ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Teacher: Susana Perié

Student: María E. Silclir
1º B – Instituto Superior Antonio Ruiz de Montoya

What is culture?
1) Tell us about a tradition your family shares.
- For Easter, the tradition in my family is to paint the empty (and clean) egg
shelves we collect, fill them with candy like Rocklets or sweetened peanuts and
give them as a gift to the kids.
2) Have you ever had a friend whose family had different beliefs from your
own? If so, what was your reaction to the difference?
- While I was living in Belgium, I had the chance to take part in every
celebrations, parties, holidays and traditions they had. One of the experiences I
remember the most was, in fact, during the Easter holidays. They have the
tradition of hiding chocolate eggs in the woods which the children of the village
need to look for. Even if it is supposed to be a fun game, with crafty searching
tools and creative maps, I was nothing but worried about the kids getting lost or
hurt in the woods, since the activity was carried out without any adult
supervision. When my host mother realised how worried I was, she started
laughing and showed me all the precautions they had taken before hiding the
treats. From that moment on, I was able to enoy as much as the children did, if
not even more.
3) What would your art tell someone about your culture?
- Even though Misiones is a province featured by the mix of cultures brought by
the immigrants, the strong art influence given by our natives, the Guaraníes,
can still be appreciated. They are known for their excellence in music and
handicraft, among others fields of art.
4) Do you speak more than one language? What is the value of learning a new
language?
- I currently speak four languages fluently: Spanish, which is my mother tongue,
English, French and Portuguese. I had the chance to apply this knowledge by
speaking each language in countries where they were the official language,
which helped me enormously not only to speak fluently, but to acquire some
dialects, idioms and information about their culture that I couldn’t have learned
in books or in an institute. From my own experience, I think that learning a new
language prepares your brain and helps it to become more receptive with the
new data, and that is the key to turn into a tolerant and wise person.
5) How can we help prevent wars between cultures?
- Wars can be prevented by learning and embrasing other cultures, eliminating
the imaginary frontiers, accepting and appreciating the wide range of customs,
religions, traditions and ideologies there is, without trying to impose one over
another. An important thing to do in order to accomplish this is to improve our
communication skills, which involves not only learning new languages, but also
 to know how to deliver a good discourse, so the message is sent clearly and
without misunderstandings.

Customs and Traditions

1) What is a custom?
- A custom is the specific way in which a group of people does something. The set
of customs developed and shared by a culture over time is a TRADITION.
2) What are the ways that Native Americans told their stories?
- Telling the tribe’s stories orally was the way they preserved them from
generation to generation. The tribes used chanting, story telling and singing as
a way to remember the tribe’s folklore.
3) Contrast what you have learned about the historic Native American
cultures and what you know about your own culture. How are they
different?
- In the case of the Guaraníes, I would like to emphasise that they don’t only
transmit their culture orally. A wide range of cultural and historic treasures can
still be found, such as paintings, sculptures, architecture and also music.
4) In your own words, explain the importance of folklore.
- I truly believe that knowing and embrasing the folklore helps every generations
to learn about tolerance and understanding. As long as we know our roots, we
will be able to build a better and more peaceful future.
5) Explain why some tribes developed weaving.
- Cloth weaving developed as a custom was a way of meeting the need for
clothing without using animal skins in desertic areas where there are fewer
large animals whose skins can me used for making clothing or blankets.