Core III courses are small seminars designed to foster innovation and collaboration among students and faculty. The seminars and lectures help students self-design projects exploring a particular topic through the lens of 鈥渉istories of the present.鈥澛�
A course offered is Foreign Language and Culture Teaching Clinic. My experience includes developing lesson plans to teach a specific language and culture to elementary students. The project-based course helped us develop a greater understanding in foreign language pedagogy to foster community building.聽
My project was further carried out by exploring authentic materials for language acquisition and cultural awareness. Language and cultural embeddedness are indicative of hundreds of years of historical reinforcement and defining identity within every language community. This is exhibited in many indigenous communities that were affected by colonialism. The preservation of language and culture in an environment where indigenous identity is suppressed, have become a form of resistance against colonialism and the revival of their identity within a postcolonial framework society. Today, language teaching is one of the biggest factors that has paved the path for language preservation. The ongoing development of materials in the native language is vital to help see and hear the language in all areas of life, which reflects the changes in society and language. Technological advances have contributed to the way language has been preserved and expanded as materials from the language communities have become more affordable and accessible. Exposure to these materials, known as authentic materials, help represent the collective truth experience from the past, present and future.
In language courses, these materials have provided learners a mass wealth of linguistic and cultural knowledge. Learners, language instructors and the target community are able to acknowledge the identity and collective purpose that has been shaped throughout history. These authentic materials reflect the way social and political events throughout history have constructed many social and cultural organizations.