Teaching Culture, Too

     This past week, both of my booperating teachers at Normal Community incorporated an aspect of Halloween into their lessons.  In ESL 2, Beginning ESL, Ms. Jones brought into the classroom the idea of using pumpkin in foods.  She showed pictures of pumpkin pie, seeds, muffins, flavored coffee, etc. and explained that the pumpkin is North American, which is why it might be rather new to some of the students.  I brought in pumpkin seeds for students to try and all except 2 or 3 students had not tried them before.  Each was able to try them.  I noticed that Abel, who is from Mexico, was not eating the shell.  Pumpkin seeds are actually meant to have the whole thing eaten.  Satoryu, from Japan, did not enjoy the pumpkin seeds.  We talked about the history of Halloween and related it to The Day of the Dead in Mexican culture.  Satoryu shared that in Japanese and Chinese culture, they celebrate Setsubun, which is where the father of the house puts on a mask and throws beans out the door to cleanse the house of evil spirits from the previouse year.  They also talked about and showed pictures of scare crows and halloween decorations.
     In ESL 1, basic ESL, Ms. Claricoates taught students about the carving of a pumpkin for Halloween and how it's a tradition.  She showed pictures of carved pumkins and talked about jack-o-lanterns.  This was difficult for the students to understand that they were pumpkins when they were plain, but were called "jack-o-lanterns" once they were carved.  Later in the week, Ms. Claricoates brought in a pumpkin for each student to carve in class and take home (there are only 3 students in this class).  Norma was overly excited that she was able to bring her "punkin" home but Edwardo did not care to.  Ms. Claricoates also picked a book about a skeleton having hiccups and all the ways he tried to get rid of them.  Students listened to the story once, and then a second time.  They had pieces of paper with sentences on them stating what happened on each page.  They had to put these in order when listening to the story the second time. 
     Through these lessons that incorporated or focused on Halloween, students were not only learning about new vocabulary, they were learning about American culture.  Through these lessons, both of my CT's made sure to ask students if they had anything that they celebrated in their culture that was like Halloween, or if they believed in ghosts, if they were dressing up, etc.  These questions placed value on the students' beliefs and their home culture.  They also showed that the teacher personally cared to learn about the students' culture.  This is vital in teaching a language because of the incorporation of teaching about culture.  Learning a second language will not be effective unless students are comfortable with their teacher and in the classroom.  This environment can only occur by asking questions like these, having students present about their culture, simply doing things that validate students' value of their own culture.