The Cultura model:
key methodological and
pedagogical features
Gilberte Furstenberg
Senior Lecturer Emerita
Foreign Languages and Literatures
M.I.T.
---Telecollaboration in University Foreign Language
Education Conference
University of Leon, Spain
February 12, 2014
-
My focus
 Not on technology per se (in spite of
MIT’s reputation)
 But on pedagogy (through the use of
technology)
A “perfect” synergy..
….between the field of inter-cultural
communication (which implies
encounters between people) and the
Inter-net and its communication
tools (which facilitates such
encounters)
Cultura is…
 A telecollaborative project - taking place in
an intermediate-level language class (B1)
over a period of a semester (eight weeks) where the focus is on the development of
intercultural competence.
 The main subject of the course and
represents a deliberate attempt to reverse
the traditional equation between language
and culture.
Background and context
 Created in 1997 at MIT, by a team of
three French instructors, with a grant
from NEH.
 Started within an intermediate level
French language class.
 Can be (and has been adapted) to other
levels, cultures, languages and even
contexts (ie: a French business class).
The Cultura set-up: a blend of inclass and online interactions
French class at
MIT
English class in
France
The specific goals of Cultura
 Bring students to understand: the attitudes,
values, ways of thinking and interacting of
those who live in another culture (=bring an
insider’s view).
 Quite a challenge, as this is the “hidden
dimension”, the “silent language” (Edward
Hall) of culture.
 The BIG question: how to make that
dimension visible?
---> An approach was needed.
Cultura: the approach
 A comparative one, with students comparing
what Julie Belz calls “parallel texts” – similar
types of documents/texts/ visuals drawn from
two different cultures.
See: Telecollaborative language study: a personal overview of praxis and
research, NFLRC, Hawaii, 2005
 The juxtaposition process seems very apt in
allowing resemblances and differences to
clearly emerge.

A few relevant quotes
 Mikhail Bakhtin: “It is only in the eyes of
ANOTHER culture that foreign culture
reveals itself fully and profoundly [….] A
meaning only reveals its depths once it
has encountered and come into contact
with another, foreign meaning”.
Bakhtin, Michael. 1986. Response to a Question from the Novy Mir
Editorial
Staff. In Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, edited by
Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, 6–7.Austin,TX: University of
Texas Press.
 Bourdieu: “la culture, c’est la capacité à
faire des différences”.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. Editions Fayard
KEY DESIGN
AND
METHODOLOGICAL
FEATURES
Cultura: a collective journey…

…of students from different cultures
who gradually construct together,
around a set of materials and through a
series of stages, an understanding of
each other’s culture - with the goal of
developing a deeper understanding of
each other’s cultural attitudes, values,
representations and frames of
references.
Stage 1: students compare
and analyze a large variety
of materials
 starting with questionnaires
Word associations
 One example: individualism
Sentence completions
Hypothetical situations
 These questionnaires (selected by both sets of
instructors) have been designed to access many
areas of life, different kinds of relationships, within
different contexts and locations.
Stage 2: students exchange
viewpoints via online
discussion forums
The main mode of communication
 Key aspects of these forums:
Asynchronous (allow for a more reflective
and deliberate stance.)
Multiple: there is a forum attached to
every word, phrase, document, etc..
Collective: a discussion that unfolds like
an open dialogue between students.
Key aspects of the online forums
(continued)
Led entirely by students (they are in
charge of the conversations; they take them
wherever they want; the teacher never
interferes.)
They become another source of materials
analyzed and discussed by students in class.
They have also been archived since 1997,
providing a very large intercultural corpora
Written in the students’ “native” language.
Rationale for writing in L1 in the
forums
 All students can express their thoughts
fully and comprehensively (not limited
by their linguistic abilities).
Congruence is key!
 No linguistic dominance by any person
or any group.
Added benefits
 Our students read completely authentic French,
which they will need to decode and understand, thus
greatly enriching their language skills in general.
 Our students - in all classroom discussions as well as
in all their writings - make full use of the words and
expressions used by the French students in the
forums (imagine the opposite!)
