Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

International educational experiences have become an essential component of academic programs in today’s global world. These experiences are often gained through study-abroad programs. However, digital humanities platforms and other pedagogical tools can also be used to teach culture and language without leaving the classroom. This presentation will demonstrate how exploring culture through images can be the gateway to learn a target language. It will showcase different pedagogical tools that require intermediate-level French students to be actively involved in the discovery of the target culture while comparing it to another culture and learning the target language. First, the audience will be introduced to a cross-cultural questionnaire based on images. Second, the presenter will show how the arts can be used to teach language and culture as artists express and mirror central aspects of culture. Third, the presenter will introduce an interactive website developed at MIT and based on Tintin and The Blue Lotus to demonstrate how students can work with text and images in order to learn the French language, uncover a period of Chinese history, mainly colonial Shanghai, and better understand the importance of comic strips in Belgian culture. At a time when the need for building bridges across cultures has become greater due to the current political and economic climate in the world, the importance of these cross-cultural approaches to teach language and culture has increased in value.