Personalizing Culture

Much has changed in the way that culture is presented in ELT materials. When I first started teaching over 30 years ago, cultural information was often limited to the bland presentation of what was commonly known as “target culture”. Our materials were therefore full of icons and stereotypes from the English-speaking world – images of monuments such as Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty were ubiquitous as were cultural figures such as The Beatles or The Beach Boys.

More importantly, this cultural content was presented as factual information, often in a neutral and uncritical voice or from an outsider’s perspective, not dissimilar to the style of encyclopedia entries.  Information presented in this way we can refer to as Culture with a capital “C”, students were aware that they were “doing culture”. One problem with such information is that it is difficult for students to engage with as it is hard to personalize or make relevant.

Culture with a small “c”

Clearly, we need a different kind of cultural input which reflects today’s reality. English is now seen as an International Language with non-native speakers far outnumbering native. Our students will now be far more likely to speak English in multi-lingual scenarios. Thus, there is no longer a need to limit input to “target culture” contexts.

DLA videos are enriching precisely because they showcase voices from all over the world – Singapore, India, Ghana, Norway to name but a few – as well as reflecting the multicultural reality of many modern-day cities (e.g. Diwali in New York). Aside from this, what’s particularly noteworthy is that they provide cultural input that encourages reflection, is personal and often seen from an insider’s perspective not from the outside looking in. In contrast to the traditional way of presenting culture, we could regard this as presenting culture with a small “c”.

Two DLA videos which represent this more personalized approach to the presentation of culture are Memories of Paris and Ben’s Favourite Places.

Memories of Paris

This video represents a highly original vision of Paris. Rather than talk about the typical cultural highlights of the city – its celebrated monuments, streets and museums - or resort to stereotypes about Paris it represents the city as seen through the eyes of the people who have been there.

Like other iconic cities – such as New York, Rio or Venice- Paris lingers in the mind and in the imagination of many of us because of its popularity in the media. As the narrator says at the start of the video:

“Most people have an image of Paris in their minds. For some, it is a borrowed memory: from a film, a perfume advert, or someone else’s holiday album. For others it’s a real memory”.

Three ways of viewing a city

In this way, the video sets up the clever notion that iconic places such as Paris can exist in three different ways in people’s minds – 1) as a fantasy world which exists only in their imagination, 2) as a real memory from when you spent time in the city or finally 3) as an image of home for people who have lived / continue to live there.

We then meet Teewa, a woman of Nigerian origin who currently lives in Germany –her background is, in fact, a perfect example of today’s globalized world.  It turns out that she had spent some time living in Paris. Rather than a local, native French speaker, it is interesting to see the city from her perspective. Though an outsider in Paris because of her birthplace and background, we see her speak from very much an insider’s viewpoint as she was a former resident. She recalls that when she arrived she was influenced by the city’s stereotypical image:

“My first experience seeing that was just like “Wow”. It was absolutely gorgeous. At that moment in time I knew I was going to love Paris”.

But as the narrator adds:

“…. after any length of time in Paris, it’s the daily experiences that come back to us.”

The familiar and the unfamiliar

She then paints another much more personal image of the city – the smell of bread from her local bakery and the international atmosphere she felt there with people from all over the world.

Finally, the narrator refers to the city with all its different qualities: 

Paris is many things: art and history, rain and long commutes, romantic corners and freshly baked bread.

This is another important point that the video raises, cities can conjure up images which have both positive and negative connotations (“rain and long commutes”). This makes Paris both more real and relatable to students and it is seen in the different images of the city we see throughout the clip – the well-known sights interspersed with scenes from everyday life.

The DLA resource pack offers good ideas for post-viewing tasks – asking students to imagine how their city is 1) perceived by people who don’t know it, 2) recalled by visitors and how 3) it is viewed by locals. This is an excellent exercise in intercultural awareness because it asks students to reflect on where they live from multiple perspectives. Asking them to do this challenges their fixed impression of their own culture and is, as such, a very valuable exercise.

Ben’s vlog: My Favourite Places

Another video which offers a very particular vision of different places is this vlog by Ben. It is another good example of material that focuses on Culture with a small “C”  as the vlogger recalls the places he has been to in a personal way. He refers to both his home city of Toronto as well as other places he has travelled - Florida and Edinburgh. But once again, rather than give factual information about these places, he describes them from his own personal and subjective viewpoint. Like Teewa, he talks about what these places mean to him.

As in the video of Paris, there is a focus here on the senses in particular touch (the feel of rocks and sand), sight (light of the city) and sound (waves). In this way, Ben’s descriptions are extremely evocative and particular to him:

“Now I live in the UK so I can’t visit very often but I know that I can just travel there in my

mind by closing my eyes, feeling the rocks on my feet, hearing the sound of the waves and

seeing the light of the city waking up before my eyes. I miss it so much”.

 What’s particularly nice about this clip is that it includes other video footage of Ben’s favourite places rather than just stills of his trips to different places. This makes the experiences he describes much more vivid and immediate.

The vlog genre is perfect as a way to personalize cultural input because information is transmitted purely from the point of view of the vlogger. Vloggers also represent good role models as students can easily create their own versions of these vlogs, after all it does not require much technical expertise to make such clips.  

In fact, the DLA resource pack already includes a post-viewing task which asks students to work in groups to make a presentation of their favorite places with slides which they can record. This works very well as a personalized task and allows students to focus on lexical items used in Ben’s video such as descriptive adjectives.

An extension activity could then be to ask students to search on their phone for a few short video clips which they could work into their own “My Favourite Places” vlog. Like Ben, they could include places they call (or have called) home as well as places they have only seen in passing.