 The differences in discourse by the Americans and
the French immediately become visible, thus creating
yet another cultural object of analysis.
 OUR STUDENTS ALWAYS SPEAK IN FRENCH IN
CLASS AND WRITE THEIR NOTES, ESSAYS,
ETC.. IN FRENCH.
Stage 3: students constantly
revisit issues…
 … as they explore and investigate a variety of
other materials.
 as they collaborate with their peers (both
classmates and partners).
All along, expanding, deepening and refining
their knowledge and understanding of the
other culture.
A summary of the process in and outside of class
Students work in a series of stages:
 analyze the materials at hand, individually, outside
of class.
 share their observations with their own classmates
in the classroom.
 write individual comments in the online discussion
forums, outside of class, participating in the
collective discussions.
 bring back to class comments from the French
students and discuss them in class.
 They then analyze a new set of materials, continuing
their interactive and dynamic journey of exploration.
An animated view of the process
KEY
PEDAGOGICAL
FEATURES
How to develop intercultural
competence?
Connecting students will obviously not automatically
develop the skills necessary to develop intercultural
competence – skills that include (according to Byram’s
famous categories):
 An attitude of openness.
 Knowledge of one’s self and others.
 Skills of interpreting and relating.
 Skills of discovery and interaction.
 Critical cultural awareness..
This is a process. The question is….
How to help that process?
It needs to be scaffolded through a
series of tasks (and guidelines) - whose
overarching goal is to enable students
to go beyond the surface, expand their
views and gradually develop together an
ever more and more complex picture of
the other culture(s) – a process that will
prevent students from essentializing
them.
The locus of activities in Cultura
 the classrooms:
two distinct/separate spaces.
the invisible part, but extremely important.
 the online forums:
the common/shared space.
the visible part (since all online discussions
are archived).
 The online forums and the classroom
are two different entities, but are
intertwined (constant back and forth
Tasks related to the online
discussion forums (1)
Providing students with very specific guidelines
(in French). We tell them:
 share your discoveries and observations on the
documents you have compared
 ask questions
 make hypotheses
 raise issues
 answer your partners’ questions.
The goal is to promote a constant and reciprocal
process of inquiry, where students will try to understand
the other’s perspective and to explain their own cultures.
One quick example of a
“successful” intercultural forum
–
 Initial impetus: the students’
comparative analysis of the answers to
the word family/famille
 Subsequent forum excerpts -
Alicia, an MIT student starts the
conversation
One big difference that I noticed in reactions
to this word was that on the American side,
"love" showed up a lot of times. However,
on the French side, only 2 people used
"amour." I think that in America, there is a
strong emphasis placed on cultivating a "loving,
caring, supportive family environment" which is
why "love” is one of the first words that come to
mind. I was wondering, why do the French
not use that word much..?
Gabrielle, a French student,
responds
Il semble effectivement que les Français utilisent
moins le mot "amour" dans le test. Peut-être est-ce
parce que, justement il n'y a aucune crainte de
manquer d'amour, donc ce n'est pas une
préoccupation. Cela dit, ce n'est qu'une théorie : je ne
sais pas réellement à quoi cela tient. Il faudrait avoir
plus de détails sur les contextes familiaux pour avoir
une meilleure analyse. Mais cela deviendrait peut-être
trop personnel...
Translation: It does seem indeed that the French [students] use
the word “amour” less often. The reason, perhaps, is that one is not afraid
of lacking love, so it is not a worry. That being said, it is only a theory: I
don’t really know why. One would need to have more details on specific
family contexts to make a better analysis. But that might perhaps become
too personal…
Gaëlle, another French student,
chimes in
J'ai également remarqué la forte
concentration du mot amour dans vos
réponses. Peut-être qu'en France, il
reste plus implicite, caché, ceci ne
signifiant pas alors que l'amour n'est
pas présent.
I too noticed the high concentration of the word “love”
in your responses. Perhaps in France it is more implicit, hidden, but
this does not mean it is not present.
