Learning about English-speaking cultures through multimedia presentations: way to go!

During these past three months, I think I have got in contact with very interesting cultural artifacts, thanks to class presentations and the blog posts written by me and my colleagues. Some of them were well explained and its relevance was obvious; others not so much.

In the beginning of the semester, I referred in my first blog post that "The most important thing is to avoid boredom. I find 'action' as the keyword English classes need. We have been studying English for our whole lives and I feel almost none of my language classes surprises me anymore.". Hopefully, I actually enjoyed the way instructor Nicholas Csargo organized our classes and motivated us to participate in class discussions and assignments. However, sometimes it seemed to me that some of my colleagues did not have a proficient level of English, even for a non-native speaker, and, consequently, I found some of their presentations incomplete or insufficient, a situation which often bored me. Anyhow, the fact that few students enrolled in this C2 class was one of the most positive aspects when it came to sharing ideas and giving everyone the opportunity to speak their minds and developing their speaking abilities in English.

Presenting cultural artifacts, such as books, blogs, movies, news articles, songs and poems was, indeed, a constructive way of getting more deeply in touch with the different English-speaking cultures we were influenced to study through our colleagues' initiative. The multimedia resources are becoming more and more indispensable as time goes by and this curricular unit has certainly been advantageous for everyone who is thinking about working in translation, journalism, social media or, in my case, teaching. The multimedia and Internet tools that I was presented were fun and helped me concentrate in the themes we studied at the same time. Later, I even used two of them - Kahoot and Today's Meet - in the classes I was teaching and my students loved them and asked me to repeat these activities more than once.

Regarding the cultural artifacts I chose to write and present about, I think the one which gave me more pleasure to explore was maybe Walden, or life in the woods, because it was a book that I already wanted to finish reading a long time ago. Having to talk about it in class only gave me more strength to carry on studying Thoreau's most famous work, chapter after chapter. Until I started to read Internet articles and summaries on Walden, I had not perceived at what degree Thoreau’s experiment of living in the wilderness two centuries ago is important to us now, as individuals addicted to technology and consuming unnecessary goods. The other cultural artifact I liked to study the most as well was the Modern Family series, since everyone knows it and there are a lot of themes to explore in it, such as gay and interracial marriage and women's and men's role in society.

My favorite cultural artifact, from the ones presented during the semester, was the one about the novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, done by Catarina Ferreira. I felt quite excited about this book, because the author, Paul Torday, tries to counteract the political tension between the Middle East and Europe with a story about peace, a topic I would have liked to reflect on on classes, particularly when it comes to war issues between the Middle East and the United States of America. Also, Catarina mentioned that the structure of the book was different than usual, created as a set of documents from various origins, instead of a linear narrative, an innovative format I feel compelled to try as a Summer reading. Obviously, this was even more interesting, because she brought the actual book to show us. The comparison between the book and its cinematic adaptation has established a fine method to motivate the audience to explore the artifact too.

Apart from Catarina's cultural artifact, I also enjoyed Francisco Caixinha's introduction to conspiracy theories, because even though it was not properly an artifact, it remembered the class that we should be careful when examining our own and not being blind towards public opinion or myths. After all, conspiracy theories may either hide the truth or tall tales. It is up to us to be critical when analysing cultural, historical, political or journalistic pieces. Conspiracy theories are also very popular phenomena in the USA, so its relevance to a class like English C2 is undeniable.

In summary, the diversity of themes and artifacts we got in touch with have enriched our English C2 class and brought up some current international issues everyone should reflect on. I do not think the class discussions we led have radically changed my point of view about anything, but in the end I am happy that we thought over the proposed issues.

Furthermore, I also reached a conclusion: it is not possible to use each and every learning tool in class, because some media are not even practical (for instance, Prezi). Keeping it simple may be the key to success: we just need Power Point, YouTube, Google and eventually a more specific tool to create quizzes, questionnaires or pedagogical games. Everything else may become an advantage, but only if well-planned.

Basically, I do not feel like I have learnt a lot of things about the USA or other English-speaking country, although it was fun to share ideas with my colleagues and discovering the cultural artifacts they worked on. I also enjoyed the trivialities our instructor shared with us regarding the American way of life, mainly about academic and economical issues, the ones I considered most different from what happens in Portugal. Besides that, I finally cognized that the identity issues, when it comes to race, gender, social group or religion are more pressing and present in the USA, due to the diversity of its population and the vastness of its territory,

As a quick remark, I would like to highlight that the final short stories are other important part of the program, on account of the importance of literature as a cultural expression, the author’s implicit opinion and as reflections about the society they lived in.