Teaching Culture in the English Language Classroom: an Analysis of Three Lesson Plans

Abstract

The current Master’s thesis aims to create teaching materials for teaching culture whereas stressing the importance of cultural learning as a process. The thesis will concentrate on the following research question: How to create teaching materials for teaching culture based on the experiential learning cycle for an English language classroom. The thesis consists of the theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part of the thesis explores different views on culture, the relationship between culture and language, and the notion of teaching culture. The subchapter on teaching culture will take a closer look at the process of teaching culture, concentrating more specifically on Patrick R. Moran’s (2001) experiential learning cycle. The empirical part of the Master’s thesis focuses on the process of creating, teaching, and analysing the materials for teaching culture. First, the reasons for the creation of the materials will be given. Secondly, the main objectives for the lesson plans will be set by drawing ideas from various scholars. Thirdly, the analyses based on the alternating creation and teaching of the three lesson plans will be presented. The conclusion summarises the main findings of the thesis.