Translation:
Alicia, responding to Gaëlle’s
earlier comment
I think Gaelle touched on something very
interesting about love being a more implicit
emotion in France than it is in America. Definitely in
America, the word "love" is thrown around a lot. It is
used a lot as a way of parting, like people will say "I
love you" before ending a phone conversation with
their boyfriend/girlfriend, parents or siblings, even
sometimes with very good friends. This is
something that happens very often and we don't
think very much of it. I was wondering, what is the
case in France? Are the words "amour" or
"s'aimer" spoken very often?
Gaelle tries to respond (about why the
French don’t use that word much)
 Cette question est vraiment intéressante. Les Français
sont, je le crois, peut-être un peu plus pudiques, plus
discrets sur leurs sentiments amoureux. Je viens de faire
un petit sondage dans la classe pour savoir combien
d'entre nous disaient parfois "je vous aime" à leurs parents.
Or, personne ne semble le faire, moi y compris. Malgré cela,
il est certain que cet amour existe.
De votre côté, cette habitude (très bonne d'ailleurs) de dire
"je t'aime" assez souvent n'entraine t-elle pas une
dévalorisation partielle de ce mot? Existe t-il des mots plus
forts encore que "love”?
Translation: This question is really interesting. The French, I believe, are a
little more modest, more discreet about their feelings of love. I just did a little
survey in class to find out how many of us say “I love you” to their parents.
Well, nobody seems to do it, myself included. In spite of that, it is clear that
that love does exist.
Now, doesn’t this (actually very good) habit of yours to say “I love you” quite
often partially devalue the word? Are there words that are stronger still than
“love”?
Kezia, an MIT student, gets really
confused..
Interesting comment, Gaelle. I always
thought that the French were more open
about their emotions. The French always
seem to be kissing and hugging each other.
Whereas in America, people tend to touch
less when they're in public. Some people
even frown upon couples kissing in front of
others and mothers breast-feeding their babies.
Why do you say the French are more
discreet?
To which Gaëlle responds…
Les Francais sont plus pudiques quant
à leurs sentiments, le fait de les
clamer haut et fort, mais il est
effectivement fréquent d'apercevoir des
couples s'embrasser dans la rue [..]
Translation: The French are more modest in terms of
expressing their feelings loud and clear, but it is indeed
commonplace to see couples kissing in the streets.
Key components
Students here:
 share observations and reactions
 piggyback on s.o.else’s observations
 make hypotheses
 ask questions
 acknowledge the others’ postings, going further
 provide pertinent, real life illlustrations
 take initiatives
 respond to questions
 challenge the other
 allude to the context
 confront clichés and raise paradoxes
Why can it be considered a
“successful” intercultural dialogue?
It brings to the surface the notions of
explicit vs implicit.
It highlights the fact that there are different
ways of expressing emotions (verbalizing
them vs showing them).
These being fundamental culturally driven
values (values students will revisit when
looking at other documents).
More broadly..
The key to a successful intercultural
forum:
The participants communicate not to talk
directly about each other but to talk about
a third object (= the materials they are
discussing), through which they will reveal
their culture and reveal themselves.
Tasks related to the online
discussion forums (2)
Encouraging students to express diverse
opinions
The end goal of these on-line discussions is not to create a
consensus among all students but to provide a place where they
will raise and debate issues, so as to better understand.
While this tends not to be an issue with French students who tend
quite naturally and quite frequently vigorously disagree and argue
with each other, we do tell the MIT students not to hesitate to
disagree on issues. After all not all Americans think that the
“American dream” is still alive or that individualism is necessarily a
good thing --
An example
Liana (about the word “individualism”)
As has been said, we obviously have very
different ideas of what the word means [..] I think
that among some other groups in America,
individualism is not seen so positively. There
are many stories of people who have different
opinions, different fashions, etc, being considered
wrong or dangerous by their communities (schools,
towns, and so on). So I don't think that every
American would agree that individualism is a
good characteristic, even though it is very
important to me.
