Blog #5

The two books that I chose to review and examine the cultural aspects that could affect cultural understanding are Contemporary Living and a recipe for Injera (Ethiopian flatbread) .  The students will be reading a chapter on Dating and Marriage in the Contemporary Living book.  This chapter looks at American culture’s dating and marriage traditions.  An ELL student from another county may start to read our customs and not understand them at all.  For example, an ELL student from India might be confused that people find their significant other on the internet because a lot of people in their culture have their significant other chosen from them by their parents.  In addition, their dating is considered courtship and is extremely short and so they might find it extremely strange that people in the United States will date for years and often will live together before getting engaged or married.  Another area where students can be confused is by the wedding ceremony itself.  In India, wedding ceremonies last multiple days and the bride and groom hardly see each other, where in the U.S., ceremonies can be done in as little as five minutes.  Another possible confusion for ELL students is the sexuality of the couple and the roles of each person based on their gender.  There are many ways that I can help students with this unit such as showing a video on dating and marriage to help the students understand the cultural aspects of dating and marriage here in the United States.  Next I will give students a graphic organizer and have them find similarities and differences between their customs and American customs when it comes to dating and marriage. 

The next book the students will read is a recipe for Injera an Ethiopian flatbread.  Students in the culinary class really struggle when a recipe is from a different culture because often times the units of measure are different.  For example, most cultures use Metric while we use U.S. system of measurement.  Another possible confusion for the students is that the ingredients used in other cultures may not be familiar to my students.  The recipe that we will use for Injera will use Teff flour which is an ingredient that most of my students have never heard of before and therefore have never tasted.  The use of different ingredients is something that will confuse students and often scare them away from trying new food.  The taste of the food is something that will be different for ELL students because they will be used to tasting food from their home country and in the Unites States we have our own unique style and taste of food.  Another thing that could potentially confuse ELL students is serving size as well as serving style.  In Ethiopia a lot of the food is served family style and eaten with fingers.  Serving sizes are often small compared to what people are used to in the United States.  To help ELL students understand this unit I will access students’ background knowledge about the food served in their country.  If we were talking about a religious celebration I will talk to the students about the type of food they serve for the celebration and then I will talk about the type of food that we serve here in the U.S.  I will then have the students create the food dish so that students can feel, taste, and smell what the food actually tastes like.