Integrating Language and Culture through Folktales in an EFL Classroom

Abstract

The current course designed on the topic of integrating language and culture through Folktales in an EFL classroom is aimed at developing cultural knowledge of Armenian EFL students using folktales from five different countries (Russia, India, Africa(Congo), Italy, and Armenia).In the course curriculum the above mentioned five folktales are considered to be the main core of the course because the lessons are built around their language and cultural focus. In the overall curriculum the language skills and grammar structure are included to be taught through different kinds of interactive and engaging activities. The students’ analytical and creative thinking is developed through folktale moral message interpretation, analysis of various ideas and creating the new imaginary stories, compositions, as well as well essays and summaries.As to summarize the findings of my project it would be proper to say the throughout the three lessons that I taught to my students out of ten, I received mainly positive feedback about the culture focus and the story content. It seemed that the students mostly were interested in the cultural parts of the lesson during which there were free to express their knowledge about the traditions and customs of the certain country of that week.There were also some pitfalls in the findings which expressed the students’ complaint about the Russian traditional movie based on the folktale, where some episodes were prolonged with the monotonous voice or actions.