Tasks related to the online
discussion forums (3):
Encouraging students to:
 identify themselves (ex: I am from the Midwest, I
am from Mexico, Poland, China, etc..)
 make constant references to different contexts
(ex: MIT vs other schools; New England vs the
South or California; big city vs small town,
banlieues vs suburbs, etc..)
So that the French students do not a monolithic
view of the culture, but a broad kaleidoscopic
one.
The role of foreign students
 There are quite a few foreign students in our
classes who play a very important part (they
are always encouraged to identify themselves
and to state their perspectives). Their voices
are just as important.
 As both outsiders and insiders, they naturally
play a unique role: that of mediators
(addressing themselves both to the
Americans and the French; explaining what
their classmates may mean), etc..
Tasks related to the online
discussion forums (4)
Adding other forums as warranted:
:
List of forums
Forum about paradoxes (role of prompts)
A particularly important forum, meant to:
- prevent students from essentializing the
cultures ( by raising issues about
contradictions, etc..)
- to encourage them to look across a
variety of materials.
Raising paradoxes: example 1
An American/Roumanian student at MIT (in response to the
situation where they see a student cheating at an exam):
“I think there is a great difference between denouncing a
Jew in WWII and denouncing a student who is cheating on
an exam. Jews were innocent people and the treatment they
received was immoral (to say the least). However, the
punishment of a student who is copying is not immoral. I
think it is unacceptable to tolerate cheating. If an exam is
important, then people should take action when they see
somebody attempting to cheat […]
In most discussions in the forums so far, you (the
French students) have advocated for social justice, yet
you inexplicably tolerate being cheated …”
Raising paradoxes: example 2
Ashley: One question that I had relates to risktaking behavior. In general, it seems that the French
are fairly averse to taking risks (e.g. "risque" has a very
negative connotation) and prefer to execute more "safe"
or well-thought-out plans. Americans, on the contrary,
seem to like to take a lot of risks, both at the personal
and national level. At the same time, I remember that in
the "Un bon président..." questionnaire, one of you
wrote "un homme qui prend des risques." And,
interestingly, many on the American side were
skewering Bush for some of his high-risk policies. How
do you think French people view risk taking
behavior--both for themselves personally and for
their leaders? Any thoughts on how to explain this
apparent paradox?"
Raising paradoxes: example 3
 "Bonjour ! Je vous propose une petite réflexion. Il s'agit d'un
paradoxe concernant la sociéte américaine. En France, nous
pensons en général que la société américaine est très axée sur la
religion. Par exemple, voir sur vos billets de banque "In god we
trust" nous fait "sauter au plafond" ! (ça veut dire que ca nous fait
beaucoup réagir / ça nous surprend). En effet, nous avons séparé ici
l'Eglise et l'Etat en 1905, soit il y a plus d'un siècle. Nous sommes
donc habitués à dissocier complètement la vie publique de la
religion. L’école est laique, les politiciens (comme le président de la
république) ne font jamais de référence à un quelconque Dieu. En
France, on ne jure pas sur la bible dans les tribunaux ! Au nom de
quoi devrait on reconnaitre la bible ? D'autre part, autoriser la
peine de mort d'une part, et prôner la religion (et donc le pardon)
d'autre part me parait complètement paradoxal. Que pensez vous de
la place de la religion dans votre pays ? Vu d'ici, cela nous ramène
plusieurs siècles en arrière. Clément.”
Raising paradoxes: example 4
Regina:
“To add to Irene's comment # 17. I'm
surprised politeness is claimed to be the most
important word in the French language. Is it
really important to the French to be polite to
strangers? The commonest complaint I've heard
about French people is that they are sarcastic
and rude. I've witnessed a lot of the sarcasm in the
course of this forum and a little bit of the rudeness.
I'm having a little trouble relating French
politeness and their sharp sarcasm. Could
someone help me out?”.
