BREAKING EXPECTATIONS BY COUNTERCULTURAL STRATEGIES

Cultural dimension of language is a very actual aspect in Foreign Language Education. In fact, it is conceived as one of the subcompetences all language students should control or at least be aware of. Nevertheless, this aspect may cause some problems in everyday teaching. In other words, as an English teacher you are eager to teach a Christmas carol, retell a Thanksgiving story or make an Easter bunny. However, your eagerness will turn into frustration when you hear, "My family does not believe in God", "We do not celebrate Christmas", "My religion does not accept Easter". Most of the time these true sentences would come up because we can´t wait to get to the end. We are likely to think that by translating celebrations names into native language we will motivate students. It could be said that reality works quite the other way round in nowadays multicultural classrooms. As stated in official documents such as BOJA 27/03/2015, teachers must satisfy students´ linguistic, discursive, sociocultural and strategic subcompetences, but also as compiled in Orden 21/1/ 2015, the personal one which includes, attitudes, motivations and personal features.

This communication will bring together our cultural expectations and our students´ needs by breaking expectations by countercultural strategies.