Incorporating Spanish culture into the English classroom : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Abstract

In a sense, the world is becoming larger each day as the gap between cultures continuously diminishes. Today's generation has much more contact with the world outside of the United States than our ancestors. It is essential to anticipate the need of the future generation to be able to communicate and relate not only with fellow American citizens, but also with citizens from all over the world. For this reason, I think it is critical that elementary schools begin to teach more in-depth about foreign cultures, civilizations, and languages. This thesis is intended to provide a variety of strategies for teaching students about a culture different from their own. In my thesis, I have provided fifty ideas to help bridge the cultural gap. Each strategy includes the subject area, related standard, a brief description, the application, and a variety of links to related websites. For the application, I chose to use the country of Spain as an example, but it can easily be modified to accommodate instruction about any country.