Abstract:

The present work focuses on the concept of cultural heritage, and describes a virtual project accomplished by Japanese students of Spanish as a foreign language (CEFR level A2). The underpinning notion related to cultural phenomena is to guide students to start from the knowledge and the awareness of their cultural heritage and build attitudes towards the world.

The first part refers to the theoretical framework and the adopted methodology. Regarding the methodology, we are using a combination of two models. One of them is the Cultural heritage Cycle (Thurley, 2005) consisting of four actions: understanding, value, caring and enjoyment. This model seeks to explain how human beings incorporate culture in their lives. The other is the Model of Cultural Knowings (Moran, 2001:18), which contains four elements: Content, Activities, Outcomes, and helps us to design classroom activities. In reference to the theoretical frame, along with the application of these models we are exploring the concepts of cultural heritage and identity.

In the second part we will describe:
a) Classroom activities regarding students’ awareness of their cultural heritage;
b) Students’ videos related to cultural heritage of Japan recorded during the semester;
c) Interaction experiences, with an accent on participants’ images before and after virtual interaction with foreign students;
d) Reflexive report on cultural heritage to observe how the concepts worldview and identity are applied.

In the third part, we will focus on students’ awareness in terms of attitudes and knowledge related to cultural heritage reflected in the recorded videos.　

References:
[1] Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture. Perspectives in Practice. Boston, MA: Heinle.
[2] Thurley, S. (2005). What is cultural heritage? Available in https://www.jcccnc.org/

Keywords:

Cultural heritage, foreign language, identity.