The Acculturation of Foreign language Education: Teaching African American Culture in Secondary Schools

Abstract

This thesis aims to contribute to the body of work on foreign language education by redesigning a lesson series built around the novel The Hate U Give (2017) by Angie Thomas. The original lesson series used Thomas’s novel as a starting point to discuss culturally charged topics such as African American history, African American vernacular English, representation, privilege, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. However, there was no academic foundation for the approach to culture teaching in the foreign language classroom in the original design of this lesson series. Consequently, the current research aimed to redesign and improve the lesson series based on academic research, as well as personal observations made as a result of teaching the material. Academic sources will be discussed that focus on the goals of culture teaching in the foreign language classroom, as well the role of the native culture in this process. Furthermore, six different areas of foreign culture teaching will be discussed and implemented. Ultimately, an improved ten lesson series on African American culture, complete with lesson plans, will be presented in order to be used and build upon by those who are interested in teaching African American culture through Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give.