By Tom McCormick
Editor’s Note: Winter, Covid, Christmas with limited gatherings, loneliness and missing home and family, the unfamiliarity of a new country and how things work – our students are facing multiple challenges that demand a lot of them. It is probably true that Christmas is not celebrated in their home countries in the same way as in Canada; it may not have the same connotations that all of us in the West have. At this time – as at other times of the year – we do well to remember the principle that language and culture are intertwined, and that one of the gifts we can give our students is an understanding that language and culture get to the very core of their being, and that they are participating and growing in a new culture as they learn a new language. The following piece, reprinted from an issue in 2016, elaborates on this theme and serves as a timely reminder.
“Traditionally, people talk about ‘language’ as ‘influencing culture’ and ‘culture’ as ‘influencing language’ as though they are two ‘things’ that are separate from one another, even if they affect one another.” Languaculture, though, is a hybrid term combining ‘language’ and ‘culture’ to say that “there are no such separate ‘things’.” Language and Culture are much more intimately intertwined than that. There is no language which is not saturated with cultural knowledge, and there is no culture that has not been essentially formed in large part by the uses of language. For a fuller presentation of this perspective, and for the source of the quotes above, see the article by Greg Thomson at the SOCEM site, “Language Acquisition Resources”. There are many practical implications that result from this different understanding, including the importance of integrating English language learning with the learning of Canadian culture(s), both in and outside the classroom. One very practical suggestion results from the recognition that languacultural learning benefits from attention to what are called “rich points”, the surprises that occur when one’s expectations do not match one’s experience. These are very teachable moments, rich with learning potential. So, we often ask those who come to our programs, “Is there anything that happened this week that you didn’t understand or would like to know more about? Perhaps something someone said or did?” These are also moments when learners can feel the most vulnerable or bewildered or “lost”. These can also be very tender moments of relationship building and friendship. Some also use simple written materials to open up such “rich points” for discussion. The Chicken Soup for the Soul books as well as Reader Digest stories have proven useful. (When the mismatch between expectations and experience are extreme or touch on matters of personal identity, culture (or better, languaculture) shock occurs.)