Introduction
In spite of the current political tensions between Russia and the United States, the Fulbright Program continues to stand as a program that brings mutual benefit to both governments. Founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946, it has long sought to increase mutual understanding and goodwill between Americans and people of other countries by supporting the exchange of students and scholars. By increasing the presence of native English speakers in Russian universities in every part of the country, this program also furthers the Russian government’s objective of internationalizing its higher education system. As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at Saratov State University, I have taken great satisfaction in the knowledge that my work advances both Russian and American goals of improving intercultural communication.
During my first week at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, my colleagues asked me to teach a first-year course on the subject of American Traditions and Customs. Within this broad framework, I was given the freedom to choose specific topics for lectures, plan activities for class, and provide learning materials as I saw fit. In this article, I first explain the structure, methodology, and substance of the course in greater detail. Then I describe some observations about students’ reactions to the material, as well as some challenges that arose while I was teaching. Lastly, I assess the course’s impact on the students’ understanding of American culture and provide recommendations for instructors who plan to teach about similar topics.
Class Structure and Methodology
This course was intended to serve as a brief introduction to American culture from the perspective of a U.S. citizen. As I was born, raised, and educated in the United States, I was able to utilize my own experiences to add life to my lectures. In accordance with the schedule, the course lasted for five weeks, with two class meetings per week. The first meeting of each week was a ninety-minute lecture to three groups (группы) of first-year students. Later in the week, the students would meet with me in their individual groups for a seminar-style discussion of the given topic. The topics covered in the course were as follows: American Stereotypes, American Family Life, American University Customs, American Etiquette, and Diversity in the United States. The lectures presented were designed to give students a background understanding of each of these topics, while the seminar classes allowed students to examine them in greater detail and express their own opinions on questions intended to provoke discussion.
During lectures, I utilized PowerPoint presentations to display visuals that complemented my speech. These visuals included graphs and images from online sources, as well as a small amount of text that corresponded to what I was saying. While lecturing, I would often stop and ask certain students questions to check their understanding of the material and make sure that they were paying attention. Some of the lecture classes began with presentations from students that volunteered to share information about corresponding topics in Russian culture. These presentations encouraged students to think critically about the similarities and differences between the United States and Russia.
After the lectures, I would distribute electronically distribute an assignment that the students were expected to complete before the seminar classes about the week’s topic. The assignment usually included authentic English-language resources from prominent American newspapers or radio programs that students would read or listen to. They would subsequently answer a series of questions designed to verify their comprehension of the materials and encourage critical thought. The purpose of the weekly assignments was to ensure that students would come to class ready to discuss some aspect of the topic and to share their opinions with their classmates. During the seminars, I would not only review the homework questions with the students, but would also divide the students into small groups to work together on creative tasks.
For the last class of the fall semester, I organized a Skype discussion with one of my university friends, Isaac Baker. Before our class meeting, I asked the first-year students to prepare questions to ask Isaac about his life in the United States, using the concepts that they had studied in the course. This activity gave students the opportunity to demonstrate what they had learned from the lectures and seminars and allowed them to hear about life in the United States from another American’s perspective.
Observations & Challenges
Teaching this course allowed me to make several observations about Russian students’ prior knowledge of American culture and their opinions on a number of issues. In this way, it revealed ways in which they are both different and similar to their counterparts in the United States.
As none of the first-years had taken a course about U.S. history or culture at the university level, there were some apparent gaps in their knowledge about these subjects. For example, only a few of the students could explain what the 1960s Civil Rights Movement was about, and none of them were familiar with the terms the “Baby Boom generation” or the “Ivy League.” The existence of such gaps is understandable, as much of this information could only be acquired by studying American history more intensely, or by spending large amounts of time in the United States.
