In an increasingly interconnected world that relies on social awareness and tolerance, developing students' cultural competence is now more vital than ever. Despite its importance, language educators may find the teaching of culture particularly challenging as it may seem to lack curricular structure and be difficult to evaluate. For these…

With postcards, addressing culture in the L2 classroom follows an "if-these-walls-could-talk" design by telling the story of what "those walls" might say. A postcards approach is shown to enrich our students' cultural understanding. In many cases, it enhances their desire to experience the target culture on their own. Postcards…

This short-form article describes a multimedia unit of study on social turmoil for students at the ACTFL Intermediate Mid and Intermediate High levels. It explains the rationale for the cultural products used based on current scholarship as well as ACTFL and MLA standards and provides explicit instructional guidance so that students with little…

This essay examines the state of Digital Humanities work in the subfield of literature from the Spanish speaking world. It provides a case study of a multiyear digital mapping project conducted with undergraduate students at a highly selective liberal arts college. This project serves as a means of examining the digital state of the field and…

: Bookmapped storytelling, a pedagogical approach designed by Terence W. Cavanaugh and Jerome Burg (2011), allows students to trace a character's trajectory on a digital map. The use of this digital tool in foreign language education and its effectiveness in helping students reach proficiency remains little studied. In this article I explore the…

Most collegiate departments where one can find Spanish, French, German, and other non-English disciplines are referred to as "language departments," either formally or informally. Such designations are interesting as they suggest to the outsider (i.e., non-language person) that these departments consist of experts in language. In this…

The 2007 MLA report "Foreign Language and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World," with its call to institutions of higher education to reexamine their curricula and include more in-depth cultural content into all courses, reminded foreign language educators of the important goal of helping students gain…

Secondary teachers often find it difficult to include the study of culture in their classes. Long-term cultural portfolios (LCPs) provide a method of allowing teachers to address culture in a substantial manner by allowing teachers to join students in the exploration of cultural topics. Teachers first select a cultural artifact, determine the…

The Spanish program at UNC Charlotte is timely and responsive because it is designed to meet documented societal (job market) needs in today's and tomorrow's global village and economy by providing graduates with strong specialties in English-Spanish translating and in business Spanish. It is integrative in that it does so while maintaining its…

In the past two years, several Latin American nations have begun celebrating their bicentennials of independence, turning attention to questions of national identity and the legacy of independence in the twenty-first century. This reflection is sure to continue into the coming decade. This article offers a few practical suggestions for bringing…

Suggests and gives examples of classroom study of status symbols of a society as a way to introduce culture into the second language classroom. (BK)

Outlines a history of Costa Rica and its music. Cites sources for Costa Rican music and cultural information. (Author/LMO)

Describes experiment carried out at the University of Texas at Austin to test hypothesis that the inclusion of cultural information describing society of language being studied would increase occurrence of integrative motivation in students and this would result in superior acquisition of cognitive language skills. Results neither proved nor…

Describes the University of Maryland at Baltimore County's one-week foreign language exploratory program for fourth through sixth grade students, and details methods and strategies used to conduct "Spanish Day," where students learned about Spanish language and culture through songs, games, and stories. (CB)

This article defines bilingualism and bilingual education and traces the history of bilingual education in the United States, starting with the Spanish missions in the west. (Text is in Spanish.) (NCR)