Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom, Second Edition

By Andrea DeCapua and Ann C. Wintergerst

Book Overview

A MICHIGAN TEACHER TRAINING title

Teachers are often in the forefront of today's cross-cultural contact, whether in the language classroom or in the K-12 or university/college classroom, but they are not always prepared to handle the various issues that can arise in terms of cross-cultural communication. The intent of this book is to make education in cross-cultural awareness accessible to a broad range of teachers working in a variety of educational settings.

Crossing Cultures in the Language Classroom attempts to balance theory and practice for pre-service and in-service teachers in general education programs or in ESL/EFL, bilingual, and foreign language teacher training programs, as well as cross-cultural awareness workshops. This book is unique in that it combines theory with a wide range of experiential activities and projects designed to actively engage users in the process of understanding different aspects of cross-cultural awareness. The goals of the book are to help readers: expand cultural awareness of one's own culture and that of othersachieve a deeper understanding of what culture is and the relationship between culture and languageacquire the ability to observe behaviors in order to draw conclusions based on observation rather than preconceptionsunderstand and implement observations of cultural similarities and differencesdevelop an attitude of tolerance toward cultural differences and move away from the "single story."The new edition has been thoroughly updated and includes a Suggested Projects section in each chapter. This section provides opportunities for users of the text to explore in greater depth an area and topic of interest. It also includes even more Critical Incidents--brief descriptions of events that depict some element or elements of cultural differences, miscommunication, or culture clash. Critical Incidents develop users' ability to analyze and understand how multiple perspectives of the same situation are rooted in differing culturally influenced beliefs, behaviors, norms of interaction, and worldviews.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472036416
• ISBN13: 9780472036417
• Release Date: January 2016
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press ELT
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.0" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

A useful concept book

I am a teacher educator who has used this book four times in an MA TESOL program course on Cross-Cultural Communication in the United States. I am now teaching in Korea, and I decided to use this book in a Cross-Cultural Communication course for MA English Education program students. I found the book very useful in both settings. I especially found the very clearly written English at a level for international students. Most students have said they could easily comprehend the concepts. American students also appreciated the clarity of the discussion. But, the most valuable feature of this book is the many very creative and thoughtful activities in the book. I have 40 years of teaching and teacher education experience, and I give these activities a very high score. They have been thoughtfully processed, and I imagine most of the activities have been tested through the authors' classroom experience. I highly recommend this book. It will open the eyes of the readers to see culture and cross-cultural communication in clear and highly significant ways.