Raising paradoxes: one response
from a French student
Fabrice:
Bonjour!. La contradiction entre le sondage qui
montre que 70% des Français ont confiance en leur
police nationale, et le fait que dans le film français la
police se fait doubler, est caractéristique du fait que
les Français font toujours le contraire de ce qu'ils
disent en public. On craint l'autorité, donc on dit qu'on
est confiant en elle. Mais derrière son dos on n'y pense
plus, ou pire on essaye de la contourner.
A student’s view
“Paradoxes are hard to come up
with, but once you stumble upon one,
they are pretty easy to write about.
These discussions are among the
more interesting because in this
topic, the students are synthesizing
more new ideas.”
Assessment of forums by a student
“The forums were an invaluable part of my French
course experience. It was good to interact with
peers in another country and gain insight into a
different cultural perspective on common themes
and motifs. Through the word associations forum
I was able to get a glimpse of the thought
processes of my French peers. It’s interesting to
see how ideas are connected within the minds of
individuals in another culture, in comparison to
my own, so to better understand the other culture”
Tasks related to the online
discussion forums (5)
Connecting the forums to the classroom
It is very important to esign activities that will ensure
that the online discussion forums are integrated
and brought back into the classroom, so as to
bring the voices of the French students alive.
Example
of task: Allez dans les forums et apportez en
classe deux ou trois commentaires d’étudiants français
que vous trouvez particulièrement instructifs, ou qui
apportent une perspective différente, ou soulèvent une
question intéressante… Soyez prêt à les partager avec
vos camarades de classe et dire pourquoi vous les avez
choisis.
A new type of classroom/ a new
role for the teacher
A new teaching environment is clearly emerging
 With the integration of the virtual online community, the teacher
is no longer the only voice of authority in the classroom -
his/her role is bound to change.
 Our responsibility is no longer to just impart cultural knowledge
but to put our students on center stage and provide them with
opportunities to:
 share what they have learnt and discovered and, in the process,
expand their individual knowledge and understanding.
 arrive at new interpretations and constantly refine their
understanding of the other culture, their knowledge enriched by the
contributing voices of the native students across the ocean.
Our main role: to provide tasks that will achieve that goal.
Tasks related to the classroom (1)
Designing collaborative activities
An example and a view of the classroom -
The importance of the classroom
 This is where students start making
connections, see patterns emerge and
develop new insights.
 In this particular instance, they see some
striking differences: the general emphasis on
the “affect” (in American culture) vs an
emphasis on “savoir” (in French culture).
 The boards play an important role in making
differences and resemblances “visible”, in
serving as mirrors of the students’ discoveries
and bringing patterns to light.
A new kind of learning…
 … which clearly brings the process (of constructing
and co-constructing knowledge) into the limelight, not
the finished product. Students are like “cultural
archeologists”, who with the help of their classmates,
their foreign partners and the guidance of their
teacher (through the varied tasks), try to make initial
connections which they will then try to confirm or
revise in the light of new materials they will analyze,
trying to bring patterns to light and gradually put
together the cultural puzzle.
Putting together the cultural
puzzle
A validation from…
...Mike Levy who wrote in the LLT Journal (in
2007)
“Cultura is exceptional for the ways in which its
structure, content, tasks, strategies and techniques are
designed to account for many of the facets of the
culture concept, as described in the first part of this
paper. The learning partnership is at once reciprocal,
interactive and constructed suggesting at the outset that
partners will learn about each other in ways that are
respected, equitable and balanced. The stages and
sequencing are central to the approach”.
Other roles for the teacher in the
classroom
It is of course important for the teacher to take
center stage in order to:
clarify a particular misunderstanding (cf
“éduquer”).
bring students’ attention to a document or a
posting on the forum that he/she thinks is
particularly culturally informative or which
may be opaque to the student or may reflect an
underlying attitude or bring particularly
interesting cultural and/or linguistic information.
The role of the teacher in the
classroom (continued)…
To focus the class discussions:
Ex: make students aware of the context
they were thinking when responding to
the questionnaires (cf
policeman/woman).
Ex: on some paradoxes they may have
discovered. cf direct vs indirect cultures?
