Talking about stereotypes

We are surrounded by stereotypes that set the way we behave according to our culture. In fact, stereotypes are a way of classifying or dividing people into many “categories” which may become denigrating. It is truth that many stereotypes does not always mean that people from a specific country or culture behave as we believe; however, some of such stereotypes represent to some extent how a country generally is seen from outside.

Spanish stereotypes

For example, in the reading “When cultures collide: leading across culture, third edition” written by Lewis Collin, they are described some Englishmen stereotypes we may hear in our day to day. As I could read, some of such stereotypes are not totally false if we make reference to British people. Otherwise, we would be classifying all English people such as Scottish or Welsh people in the same box where British are. Indeed, depending on the area of UK we may find different behaviours; that’s an example that Scottish people are ruder than Brits.

There are also Spanish stereotypes that define us as a culture. Actually, one of the most used statements to describe Spain is the next one: “Spain is different”. That’s why we have different costumes, beliefs and values in comparison to our Europe neighbourhoods and countries beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Doing some research, I found interesting points of view some foreigners have about Spain as a culture. (HuffingPost, 2015).

• ·     Some North Americans from U.S.A. consider that “Spanish people like parties, dancing and drinking. In general, they appreciate all of those pleasures such as eating, taking a nap…”

• ·     Germans hardly understand “why Spanish people talk so fast and loud. It sound as if they were talking making use of exclamations”.

• ·      Italians consider that Spanish people “know to find the balance between duty and pleasure.

• ·      French people state that “Spanish people are kind and friendly with everyone”.

• ·      Greeks say that “Spanish people is good at playing football”.

• ·      Koreans do not understand why Spanish people “cannot have dinner before eight o’clock”. They also state we are “too noisy and bad at speaking English”.

• ·      Canadians point out the “Spanish people tend to arrive late at our meetings”.

• ·     English people consider that “Spanish people sleep almost all the day and buy compulsively”.

General stereotypes around the world

To sum up, it was interesting to find what other countries think about our culture. Specifically, I couldn’t stop laughing at all their beliefs, since some of them are not true at all. For example, we don’t take a nap every day; in fact, there is a vast majority of people who do not have time to do that. Moreover, we have dinner later than other countries because we have more sunny hours, so we take advantage of that to spend more time doing other stuff. Our manner of speaking may be a little bit noisy, but Chinese and German people also make noise when speaking their languages; however, they do not realise about it. In any case, this research was essential to make a brief comparison betwwen how the rest of cultures see us and how we really are as a culture. 

Is it multilingualism a threat for our traditions?

Globalisation is a widespread fact in our society we cannot avoid when teaching festivals and traditions. Halloween is not just celebrated in United States, but it is also around the world. For example, Spain has its own festivity the same day that Halloween is celebrated; however, more and more people is adopting such foreign tradition. Is it an advantage or a drawback?

Advantages and drawbacks

• Let's see the advantages that globalisation and multilingualism bring in our society:

- Society adopts an open mind towards other cultures. 

- It is easier to learn more about other cultures, beliefs, values...

- Cultures can express themselves with total freedom.

- It is easier to learn new languages and ways of communication.

• On the other hand, some drawbacks we may find are the following ones: 

- We may lose our traditions and our sense of belonging to a country, so if everything is globalised and celebrated everywhere, there is nothing special that make us different regarding our traditions and festivals. 

- We can have acces to culture whenever we want, so we may lose interest for it. In fact, when we have an excess of information, we tend to undervalue what we can get easily from Internet or wherever.

Conclusions

In short, despite all the positive and negative points multilingualism brings in our society, I consider that we teachers may make use of it to work festivals and traditions in class. However, we should take into account a relevant issue: the inability of many teachers to teach culture through language. That's why I would propose activities in which pupils can develop communication skills (oral and written).For instance, students can prepare presentations about the different festivals and traditions we may find around the world; thereby, pupils would be working culture while developing their English oral skills.

 

 Another alternative would be taking advantage of multilingualism in class to engage (not to force) students from other countries to tell their classmates more about their cultures. Actually, the great majority of times we have in class the resources necessary to work culture, but we do not realise about them; that's why we are always looking for innovation when, in fact, we do not need to implement new approaches to plan a fun and interesting class about culturals aspects. 

TRANSLANGUAGING EVERYWHERE

  
 What is translanguaging?

Translanguaging is considered an approach which consists of reading, listening, watching in one language and writing and speaking in another one. Both languages are equally integrated, so the aim of the translanguaging approach is to develop skills into a language (L2) by making a coherent use of both L1 and L2. In other words, translanguaging should not be used to avoid L2 use, but to foster speakers to develop their communication skills in L2 through their L1.

Personal experience

Personally, I can state I experienced the well-known translanguaging approach when I studied at my English academy. Specifically, my teacher used it for doing her classes. First of all, she explained all the English grammar in Spanish; then, we did and corrected the exercises in English, but our doubts were clarified in Spanish. Thereby, I could set links between English and Spanish grammar more easily than if all the theory would have been explained just in English. Actually, such approach was useful for me because I could link the similarities between English and Spanish language. Moreover, I go on using translanguaging to teach and learn  English grammar and vocabulary, since I have proved that it works. 

My research

Doing research on the translanguaging approach I could learn many things about it: 

•  “Translanguaging is about communication, not about language itself” (EAL Journal, 2016).

Many teachers concern about what to asses when applying a translanguaging approach, given that students are not making a complete use of a language; they are mixing both to communicate ideas. However, there is a clear solution for such worried teachers: they should learn to differentiate between language and communication skills when it comes to assess pupils. 

On the one hand, language skills make reference to all those aspect what take part of a language: grammar, vocabulary, idioms, etc. On the other hand, communication skills mean all related to oral and written skills, language strategies, etc. which allow us to express our ideas and understand the others. 

Teachers, therefore, should also consider translanguaging as a way of promoting students autonomy when communicating ideas in class.  If pupils are constantly interrupted by their teachers when they want to express something, they will lose their self-confidence when using their L2. Indeed, it is not as important the students’ language accuracy or fluency as their skills to use both languages are when it comes to building their own learning.  

• “Translanguaging pedagogy is about you and your students” (EAL Journal, 2016).

Nowadays, societies are more globalised than some years ago. As a consequence, multilingualism is rising up faster than we expect at schools. That’s why teachers should adjust their approaches to the real context of their classes. An alternative to that would be translanguaging. 

There are many students who are still learning the official language from the country they are currently living. For this reason, they have some difficulties in expressing themselves, which makes pupils’ confidence go down. In order to foster it, teachers must allow them to use their L1 when necessary. What’s more, teachers can take advantage of that to share cultural aspects about the countries students come from. For instance, I watched a video where a teacher uses translanguaging in a multilingual class. He sometimes speaks in Spanish to correct Maths exercises and even he says some French expressions. Furthermore, such teacher sticks on the whiteboard some steps that children must follow to do their Maths exercises in Spanish. To some extent, this is a way of scaffolding their learning through the language. Below you can watch the video I am talking about:

Translanguaging is also present in many places around the world. It is curious to observe many billboards or banners where Spanish is mixed to English. In fact, I realized that the famous “Spanglish” is not more than a way of translanguaging among English and Spanish societies. The following video shows different examples of that:

REFERENCES: 

EAL Journal (2016). What is translanguaging?. EAL Journal. Avalaible [online] on:
https://ealjournal.org/2016/07/26/what-is-translanguaging/