Re-conceptualising Ethnography to Teach Culture in Foreign Language Classrooms

Abstract

Ethnography in foreign language teaching is seen not as a source of material for teachers, but as a methodology to be adopted by the teachers/learners in order to learn/explore the foreign language culture. The aim of this paper is neither to emphasise the necessity to teach the target language culture nor to trace the history of teaching culture along or within a foreign language but to conceptualise an ethnographic approach to teaching culture. As a process approach to teaching culture, this approach repositions learners as researchers and researched and teachers as facilitators. Following ethnographic methodology, the learners look at culture through an ethnographer’s lens. They make use of ethnographic techniques such as observations, description and interpretation of the “behavioural repertoire” of a given society to generate new knowledge.