-centered, flexible, open-
ended, relevant, universal and authentic, and giving choices to learners” Saraceni (2003).
According to what I have previously said, if materials are adapted taking into account
students’ needs, the material will help the learning process and more important, it will be
meaningful, especially when the content is based on cultural products from their own
culture. It helps not only to improve language proficiency, but also the awareness, skills,
attitudes and knowledge both of language and culture as professor Rico says: “The main
findings showed that the materials adapted helped students to develop the dimensions of
ICC, the savoirs: Savoir (knowledge), saviors ´engager (awareness), savoir-faire (skills),
savoir-être (attitudes); and savoir-communiquer (proficiency)” (Rico, 2011)
The framework which supported the material adaptation was the `Text Driven
Approach´ - TDA (Tomlinson, 2003). This approach is intended to humanize materials
(i.e., coursebooks) which are mostly developed from language-centered perspectives.
23 Colombia, the other view
Fundamentally, this approach aims to give the students the chance to experience texts
emotionally. As Rico explain us Tomlinson’s approach:
In turn, texts are perceived as cultural artifacts that enable the student to think,
reflect and communicate. TDA is characterized by two stages, the planning and the
development stage. The first one consists of the collection, selection and experience
of texts. The second one has to do with the development of the activities: readiness,
experiential, intake response, development and input response (Rico, 2011)
The design process of my material took into account Tomlinson’s recommendations for
the process; “Materials should help learners to develop confidence”, Tomlinson states that
materials should help students to feel confident in the learning process not simplifying the
activities but “…proposing activities which try to ‘push’ learners slightly beyond their
existing proficiency by engaging them in tasks which are stimulating, which are
problematic, but which are achievable too” (Tomlinson, 2011).
Also materials “should help learners to feel at ease” (Dulay, Burt and Krashen, 1982),
anxiety is a factor which influences the learning process, “the less anxious the learner, the
better language acquisition proceeds” (Dulay, Burt and Krashen, 1982) if the material is
designed taking into account students context, as I did in my creation process, English
learners will feel confident and less anxious during the process because they are learning
something maybe their parents mentioned once in an anecdote, this helps the learning
process and also involves family in it after students start to question about their culture,
“Relaxed and self-confident learners learn faster” (Dulay, Burt and Krashen, 1982).
Now, referring to the type of material being designed, I have to say that according to a
publication by Oxford materials can be categorized in the following groups:
24 Colombia, the other view
Materials can be informative (informing the learner about the target language), instructional
(guiding the learner in practicing the language), experiential (providing the learner with
experience of the language in use), eliciting (encouraging the learner to use the language)
and exploratory (helping the learner to make discoveries about the language). As “different
learners learn in different ways” (Oxford 2002). The aim of the material I am designing is
to provide students aspects from these different groups of materials previously mentioned,
it means that the book being designed informs about the language, instructs, gives people
an experience in the language use, encourages them to use the language and helps them to
discover the language itself.
In the same way, the material I designed is leveled based on the grading provided in the
Oxford bookworms series. Some of the characteristics this series has are: It is based on the
Common European Framework of Reference, the average length of the story is about 40
pages and it also has an average count of words of 6.500. According to the grading
proposed by Oxford this material is belongs to the second level reflecting an A2/B1 level,
so it is a material that is going to be useful for English learners who have already studied
and learned vocabulary and grammar structures previously in their process (Oxford, 2013)
The book I designed contains some myths, stories and recipes from Colombian culture.
Mainly it is a reading material but I do not want students only to improve reading skills, I
want them to improve the four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) that is why I
included audios for each one of the stories which will help students to follow the story as
they read it; at the end of each story there is a reading check when students answers some
questions to check reading comprehension and practice writing, also in the reading check is
25 Colombia, the other view
included a discussion question, this is for students to reflect about cultural aspects, debate
and express their thoughts towards these customs and traditions.
