07 Jul Culturally Speaking!

Cultural or social events for language learners are a key part of the overall exposure to the language. Often these don’t take place due to lack of time or there always being other priorities. Every now and then, make this your priority! The time invested is well worth it, with multiple benefits:

• Increased interest in the language
• Increased willingness to book more than just one course
• Relationship building between students and teachers
• Team building within the department
• Professional development of teachers

This type of activity is even more important for languages other than English, where often people study them as a hobby or special interest or because they have relatives speaking this language. This is very common in Dubai for languages such as French, German, Italian or Spanish.

This week, I am delighted to be able to include a guest blog from the Head of our German Department, Angelina Steinberg-Beraia:

Our German Cultural evening took place on June 19th after much thought and preparation. It was an exciting time getting together with my team and planning this evening. I had so many questions and ideas with regards to the agenda and different topics for this event. The hard part was condensing all of them to a brief, two hour session; there is so much to say and explain about the culture of German speaking countries. For us, the most important thing was that the evening would be interesting for both beginners and advanced learners. The main intention was that it would be interactive with a lot of active communication. I believe that in the end we succeeded in keeping the visitors excited throughout the evening, due to the variety of activities and the opportunity to dive into the German culture.

While external guests had the opportunity to get to know the German language, students already studying with us were able to have a deeper look at the language from a different angle and more cultural point of view.
Each language is the ambassador of cultural characteristics!
Such events enable students to get even closer to this different culture. The language studied becomes more authentic, and I believe this is the most important thing when learning a foreign language. The closer teaching reaches reality, the more motivated and successful our students are.
Bearing this in mind, it’s good to know that we are offering cultural evenings at Eton Institute throughout 2011 and the German Department is already planning an event for Oktoberfest!

Looking forward to meeting you at Eton Institute soon,
Angelina
In her blog, Angelina captures perfectly all the benefits of cultural or social events in language learning. I can’t wait until October!