Language and Culture

“Tako Lako” textbook and its new approach in teaching of culture

The Tako lako textbook integrates the target culture into an L2 beginner-level Croatian curriculum not as a series of separate cultural lessons, but as a central object of exploration and analysis by learners. It combines training in cultural awareness through the products-practices-perspectives framework (Glisan & Donato, 2017) with the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence, which refers to a set of abilities necessary for interacting effectively and appropriately with individuals from varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Fantini, 2009).

The content of the textbook is inspired by Abrams’ (2020) facets of intercultural communication, as she offers a comprehensive model of components needed for the development of intercultural communicative competence.

Throughout the ten units of the Tako lako curriculum, students complete a series of cultural exploration tasks during the class session and as part of the homework. Homework tasks always closely build upon the class materials, often providing a supplementary reading related to the topics covered in class. To develop their cultural knowledge, students are often asked to conduct individual online research on a particular topic as part of their homework. In these homework tasks, students are asked to provide responses in English to a series of thought-provoking questions about culture.

While homework assignments (together with language proficiency) focus on students’ development of cultural awareness, the unit-final role-plays examine students’ performance in realistic cultural scenarios, assessing their ability to recognize and/or use cultural expressions and non-verbal communication, as well as to conduct the conversations in a culturally appropriate manner (vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics).

Paralinguistic features such as voice quality, prosody, and accent are not explicitly emphasized throughout the textbook, given the potential challenges they might pose for beginner-level students. The implementation of non-verbal communication is mostly left to instructors to incorporate as they see fit.

PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION OF “TAKO LAKO”

The Tako lako textbook has moved away completely from a structural syllabus with a primary focus on grammar, prioritizing instead learners’ preparation to clearly communicate their ideas in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way. The pedagogical innovation of Tako lako lies in fitting all the language material usually taught in first-year courses in a Slavic language into culture-centered units that utilize a task-supported performance-based approach.

Read more under Pedagogical Features.