Another observation that I made while teaching the course was that the first-year students had opinions about minority groups and equality that differed from opinions held by the bulk of the American public. During our lecture about diversity in the United States, I explained the concept of affirmative action programs in college admissions and played a video showing the Rite of Passage ceremony at Rutgers University, which gives minority African American and Latino students the chance to celebrate the accomplishment of graduation. After watching the video, many of the students felt that the existence of such programs was discriminatory, and that minority students should not have separate ceremony that recognizes their achievements while non-minority students do not. Although such an opinion certainly exists in the United States, a recent study by the Pew Research Center finds that 63 percent of Americans support affirmative action on college campuses, while only 30 percent oppose them.[1] Although it is difficult to say exactly why the first-year students’ opinions diverge so strongly from those of the American public, I suspect that it has to do with substantial differences in their respective countries’ histories with race and discrimination, as well as the strong American belief in the inherent value of diversity.
The course also revealed several similarities in modern Russian and American culture. During our discussion of American etiquette, my students agreed that punctuality is valued in both Russia and the United States, and they said that most aspects of proper American mealtime etiquette are also applicable in Russia. As we discussed university life in the United States, most of the students agreed with the common American notion that higher education should not just prepare a person for a career, but also help shape him or her into a more cultured person and provide preparation for the demands of adult life. Like many young people in the United States, the first-year students appreciate the conveniences provided by modern communications technology, but feel that it must be used in moderation to prevent the loss of important face-to-face interactions. They also particularly enjoyed the opportunity to think up solutions for issues relevant to their own lives.
I encountered a few minor challenges while teaching this course. First of all, it was sometimes difficult to elicit participation from all students in the class, especially in the larger seminar groups. It was usually the same small group of students that would volunteer to answer my questions, leaving me to call on others if I wanted more of them to participate. When I divided students into small groups to carry out team tasks, they would usually switch to speaking Russian amongst themselves, interrupting the immersive English environment that I sought to create in my classes. Additionally, it was often a challenge to ensure that all students understood the information that I shared during my lectures, as many of them were hesitant to express a need for additional explanation.
Results and Recommendations
Two months after the end of our fall semester, I wrote to my students asking them to explain what they had learned during our course and to describe something that they found particularly memorable. To my great satisfaction, I found that the students had retained much of the information acquired during the course and that they had many different opinions about what was most memorable, suggesting that the group as a whole was able to find something interesting in each of the topics covered. Overall, students enjoyed the course because it provided them with information about modern life in the United States and was enriched by anecdotes from my own personal experiences. They appreciated the use of authentic language resources from newspapers, films, and audio podcasts, because it exposed them to the way that native English speakers write and talk for an American audience. Students also said that they liked the comfortable learning environment of our classes in which they felt free to express their own opinions and ideas.
Taking into account my recent experiences with this course, I would provide several recommendations to university professors planning to teach about foreign countries and cultures. First of all, it is ideal for such classes to be taught by individuals who are from or have spent time in the country of study. Much of the success of my course came from the fact that I am from the United States and was highly qualified to speak about contemporary life there. However, even if professors have little direct experience with the given country, there are other ways to incorporate firsthand knowledge into a course. Modern communications technology such as Skype allows us to interact with people on the other side of the world without paying for anything other than an Internet connection. Such electronic exchanges can be very valuable, and as our class discussion with Isaac Baker illustrated, they can help to create some of the most memorable moments in a semester.
Secondly, I would recommend professors to maximize their use of authentic foreign language materials. Students enjoy working with media such as newspaper articles or radio broadcasts because they provide a good representation of the information environment that a native speaker interacts with on a regular basis. Unlike outdated textbooks, such materials allow students to see and hear the ideas coming from the country they are studying both directly from the source and in real time. One can find an abundance of useful native speaker media on the Internet.
Lastly, I advise professors of such subjects to give students ample opportunity to express their own opinions. Discussions are useful because they train students to articulate their own positions and to listen attentively to other points of view. Through conversations about another culture, students are encouraged to think reflectively about their own culture and to examine personal beliefs that they may have previously taken for granted. Although in-class discussions can sometimes get heated, I find that they can still be productive as long as the instructor promotes respect in the classroom and gives every student an equal chance to share his or her point of view.
The experience of teaching the first-year students about the United States was both engaging and fulfilling. I am sure that I learned at least as much from the course as my students did.