But, as this is a booklet with short stories the reading skill is one of the most visible,
that is why during the designing process I included activities for each one of the stages
proposed by Barnett, pre-reading activities which “…introduce students to a particular text”
(Barnett, 1989) the pre-reading activities are based on the exploration of vocabulary which
may be new for students, this would help them to understand the text when reading. While
reading activities are defined as activities which “help students develop reading strategies,
improve their control of the second language, and decode problematic text passages”
(Barnett, 1989) within the book you can find some boxes with additional information, the
idea is to clarify and extend information given in the stories. Finally post-reading activities
defined as “exercises first check students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper
analysis of the text, when warranted” (Barnett, 1989) this stage is divided in two, the first is
a writing reading check where students have to answer questions and correct statements
based on the stories and the second one mentioned by Barnett as the “deeper analysis of the
text” is a question proposed through a speaking activity to discuss about the story.
To sum up, I can say the material designed will have a positive impact on students,
unfortunately this project will not be evaluated, but the proposal for further research is to
evaluate the material and record students and teachers perceptions about the performance
and suitability of the material in the classroom in order to keep designing and adapting
materials which explore Colombian cultural product and which may be included in the in
most of Colombian school’s curriculum.
26 Colombia, the other view
Chapter 6
Conclusions
Materials adaptation and especially material creation must have in mind students’
context in order to make the EFL learning process meaningful, this lead to students’
engagement in the process giving them the opportunity to use the language in order to
communicate experiences close to his environment, strengthening the use of the language
improving their language skills and empowering them to recover, share and understand
their own culture.
In the project I mentioned authors who support the idea of including home culture in the
classroom; this is a way of creating an environment when students are thinking about the
cultural content more than in the linguistic patterns, becoming them aware of the
importance of the language use in context and creating an atmosphere in the classroom
which avoid students’ anxiety.
The idea of this project is not only to create a material to be used in the classroom, the
purpose is at the same time encourage EFL teachers to start designing materials for their
classes taking into accounts the needs they can observe in the classroom but more
important, taking into accounts students’ needs and interest to involve them in the
classroom creating a fun and interesting environment when they will not feel anxious but
comfortable.
27 Colombia, the other view
References
Agudelo, John Jader. (2007). An Intercultural Approach for Language Teaching:
Developing Critical Cultural Awareness. Íkala, revista de lenguaje y cultura, Enero-
Diciembre, 185-217.
Barnett, M. (1989). More Than Meets the Eye: Foreign Language Learner Reading:
Theory and Practice (Language in Education) (73 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 250-272).
Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall.
Collier, M. J., & Thomas, M. Cultural identity: an interpretive perspective.
Intercultural communication, theory and practice. Retrieved April 10, 2014, from
http://jpkc.ecnu.edu.cn/kwh/Course%20Reading%204.htm.
Corbett, J. (2003), An intercultural approach to English language teaching,
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Florentino, L. (2014) Integrating local literature in teaching English to first graders
under k12 curriculum. Theory and practice in language studies, 4, 1344-1351.
Kramsch, C (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford, England:
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Kramsch, C. (1988). The cultural discourse of foreign language textbooks. In
Singerman, A. (ed.). Toward a New Integration of Language and Culture.
Northeast Conference reports. (pp. 63-88) Middlebury, Vermont.
Moran, P. (2002). Language and culture in Teaching culture: perspectives in
practice (1 ed., Vol. 6, pp. 33-47). Boston, Massachusetts: Heinle & Heinle.
28 Colombia, the other view
Rico Troncoso, C. (2012). Language teaching materials as mediators for ICC
development: a challenge for material developers. Signo y pensamiento, 60, 130-
154.
Thanasoulas, D. (2011) The importance of teaching culture in the foreign language
classroom. Radical pedagogy, 3, 1-25.
Tomlinson, B. (2011). Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge,
N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials development for language learning and teaching.
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Zhu, H. (2011) from intercultural awareness to intercultural empathy. English
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29 Colombia, the other view
Annexes
Exploratory survey results
30 Colombia, the other view
Annex 2: Book