Response Journal entry #6: Cultural Practices

The movie “Shall we dance” in both versions are a reflection of everyday life with certain humor about a men who apparently has everything, however, there is something missing in his life.

In the Japanese version was interesting to see the contrast of the oriental culture when the main character tries to adapt himself in different traditions that are not common mainly, breaking the strong traditional mentality of a business oriental man with exotics dancing adopting cultural events outside their own traditions, those kind of activities are the opposite of what a Japanese is used to do. Practicing this kind of dancing in Japan is not that common, however, it tries to consider (actually in both versions) that a successful man but with a plain life feels a void and wants to get something for him, discovering the pleasure of dancing.

In the American version, we as viewers watch more psychological acts regarding couple’s relationship, fidelity, frustrations, etc. This film, tries to put out little details about how hard it can get something we dream but we think is impossible to put into practice because of our fears , lack of talent or personal insatisfaction. However, in this American movie the different scenarios are more endearing; the person act with tenderness and on the other hand in the Japanese version, how the people act is static (the way they treat to each other). There is a very good example: when the main character’s wife, hired somebody to follow him. In the Japanese version, hardly appears. Suddenly we see the detective saying that her husband smells like perfume. But in the U.S movie is more complex, first we see their daughter saying her father is very happy lately, and then we see Susan Sarandon (the wife’s character) in her work, cheering a fellow worker up who believes her husband has an affair. Because of that personal situation with her coworkers, she starts having some doubts about her husband´s behavior, having a more interesting complex and complete situation.

The message in both versions at the end is not that different. Is that even the most successful men, who has “everything in life” is not happy. We see through the entire film the different dreams that are sometimes difficult to implement because of our own fear to failure.

Response Journal entry #5: Cultural Products

Teaching culture: Analyzing Artifacts

Describing an object adding my artifact done in class.
Phone booths turn into teleport transportation stations

In Costa Rica we are aware of all the transportation chaos we have at the moment. To end with this problem, a telephone booth teleport was created; it might soon be used for more than making a phone call.
Our country´s phone booths will be converted into teleport transportation stations, usually based on encoding information about an object (in this case a human being) , transmitting the information elsewhere, such as through a radio signal, and create an original copy of the destination.
Instead of using our cars to go to different places, we actually can teleport from a phone booth to another in 5-10 minutes depending on where we might want to go, maximum 2 people per phone booth. By the end of the year, the government plans to convert 29 more booths around the country. For now, the phone booths can only be use around our capital San Jose, and the cost will be approximately 3000-4000 colones one ride. However, next year, there are going to be cards, instead of paying with cash.
This transportation will definitely help to avoid traffic jumps, so people will be able to move around quicker and will decrease the pollution in the environment.



Learning Culture: MAPS. I drew a floor map of my room describing each objects that are inside of it, identifying my cultural perspective.





Institutions involve many cultural practices. A strategy for understanding institutions is to list the procedures requires a flowchart.
Using my native culture, I listed the steps one needs to follow from the beggining to end for each of the procedures using a flowchart.
Learning Culture: Flowcharts.

A)Getting a driver's license
For the first time driver's license, the applicant must meet the following requirements
1. Approve the basic driver education course.
2. Present practice driving test.
3. Satisfactory medical report physical and psychological aptitudes.
4. Current ID card.

B)Getting medical treatment
Going to the doctor for a check up to see if everything is fine, if not, the doctor recommends the patient to get a medical treatment in order to analyze and terminate any kind, of hygienic, pharmacological, surgical or physical health problem aimed at cure or relief any kind of disease or symptoms, when it has reached a diagnosis. to have a quick therapy, or healing method.


C)Reporting a crime
If you've been the victim of a crime or think you have witnessed one, you should report it to the police straight away or inmediately call to 911 and explain what happened.
After that, you will have to give a statement to the police as accurate and as detailed as possible, when you've finished giving a statement, the police will usually read it back to you to make sure that their written account matches yours.
If you agree, you'll sign the statement and get a crime reference number. If you want to contact the police about the same incident in the future, you'll need to keep that reference number in a safe place.


D)Establishing a law
To establish a law is a long and complicated road because it must pass through a series of reviews and scrutiny in committees, consultations and constitutional debates in the plenary.
After the law is presented to the board, the specialized committee begins to have a first disccusion in order to correct any flaw may have . Later on, is send to the Constitutional Tribunal for its analysis and if they do not find any mistake or legal issue, the draft is sent tback to the plenary and discussed in the first debate, Members present their arguments for and against it by through motions.

E)Getting married
There are certain steps in order to get married:
Provide birth certificates.
Provide recent certification of their marital status .
Having two witnesses.
Bring their identity cards .
After they got marriage ,the Consular Attorney tells the applicants that they must complete a civil marriage certificate which is sent to the registry office for registration of marriage.


