I found this article very interesting, in that language and culture are extremely interconnected. Culture without language, or language without culture can't survive. This is why in order to teach a language, we should not/can not ignore the culture that is married to that language. Of course, this gets difficult when you are dealing with a language that involves different cultures. As the article mentions, for example, should we ignore canadian or scotish culture in an English classroom? or could we ignore quebecois culture in a French classroom? interestingly, today, Arnaud, Katie and I were talking about cultural differences within the same language speakers. For instance, Arnaud said how his mom has been shocked by French speakers who started to talk to her and called her right away "tu", here in Vancouver. Here, In French Immersion classrooms, the students and almost all the teachers, "tutoient" all the time. The students either are not aware of when and how to "vouvoyer" or since they have not been taught, they prefer to use "tu" because it is easier. Therefore, I think that some cultural aspects of a language should be really taken into consideration in Curriculum and Material, whereas some other aspects may not be as important.
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