Teaching and culture tend to go hand in hand with each other. Without culture, language would not exist and vice versa. I remember one of my tutors telling me that if you ever wish to learn about the culture of a country, you must eat their food. It is true, traditional cuisine is an important element of any culture and is the first step of understanding a culture. Nevertheless, if you wish to develop rapport with learners, wherever they are from, you must attempt to understand their culture and way of doing this is understanding important events.

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One important event that is celebrated and is considered integral for Koreans is their Thanksgiving. If I wish to develop rapport with Koreans, whether they are my students or possible contacts, I would share my understanding when important events occur. As such, if there is an important event in China, with the Mid-Autumn Festival being celebrated at the same time as Korean Thanksgiving, I would be sure to wish my students or contacts a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival.

Culture is such an important element of understanding the people, functions and events of a country, that to withdraw culture from a language is impossible. From next Monday, I shall be starting my first ever online language course with my University: Beginner Japanese. One thing that I will consider to incorporate is understanding the culture of Japan. I have very little awareness of Japanese as a language and also little knowledge of their culture but I am keen to learn. I am looking forward to this course as this will give me the insight of the challenges that my online learners face when studying online.

I will be sharing my insight of online language learning in a future article and I can’t wait to share this with you. I hope my Korean readers are having a wonderful Korean Thanksgiving.

How do you incorporate culture with your language teaching? What do you consider important when learning more about a culture? Let me know in the comments.