F)Getting a bank loan
The lender must fully understand their business operation. All the information he recieves must be carefully documented to provide a complete picture of the company, including numbers, facts and figures necessary to approve the proposal. Without sufficient data to answer all questions that may arise, the lender will have to either request more information or take the easy route and simply say no to the application


G)Religious rituals
The Catholic heritage remains important in everyday language and culture.
Our culture demonstrate our Catholic faith mainly at baptisms, weddings, and funerals or during holy week and on saints' days.
On the eve of the 2 August celebration for the national patron saint— Our Lady of the Angels—pilgrims throughout the country fulfilling "promises" to her hike to Cartago's Basílica of Our Lady of Los Angeles. Most churches sponsor local saints' celebrations, which are smaller and more secular in comparison with the national holiday for Our Lady of Los Angeles.


H)Paying taxes
In Costa Rica there are two types of taxes: direct taxes and indirect taxes.

Direct taxes: they are tohse that directly affect the wealth of people, both natural and legal.
Indirect taxes: they are those who are paid on the purchase of goods or services


Teaching Culture: Personal relationship to cultural content
Is personal relationship to cultural content a factor in your teaching of culture?

As human beings we need to have a constant communication between high context and low context. Depending on the kind of relationship, the situation, and the purpose of communication, we may be more or less explicit and direct this time regarding to another culture. We as teachers need to differentiate and pay attention to the many variations of cultural content and be careful to pay specific attention to nonverbal cues and the behavior of others who may know more of the unspoken rules leading the communication.

Response journal entry #1: Introduction of Culture

First Class: About Culture
Our first class helped us to understand in general terms how important is to have a very good acknowledge towards diversity and different cultures. To learn, to make contact with other people allows us gain firsthand knowledge of a particular culture and at the same time might have to struggle learning a new the language as well. However, these struggles are part of the process in order to have a better insight into a particular cultural group's way of life.

Response journal entry #4: Introduction of Culture and Second Language

Teaching Culture in Second Language is a very good approach to integrate language proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another culture from the very beginning of the English learning process. It will provide very good suggestions for helping foreign learners at all levels developing communicative competence, as well as a change in attitudes towards their own or another culture.
We as teachers need to be creative to explore different topics that will help students to start making comfortable with the target culture, therefore focus on alternative methods or some teaching strategies to provide with opportunities for practice, and given focused feedback on their performance before and during the process of learning a new culture, for instance: “to discover how much freedom the target language allows learners to manipulate grammatical forms, sounds, and meanings, and to reflect upon, or even flout, socially accepted norms at work both in their own or the target culture” (Radical Pedagogy, 2001), so we as instructors can make a difference to incorporate the teaching of culture into a valuable and effective foreign language curriculum.
Therefore, the knowledge the student may start to perceive (in relation to customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country) will be definitely an integral part of foreign language learning.

Response journal entry #3: Intelligent Learning Environments: recommendations from the Neuroscience perspective

On Wednesday May 26th, 2010, we had an interesting lecture in our university based on Intelligent Learning Environments: recommendations from the Neuroscience perspective by Silvia Castro.
The great progress in neuroscience has allowed separating the brain mechanisms that enable learning, remembering and recording the information permanently in the brain.
During the lecture she explained how the brain becomes more effective when we learn something complicated. One aspect I agreed on was, what makes a brain to work in better efficient way?, that is, its capacity to generate experience and information to become more concise and more quickly, because there should be a multi-sensory stimulation and sensory sources; the more information and the more sense we have, we will learn in a better and faster way. That´s how we have learned most of the time, by doing it, and knowing step by step what we are doing, and at the end we would be able to stick with it.
Learning must be meaningful, varied, practical and situated. Nowadays, technology can help us to make easier to obtain all kind of information. However, not all facilities like this one, is good, because it makes the brain lazy and therefore not capable of doing a real research of what we are learning because is already handed it to us. We need to be very careful, and be self-conscious about real and honest learning.
Another aspect that I liked about neuroscience is trying to go beyond of any intelligence tests in order to explore the brain in regions or functions that will determine the cleverness of a person. The constant practice in problem solving can reactivate memory traces for learninf a second language. The learning process must be activated prior knowledge and relate new concepts in order to remind them and be able to have the neurons as connectors to get the information.
Definitely when the environment for learning is good, the learning will be better. It is therefore important as educators should focus our efforts on capturing the attention of the student with the greatest variety of possibilities, always seeking to stimulate the satisfaction in the educational process. In consequently, thanks to the contribution of neuroscience is possible that teachers and classes are no longer boring, by contrast, learning can be a pleasurable and effective activity.