TOPIC 5: Marco geográfico, histórico y cultural de los países de habla inglesa.

Aplicación didáctica de los aspectos

geográficos, históricos y culturales más significativos.
5. CULTURE. GEOGRAPHIC HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORK OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES. DIDACTIC APPLICATION OF
GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS

; understanding that we live in a multicultural society and so forth.

I would personally like to mention some practical tools and techniques that can serve to achieve the
aforementioned points.
o British and American literature, that presents famous characters and stories within a context. Some
appropriate ones are adaptations of classic stories by Shakespeare, Dickens or Twain, and folk material: fables,
myths and fairy-tales.
o Songs, especially traditional ones, will add variety, facilitate memorization and decrease the affective filter of
the pupils. They can also elicit not only a linguistic response, but a kinesthetic one, by using Total Physical
Response techniques.
o Drama activities, like simulations or role-plays that allow students to experience the language in an active way,
participating in dialogues and contextualized communicative situations which can illustrate habits and
traditions.
o Topicality, including topics related to cities like London or New York, festivities like Halloween, St. Patrick or Guy
Fawkes’ day, famous people or traditions.
o Realia and authentic materials can be used to bring the real world to the class, incorporating socio-cultural
aspects: maps or posters of the countries; photographs from monuments; coins and notes (dollars, pounds);
leaflets and so forth.
o Information and communication technologies, such as videos, presentations and computer-based activities for
the digital smartboard and the computers can include culture and develop the digital competence at the same
time.
o Contextualised tasks and projects give pupils the opportunity to put into practice cognitive and meta-cognitive
abilities (resourcing, summarizing, elaborating, planning…). This point is related to the implementation of CLIL
tasks (Content and Language Integrated Learning), based on using the language not just as a goal, but as a
vehicle for the transmission of other kind of contents (science, history, arts).
All the techniques mentioned above should be included in the classroom dynamics to set up meaningful, active and
contextualized tasks based on students’ interests and experiences. They will make students practice key and specific
competences, as well as working on contents and constructing their own knowledge. This is to say, they are useful
techniques for creating learning situations, which are established in the Decree 157/2022 as the basis of the
learning process from a methodological viewpoint.

Just to finish this point, I would like to point out that social and cultural elements are also positive for treating the
diversity of the class, since teachers can compare customs from different countries, including those which the
immigrant children come from, incorporating inter-cultural awareness.
Regarding this important issue, our current legislation (LOMLOE 3/2020) explicitly advocates for the Universal
Design for Learning (UDL) approach, supported by Meyer and Rose. It makes special emphasis on variety and
flexibility, giving all students the opportunity to succeed by providing different ways to learn. It is based on 3
principles.
 Representation: presenting contents in a variety of ways and formats to support comprehension.
 Action and expression: giving children more than one way to interact and work with the materials and to
show what they learn.
 Engagement: stimulating and sustaining motivation and effort among pupils, by setting up safe, relevant and
engaging learning environment.
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