Teaching and learning materials

The main purpose of this activity, oriented towards students of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE) with Chinese as their mother tongue, is to instruct pupils about some social norms of behavior in Spanish society, which drastically differ from the social norms of behavior in Chinese-speaking countries.
The activity in question forms part of a didactic series specifically developed with the cultural and linguistic specificities of Chinese students in mind. . This first section focusses on sociocultural aspects of Spain and Spanish which may give rise to problems of communicative comprehension or misunderstandings to Chinese students in their interactions with the Spanish culture due to differences between these distant cultures. The objective of the activity is therefore o make the pupils aware of these differences so that they may act accordingly in their relations with persons coming from Spain.
The skills which this activity aims to improve are listening comprehension, oral expression, written comprehension, and written expression. The introduction to this activity starts from a general and collective discussion of the differences between Spanish and Chinese cultures which pupils have already observed. The pupils are asked to read a text (available online) about a Spanish young man who goes to Taiwan. They are then expected to discover and comment on his behavior as revealing his knowledge (or lack of it) of Chinese traditions. Students’ observations of the case in hand are expressed individually and collectively, in oral and written form (a table to be filled in is available on the link).
The activity itself consists of three stages. The first one, consisting of the reading of a text (available on the link) about the visit of a Chinese young man to a Spanish family, requires pupils to reflect about possible misunderstandings that may arise between the guest and his hosts. The second stage suggests working in groups of 4 persons, who reread the text and who try to find those actions of the Chinese young man which may have caused misunderstandings and clashes within the Spanish family. A table is available on the link so that groups may put down their observations and explanations. The third stage involves a collective comment on the topic.
The activity may be used with students with B1 or higher levels of Spanish, and may be thus employed both collectively and individually. The comments of the activity propose additional links for finding out more information about teaching Spanish to Chinese-speaking students.

Approach: Intercultural

Type of material: xxxxxx

Source:
Activity created by Maximiano Cortés Moreno, available on line:
http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/didactired/anteriores/agosto_06/28082006.htm