Eric Nicaise

I cycled across the UK - Now I teach British culture

Audience focus:

Teachers of adolescent learners
Teachers of adult learners
Teacher trainers

Abstract

Since I started teaching EFL, I have found teaching GB culture fascinating. In particular, I have always been looking for ways of teaching English through cultural content. Until recently, however, I used to teach culture mainly from materials found in textbooks.
A few years ago, I decided to combine my love of cycling with my interest in several aspects of British culture. I took on the big LEJOG challenge, which is often defined as one of the most iconic long-distance cycle routes in the world. The Land’s End to John o’ Groats route (LEJOG) spans the length of mainland UK from the southwesternmost point of Cornwall to the northeasternmost point of Scotland: a 1189- mile (1913 km) ride and a fantastic way to discover Britain. There is such a range of landscapes to explore and people to meet. By all means, the trip provided the best opportunity ever to acquire a hands-on knowledge of Britishness, while being exposed to a wide variety of British accents.
Based on my LEJOG experience, the talk will take us through a cultural journey across Britain while providing lesson content which is useful and engaging for your students in the English Language Teaching classroom. Starting from the most westerly point of England and ‘cycling’ our way up, we will pass through several highlights of Britain and suggest ideas for teaching several aspects of British culture. A few practical and easy-to-use communicative activities will include: Tintagel and Arthurian legends; Dartmoor National Park and The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Severn Bridge and Tintern Abbey; Liverpool and the Beatles; Hadrian’s Wall in Cumbria; Loch Ness and its monster(?); Harry Potter ‘country’ in Glencoe and at Glenfinnan Viaduct. We will even get a snippet of prehistoric Britain on Orkney. From this unforgettable adventure, the talk will take us on a cultural exploration of Britain, offering valuable and engaging lesson content for your students in the English Language Teaching classroom. These activities will also help students understand their own culture and compare it with the target-culture norms.
Overall, the talk will acknowledge the role of culture in the EFL classroom and reflect on its inextricable link with language, suggesting that cultural content involves involves students on many levels, enabling them to communicate about something deep, compelling and worthwhile.

Biography

Eric Nicaise is a lecturer and teacher trainer in Dutch and English at University College Louvain-en-Hainaut (HELHa) and a scientific collaborator at TeAMM research group at Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium. His doctoral thesis focused on native and non-native teacher talk in the EFL classroom, and he has published a book on this topic (Routledge 2021). He has delivered lectures at several conferences, notably at the Centre for Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) and the Inter-Varietal Applied Corpus Studies (IVACS). His other research interests include teacher development, phonology and research into the implications from second-language acquisition studies for the English classroom.

Website door Livalos