Education Commons^™

Their Own Best Resources: Students And Real-World Interaction, Observation, And Reflection, Brenda Ferreira

MA TESOL Collection

Students can use their experiences outside the ESL classroom to facilitate their own learning of culture and communicative competency. In a course I continue to design, students prepare for real-world interactions and learning. They practice communication strategies and discuss topics largely of their own choosing in a multi-cultural context. They then go out into the community to make cultural and communicative observations, and interact with native- and non-native speakers of English. This IPP presents various definitions of culture and communicative competency and gives suggestions for in-class and real-world activities, including communication tasks, observations, and reflections through journal writing.