by Gabrielle Nardi da Silva
As future teachers, we must think of how we are going to help our students build their critical thinking skills. Recently our English II class was part of a project that is perfect for that. When I was in High School, my sociology teacher defined culture as “everything humans have created”. That was ten years ago, and since then I have never thought about the definition of culture again, until I read the first chapter of “Language and Culture”, by Claire Kramsch (1998). Then that definition from High School seemed way too simple for all that the chapter approached.
Claire brings many reflections about culture, but one of my favorites is presented in the book with a poem by Emily Dickinson: culture is something that has been grown and groomed. This more poetic approach made me rethink a concept that was graved in my mind. And this wasn’t the only part of the project that made us think critically.
The project also dealt with stereotypes and how they are created. Being a “lefty”, I’ve always tried to avoid stereotypes and knew they were created based on racist theories like social Darwinism. But I’ve learned that not all of them are based on those, some are created by lack of knowledge, and that’s ok. We can’t have all the knowledge about all the countries in the world. But we can and should be respectful and not assume things based on stereotypes.
The last part of our project was the most eye-opening. We got to ask foreign students about stereotypes they had heard about Brazil. With that, we learned that not everyone thinks we speak Spanish in Brazil, that Portuguese may sound like a mix of Latin languages for some, but like Russian to others, that panda memes and Michel Teló are very popular in China and that for most interviewees Brazilians are fun, welcoming and beautiful people.
As I said, I have thought about stereotypes and how we see other countries before, so I haven’t changed my mind on this subject. Not one culture or country can be defined by a stereotype. There’s diversity everywhere. However, my opinion on how Brazil is seen by foreigners has changed. I didn’t know Brazilian women were objectified so bad. Doing research for the final presentation, I found a website for foreigners that are in search for information about Brazil. This website said that Brazil was very dangerous for unaccompanied married men, because Brazilian women were very forward, almost like predators.
As future teachers, we should get inspired by this project and always try to create tasks, tests and projects that help students build or improve their critical thinking. With that, they can learn so much more than language.
As future teachers, we must think of how we are going to help our students build their critical thinking skills. Recently our English II class was part of a project that is perfect for that. When I was in High School, my sociology teacher defined culture as “everything humans have created”. That was ten years ago, and since then I have never thought about the definition of culture again, until I read the first chapter of “Language and Culture”, by Claire Kramsch (1998). Then that definition from High School seemed way too simple for all that the chapter approached.
Claire brings many reflections about culture, but one of my favorites is presented in the book with a poem by Emily Dickinson: culture is something that has been grown and groomed. This more poetic approach made me rethink a concept that was graved in my mind. And this wasn’t the only part of the project that made us think critically.
The project also dealt with stereotypes and how they are created. Being a “lefty”, I’ve always tried to avoid stereotypes and knew they were created based on racist theories like social Darwinism. But I’ve learned that not all of them are based on those, some are created by lack of knowledge, and that’s ok. We can’t have all the knowledge about all the countries in the world. But we can and should be respectful and not assume things based on stereotypes.
The last part of our project was the most eye-opening. We got to ask foreign students about stereotypes they had heard about Brazil. With that, we learned that not everyone thinks we speak Spanish in Brazil, that Portuguese may sound like a mix of Latin languages for some, but like Russian to others, that panda memes and Michel Teló are very popular in China and that for most interviewees Brazilians are fun, welcoming and beautiful people.
As I said, I have thought about stereotypes and how we see other countries before, so I haven’t changed my mind on this subject. Not one culture or country can be defined by a stereotype. There’s diversity everywhere. However, my opinion on how Brazil is seen by foreigners has changed. I didn’t know Brazilian women were objectified so bad. Doing research for the final presentation, I found a website for foreigners that are in search for information about Brazil. This website said that Brazil was very dangerous for unaccompanied married men, because Brazilian women were very forward, almost like predators.
As future teachers, we should get inspired by this project and always try to create tasks, tests and projects that help students build or improve their critical thinking. With that, they can learn so much more than language.