Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics - English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,7, University of Kassel (Literature: Language and Cultural Awareness), course: Department of English & Romance Languages, language: English, abstract: This term paper will take several questions into account by starting off with a general definition of the terms 'Literature, Language and Cultural Awareness' as they are the basis for talking about literature and literary texts. Afterwards, a precise definition of the terms will follow before the consequences for the EFL classroom will be mentioned which lead to a text example that shows how one can teach the aspects that have been mentioned before and why it is important to teach students literature at all. The text shows that students need to understand other cultural backgrounds in order to understand the whole text since we do not have the expression 'hills like white elephants' in Germany. As a result, this text is a good example for showing how important language and cultural awareness are in order to understand literary texts in the EFL classroom. When we talk about literature in the EFL classroom, we should first of all ask ourselves what we need to take into consideration in general when we want to deal with literary texts in the EFL classroom. Some questions arise like why one should teach literature in the EFL classroom and what kind of literature needs to be taught. It is important to read literary texts in the EFL classroom because the curriculum says that teachers should deal with different countries and cultures by presenting people in real life situations. Therefore, they should mostly use authentic material in order to build a connection to the student's world. The teacher should be careful in choosing texts for the EFL classroom because the texts need to be suitable for the class in order to let the students work with them.

This book is based on educational research conducted by researchers from the Department of Learning and Philosophy and the Confucius Institute for Innovation and Learning at Aalborg University. Empirically, it reports on different approaches to teaching and learning of culture, including a student-centered task-based problem-based learning (PBL) approach, a digital technology-supported approach and more. It also reports on how, when teaching and learning culture, teachers’ professional identity and the informal teaching and learning environment impact the teaching and learning of culture in different educational settings from primary school to university. A central theme in the book is the power of context. The studies illustrate in multiple ways, and from different angles, that “culture is not taught in a vacuum or learned in isolation”, but may be influenced by many factors both inside and outside the classroom; at the same time, culture also influences the context of the learning. The context may be “invisible” and hide itself as tacit knowledge or embedded values, or it may be very visible and present itself as a fixed curriculum or an established tradition. No matter what forms and shapes the context takes, the studies in this book strongly indicate that it is essential to be aware of the power of context in teaching and learning culture in order to understand it and negotiate it. This book suggests that teachers should not try to limit or avoid contextual influences, but instead, should explore how the context may be integrated into and used constructively in the teaching and learning of culture. This allowance of context in the classroom will allow for teachers, students, subjects and contexts to enter into a dialogue and negotiation of meaning that will enrich each other and achieve the established goal – acquisition of cultural awareness and intercultural understanding.

Today, a 'cultural' dimension is increasingly being taught at universities as a supplement to disciplines that have not traditionally paid much attention to culture. Universities are competing to produce graduates with a 'global mindset' who are well equipped to cope in multicultural, team-oriented workplaces. Yet the way in which culture is taught is bound to differ depending on the context in which the teaching takes place. Current research on teaching cultural skills tends to favor a social constructivist approach where actors are seen as constructing collective means of sense-making in the arenas and groups in which they participate. Teachers, who are often very keen to promote tolerance, empathy, and intercultural dialogue, often support such an approach, but it can be a challenge to transfer this to teaching, especially in interdisciplinary contexts. Teaching Cultural Skills explores these challenges based on experiences from Danish universities. Its broader themes make it highly relevant for teachers of culture elsewhere. These themes include the globalization of labor markets and trade; immigration, which has led to increased awareness of the need for cultural skills; and the internationalization of higher education, which has made classrooms more multicultural than ever before.~

This book recognizes and embraces the complexities of modern English teaching. It presents English teachers and teacher educators with a critical view of current professional issues and concerns in the belief that these groups need, and want, to participate in curricular and professional reform movements that affect them and their students. The book examines such issues as the interconnectedness of the study of language, literature, and composition; curricular problems in language instruction in teacher education; the relationship between our traditional notions of literature study and our emerging view of literacy in the contemporary information age; and the ways in which current theory and research can be translated into innovative designs for the teaching of written composition. On Literacy and Its Teaching is a powerful response to the current challenge for innovation and change in English teacher education. With its broad scope, it provides a balanced overview and timely analysis of the field of English Education.

"The purpose of this research was to see if using multicultural literature potentially enhances a student's own respect of his/her culture and language. Through the use of a multicultural thematic unit and multicultural literature, students can potentially gain awareness and respect for diverse populations. This research hopes to see this diverse awareness and respect reflected in respect for the students' own culture and language. The research conducted was a qualitative study employing teacher action research methodology. The participants were nine second grade students. Data included interviews, observations, and student artifacts, which consisted primarily of the Make Connections Organizer. Findings suggest that students make more personal connections when reading multicultural literature that contains narratives or topics similar to their own culture. Findings also suggest that using literature about Indigenous and Alaska Native topics, events and characters can potentially contribute to students' deeper understandings of their own culture and that of others"--Leaf iii.

Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice speaks to all those teachers who teach the "gen ed" literature course that their students must take to complete a general education or core curriculum requirement. These students--the 95 percent who are not English majors--are the students we hope will become active and reflective members of a reading public. Given this goal, Kathleen Blake Yancey outlines a course located in reflective practice and connected to readings in the world. The course invites students to theorize--about their own reading practices, about how literature is made, and about texts and their relationships to culture more generally. Such a course also encourages students to think about what places and occasions in the world are poetic, about the role of not-understanding in coming to understand literature, and about technological forms of literacy, such as multimedia pop-ups that link associatively to multiple contexts. In addition to cogent reflections on the realities of lived, delivered, and experienced curricula, Yancey defines, illustrates, and analyzes two kinds of literature portfolio--print and electronic--and shows how each fosters a particular kind of learning and leads to specific assessment practices.