NEW JERSEY CITY UNIVERSITY

Volume VII - 2002-03

Learning a Second Language through Culture

by Barbara Le Blanc and Joseph Dicks

Dr.Barbara Le Blanc is a professor at the Department of Education at Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia,Canada. She is author of several articles on Acadian culture and is presently collaborating with Dance Nova Scotia on a manual for schools that will offer an historical and cultural look at Acadian dance.

Dr.Joseph Dicks is a professor in the Second Language Education Centre at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. His academic interests include teacher education, curriculum development and program evaluation.

Introduction

This article describes a series of activities that have been and are being used in English and French language classrooms. Our experience with thousands of students showed that when they were engaged in highly interactive, language-rich and enjoyable

activities, they became more motivated language learners. Students were encouraged to become singers, dancers, storytellers, merchants, genealogists, geographers, writers, actors, historians, archeologists and ethnologists. Students used techniques in drama for education to reach into their imaginations to compare the realities and possibilities of the past, present, and future. Throughout this process learners were encouraged to interpret and analyze data. They were engaged in highly creative approaches using a wide range of talents to experience new realities. As a result, students developed an understanding, appreciation and respect for the target culture and, consequently, used the target language in a wide variety of communicative situations.

In this article, we examine ways of discovering culture and learning language in the French second-language classroom using imaginative student-centered activities focused on the Acadian culture. Acadian is a term used to refer to the settlers who established the first French...