Behind the teaching of American culture in the second language classroom

Abstract

In this thesis, anempirical study will show how different teachers might differ in their way of teaching Americanculture in the Norwegianclassroom. Three main questions have been made to structure theway in which the study will take on the issue. The objective is to investigate the issue on the basis of these three research questions:•How might a class about Americanculture differ from other Englishlessons, is there a difference in planning and source material used?•What methods are used when teaching Americanculture and why are these methods chosen?•How can culture teaching have aneffect on the dynamics and language learning in the classroom. The thesis starts with an introduction to give some background motivation for writingthis thesis. The introduction is followed by the aim of the study, a presentation of the scope and material used and ashort introduction to the method.To examine the problem a semi-structured qualitative approach was selected. The data gathered from these interviews were transcribed and analysedusing a Criteria-based content analysis. The resultsof the study showthat different teachers differ a lot in their approach to teaching Americanculture in the classroom. They also showed that teachers planned lessons containing culture differentlythan they would lessons without culture, and there was a trend showing that teachers preferred the role as organiser of projects and assignmentsrather than the role of as lecturer. Methods used in lessons containing culture alsovaried a lot depending on the teacher’sgoal with the teaching. The teachers in the study did notsee any direct correlation between culture and the dynamics in the classroombut they believed that it could have an effect on both the dynamics and language learning in the classroom.The results did not show conclusivelythat different teachers might differ in their way of teaching Americanculture in the Norwegianclassroom, but trends pointed towards it.