Date of Award
1-1-1992
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Child and Youth Care Administration
Advisor
Dr. William W. Anderson
Committee Member
Fred Smith
Keywords
classroom techniques, cross-cultural understanding, cultural awareness, cultural education, culture, ethnology, foreign language curriculum, foreign culture, francophone, instructional materials, language proficiency, modern language curriculum, secondary education, second language instruction, teaching methods
Abstract
This practicum addresses the need to improve the cultural proficiency of high school students studying French. The writer developed and implemented a twelve-week unit designed to teach the cultures of francophone countries to 20 randomly selected first-level students.
The writer developed and administered a survey and a pretest to determine the difficulty of students to demonstrate knowledge of and appreciation for French-speaking countries and people. Individual and group activities and a posttest measured the outcomes of the implementation.
Analysis of the evaluation data indicated an improvement in students’ level of cultural proficiency. They displayed an increase ability to recognize and locate francophone countries on a world map, to describe in both oral and written forms cultural patterns of French-speak people, and to express ideas about diverse aspects of life in francophone countries.