The role of the teacher in the
classroom (continued)…
To bring/show new documents that might
illustrate, illuminate or contradict a point
 Ex: regarding the use of the word “aimer”
(the video of Sarkozy’s speech to his
voters, where he says “je vous aime”)
Ex: regarding the slap: video of Bayrou during
presidential elections where he is seen slapping
a child
Ex: a comic strip showing a father being upset
at his son’s grades -
From Le Monde de l’Education
(May 5, 2010)
Key task: giving appropriate
assignments
Written essay: Une première synthèse
En vous appuyant sur les réponses françaises aux trois
questionnaires (les associations de mots, les phrases à
terminer et les situations) et les commentaires des Français
sur les forums, choisissez un concept qui vous paraît
central à la culture française. Dites dans quels différents
contextes et sous quelles différentes formes ce concept
apparaît. Y a t-il des cas des situations, des exemples qui
semblent le contredire, ou au contraire semble-t-il être une
constante? Elaborez et donnez des exemples précis.
Accompagnez votre essai d’un diagramme montrant les
différentes connections.
Eblouissez-moi!
La notion de respect : un
tableau/une illustration
L’espace privé (un bon voisin)
La loi
Suivre?
enfreindre?
RESPECT
Les règles
bonjour
Les autres
(cinéma)
Savoir/ (bon patron)
compétence
Savoir vivre
Politesse
(bon voisin)
(banque/
relations professionnelles)
pouvoir
Type of essay titles by students
 La notion de respect dans la société francaise
 L’importance de l’égalité dans la culture française
 Le concept de “Savoir” dans la culture francaise
 Le rapport à l’argent
 L’importance de la vie privée
 Le rôle de l’individu
 L’importance des règles
 Le conformisme et l’anti-conformisme
 La France si douce, mais si aigre
 La notion d’ordre
Other example of assignment:
analyzing the photos exchanged
The photo exchange:
1. Students, working in groups across the Atlantic, first
select a topic to illustrate (either a topic relevant to
their daily lives (ex: What we eat/ when/where?
Where we live, how we dress, etc..in which case
they take their own pictures) or a commercial
product, as advertised in the French and American
media (from the Internet usually), such as :
beer/cars/ perfume/etc..
2. Students upload the photos on the site
3. They then to do an oral group presentation:
PPT class presentations
 Students compare and analyze not just the photos
themselves (what they say or illustrate) but also the
type of photos taken.
 Once, a group noticed (regarding photos taken by the
students themselves) that the American students
tended to show themselves in the picture, whereas
the French students tended to take photos that just
focused just on the object (the food, the dorm room,
etc..).
 And they related it to the differences in French and
American discourse!
Is there an end to this journey?
The very process in which students are
involved requires them to keep
suspending judgments and be ready to
revise them, question them, expand
them, refine them in the light of new
materials and new perspectives.
Quoting Simone de Beauvoir..
“Je tiens à signaler qu’aucun morceau
isolé ne constitue un jugement définitif;
souvent d’ailleurs, je n’aboutis à aucun
point de vue arrêté et c’est l’ensemble
de mes indécisions, additions et
rectifications qui constitue mon opinion”
L’Amérique au jour le jour, Folio 2943. Préface. p. 10
Discovering the other is
discovering oneself
Celui qui essaye de comprendre mieux
l’autre “parviendra, dans le même
mouvement, à une meilleure maîtrise et une
connaissance plus approfondie de ses
propres valeurs et de ses comportements
culturels en les voyant à travers le miroir
d'une autre culture."
Martine Addallah-Pretceille, en préface à son ouvrage “Relations
et apprentissages interculturels”, Colin, 1995
Some useful references
The Cultura Site (currently in transition):
http://cultura.mit.edu
where you can find:
- Articles
- A teacher’s Guide
- Cultura archives
My e-mail address: gfursten@mit.edu
(don’t hesitate to write!)
Sabine Levet’s address: slevet@mit.edu
Muchas gracias!
Thank you!
Merci!