October, 12th 2021
Week 5
TOPIC: Cultural Paradigms
Have you ever thought How do we form our trends, perceptions, points of view, values and opinions?
Understanding what is a paradigm gives the response to this question. We are part of a society with diversity needs, problems and cultural differences. Each other´s paradigms differ immensely from culture to culture, things would be humiliating in one culture may be considered normal in another.
There are a lot of cultural clashes that define the meaning or definition of different stereotypes. For example: WEIGHT. It is interesting to analyze how much this issue differ in different cultures. In some countries the weight of a person can be synonym of sickness or contradictorily something normal o accepted. Culture creates false needs and false problems.
It is important to realize the role these paradigms play around us. Sometimes our values or well being can be affected because of these parameters. Many people try to fit in those paradigms to be accepted.
Personally, I think that we need to understand each other´s paradigms in order to remember and know that we are all different in personality but especially in culture and diversity. In our TEFL classes, we will find a lot of situations of students with different origins and cultures. It is very important to be aware How we transmit the content or How is our teaching, What values I would like to communicate, How do we form our opinions or perceptions and How does this thought define our treat to others.
As we are forming as educators, it is important to leave a great impact in our students, working in our teaching to give a education of quality and especially transmit respect in the multicultural education. We can enrich their lives and motivate constructive changes.
Question that invites to reflect:
What specific things you think can do in your TFL Classes to foment multicultural education? and ideas to promote respect and acceptance in lifestyles, legacy and culture?
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I loved your Blog post! I like that you brought the idea of Paradigms back into the ESL or TEFL classroom situations. Understanding the differences in cultures and learning to respect them or even recognize them will be very beneficial in the classroom. There will definitely be paradigms in each ESL classroom, without a doubt. I think that one way to better promote respect and acceptance in your lifestyle would be to actually talk about the differences out loud and acknowledge them. Our differences are what make us great and they should not be something to hide or be ashamed of.
ResponderBorrarBriana....
BorrarIt is like that... Absolutely! Our differences can enrich our lessons and as you say this is not a reason to feel ashamed, contrarily it is a great opportunity to promote unity and diversity among them.
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I loved your blog post
ResponderBorrarI really liked your opinion, the example of 'weight is true, also regarding how your body is molded, in some cultures having a curvy body is great and in others is awful.
To answer your question, I think we could motivate each student to talk about their own culture, and then revisit them and learn more about it, there are also great books (depending on how old your student are) that could help both the students and the teachers to understand better this topic.