How to Teach Culture to ESL Students

Over years of teaching I find that language is not the most difficult thing to teach in ESL classes. Language has patterns, which can be put into order and taught systematically. Culture, on the other hand, is something that a lot of students are interested in, but cannot gain access to. Culture is vague, broad, eclectic, therefore it becomes 'too much to handle' for ESL students.

However, we can break down the abstract notion of 'culture' into different concrete activities.

1. Music

Music is a great way to attract students' interest and induce them to interact with each other. The teacher can start the activity by introducing some popular artists/celebrities, and then ask students to share their favourite artist/celebrity with the class. Different people like different artists, different genre, and also students from different cultural background may introduce some types of music of their own culture.

2. Holiday

Holiday reveals a great deal about native culture. Holidays comes up every month, so there are a lot of opportunities to teach where holidays came from and the story behind each holiday. Again, students can share their favourite holiday in their own cultural background.

3. Food

Food is a perfect topic to teach culture, especially in a city like Los Angeles, where so many different people from different cultures merge together. A food fair can be a good activity to bring students together and introduce the food they like in their own culture and in US.

4. History

The teacher can introduce some significant historical moments or events in US history. Students can also share significant historical stories in their cultural history. You can also ask students the reason why these events are so significant, and what impact it has on modern day life.

To be continued...