Breaking Out of the Culture Box: An Exploration of Critical Approaches to Language Teaching for the Unsure and Hesitant by Katherine Kerschen and Carol Jenkins

Published by WashU Libraries on Pressbooks

The Scholarly Communications & Digital Publishing (ScholPub) department of WashU Libraries is excited to announce the publication of a new open-access book. Breaking Out of the Culture Box is a short guidebook introducing readers to critical pedagogy in foreign language education as a logical extension of the liberal arts’ core mission to encourage the analysis of (social) problems in order to arrive at just solutions. The book is organized into seven sections, each of which addresses a distinct aspect of the authors’ research on critical pedagogies and how to incorporate them into your teaching. The sections cover the initial inspiration behind the authors’ research on critical approaches to language teaching; the shortcomings of traditional representations of culture and “diverse” voices; an overview of alternative critical pedagogy approaches; and examples and opportunities for integrating those approaches into the classroom. Readers are encouraged to jump between sections based on their current needs and interests.

Kerschen and Jenkins developed the guidebook as part of their research into how best to critically rethink and diversify their daily teaching and curriculum. As they write in the Introduction, “We were dissatisfied with the representations of culture provided in our textbooks and traditional teaching materials and wondered how they could be made better. How to challenge monolithic portrayals of culture and shift the focus to the diversity of identities within the target culture as well as our own classrooms? In effect, how to de-center course materials and teach more inclusively? How to develop a critical mindset in ourselves and our students? And how to go about this systematically?” The guidebook is designed to help answer these questions, as well as provide a starting point for others just beginning to explore critical pedagogy and how best to incorporate it in their teaching.

Breaking Out of the Culture Box is an OER (Open Educational Resource) published by WashU Libraries and supported by an Arts & Sciences Teaching Innovation Award.

About the Authors

Katherine Kerschen is a lecturer in Germanic languages and literatures at WashU. Her research explores how different instructional methods affect the processes and outcomes of adult second language acquisition. Kerschen earned her bachelor’s degree in German and psychology, with a minor in applied linguistics, from WashU. She earned her master’s degree in applied linguistics from the Technische Universität (TU) Dortmund and a doctorate in German applied linguistics and language science from the Pennsylvania State University.

Carol Jenkins is a lecturer in Germanic languages and literatures at WashU. Her research focuses on literary expressions of sociopolitical developments, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. Jenkins earned her bachelor’s degree from Carleton College, and her master’s and doctorate from WashU.

About Open Books at WashU

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