Teaching English Culture

Course Summary

This highly interactive teacher training course provides the opportunity to look at the role of the native versus the non native speaker of English and the chance to explore the reasons behind teaching the English that we teach.

Target Audience

This course is aimed at teachers of English and subject teachers using English in class, who wish to combine the chance to further develop their own English language skills with the opportunity to better understand the challenges of teaching English Culture. You will learn about how and why English has become a lingua franca, the controversies surrounding Globish, how to improve intelligibility in an intercultural environment and how culture affects how language is used. Participants need to be at a minimum B1 level of English.

Preparation

After registration, participants on this course programme will receive:

• a pre-course questionnaire which will enable trainers to learn about the participants’ teaching backgrounds
• information about the Europass Mobility Certificate
• a recommended reading list to prepare participants for various aspects of the course
• information about York to prepare teachers for their cultural experience

Objectives

By the end of the course participants will:

• be able to discuss and teach different aspects of English usage in the teaching environment
• have a knowledge of the skills crucial to mutual intelligibility
• be able to understand, explain, and present to peers the ideas surrounding Globish and English as a Foreign Language
• have developed an understanding of different models of culture and how culture affects the language we use
• have gained insights and classroom activities for all of the objectives above

Methodology

Sessions demonstrate and train the teaching of English Culture and the different approaches, methodologies, techniques and knowledge. An interactive communicative approach is applied, which provides participants with their own experiential learning of the activities and methodologies. Input sessions are in the form of hands-on workshops and involve brainstorming, analysis, problem-solving, and role-play, both in pair work and group work. Participants are actively involved in the sessions to maximise their learning and to experience activities from their learners’ point of view.

Follow Up

Teachers are asked to reflect on the activities, inviting discussion with regard to their own knowledge and experience, teaching methods and contexts, and on adaptation of activities to their own teaching and learning situations. Participants are also introduced to key resources related to the further development of their teaching skills and personal professional development. Both theory and practice are explored, analyzed and discussed, further enabling the participants’ use and development of their teaching and classroom management skills regarding teaching English Culture.

The course ends with an evaluation session, where teachers are asked to reflect upon the value of the knowledge gained on the course. They are also encouraged in this session to create a Personal Development Action Plan, and select activities which they would like to try out in their own classes. They are invited to join the York Associates Community, which allows networking and contact with the trainers and fellow colleagues, and with participants from other courses.

Sample Course Programme

Each session above is 90 minutes long. Exact timings will be confirmed before your course.

21 hour teacher development courses may use a 8.00- 12.30 or 13.30 -17.30 time slot. Afternoon programmes will finish earlier on certain days for social programme options.