Education Faculty Speaks Remotely with Teacher Audience in El Salvador
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
The Teachers Up Initiative is one-year initiative funded by the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador that provides free-of-charge professional development to in-service and pre-service teachers of English from all educational settings (public, private, universities, schools, and language academies) in El Salvador. The Initiative focuses on four areas: 1) English Language Proficiency; 2) Teaching English Methodology; 3) Social and Emotional Health; and 4) Technology Skills.
The webinar was titled, "Teaching Culture in the Language Classroom". The purpose of the talk was to engage the audience in a conversation about best practices for culture teaching in language classrooms. Dr. Meadows organized the remote presentation into three segments: (1) What is culture for language teachers? (2) What is culture teaching for language classrooms? and (3) What are new and emerging techniques for teaching culture to language students?
For the first segment, Dr. Meadows contrasted previous theories of culture, which are rooted in structuralism, with more current theories, which draw on post-structuralism and postmodernism. He highlighted the contrasts using examples from his published research. Next, he surveyed familiar techniques that language teachers can use to teach students about culture. Finally, he shared with the audience new and emerging ways to teach culture in language classrooms that look at culture through a postmodernist lens. He illustrated specific examples of these techniques based on interview studies he previously conducted with English teachers across global locations.
For Seton Hall University, faculty engagement with global audiences contributes directly to our visibility as a world-class institution of Catholic education. In addition, faculty participation in virtual events in service to professional audiences is another way Seton Hall faculty realize the university mission of servant leadership. To learn more about the El Salvador Teachers Up initiative, please visit their landing page here.
Dr. Meadows, EDST assistant professor, serves as director of the TESOL graduate certificate program and the ESL@Seton Hall Intensive English Program. Each spring, he leads a short-term study abroad class to Japan which affords Seton Hall undergraduates opportunities to visit Tokyo schools firsthand. The study-abroad course webpage is available here.
Categories: Education
