A. Aurilia & S.

Radovich

Monterey Institute of International Studies

Curriculum Macrostrategies through Teaching Spanish Culture

TEN MACROSTRATEGIES FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

Kumaravadevilu (2003)
Maximizing Learning Opportunities:
Envisions teaching as a process of creating and utilizing learning opportunities. Teachers need to
constantly monitor how the lesson is unfolding and make suitable changes as necessary (p. 45).
Minimizing Perceptual Mismatches:
Emphasizes the recognition of potential perceptual mismatches between intentions and
interpretations of the learner and the teacher. This macrostrategy aims to minimize the
mismatches that exist between learner and teacher perceptions of what is available to learn.
Facilitating Negotiated Interaction:
Refers to meaningful learner-learner, learner-teacher classroom interaction in which learners are
entitled and encouraged participate in conversations. By employing this macrostrategy, teachers
take students beyond the limited action of react and respond (p. 39).
Promoting Learner Autonomy:
Involves helping learners learn how to learn, equipping them with strategies necessary to selfdirect and self-monitor their own learning. A crucial task of the teacher wishing to promote
learner autonomy is to help learners take responsibility for their learning, and to bring about
necessary attitudinal changes in them (p. 137).
Foster Language Awareness:
Refers to any attempt to draw learners attention to the formal and functional properties of their
second language (L2) in order to increase the degree of explicitness required to promote L2
learning. It is important for language teachers to design activities that foster both general and
critical language awareness in the classroom (p. 168).
Activating Intuitive Heuristics:
Heuristics refers to the process of self discovery part of the learner (p. 176). This
macrostrategy stresses the importance of providing rich textual data so that learners can infer
underlying rules governing grammatical usage and communicative use.
Contextualizing Linguistic Input:
Highlights how language usage and use are shaped by linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and
extrasituational contexts (p. 39). For example, presenting linguistic input within thematic
contexts reflects the natural use of language.
Integrating Language Skills:
Stresses the need to holistically integrate language skills traditionally separated and sequenced
as listening, speaking, reading and writing. The separation of skills is inadequate for developing
integrated functional skills because language skills are essentially interrelated and mutually
reinforcing (p. 228).
Ensuring Social Relevance:
Calls attention to the need for teachers to be sensitive to the societal, political, economic, and
educational environment in which L2 learning and teaching take place.
Raising Cultural Consciousness:
Emphasizes the need to treat learners as cultural informants (p. 39) so that they are
encouraged to engage in a process of classroom participation that acknowledges their power and
knowledge.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

A. Aurilia & S. Radovich

Monterey Institute of International Studies

Curriculum Macrostrategies through Teaching Spanish Culture

TEN MACROSTRATEGIES FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING

Kumaravadevilu (2003)
Why Popular Culture? Contemporary or popular culture has been viewed as unworthy of serious study precisely
because its what is popular. However, its popularity does not signify that it lacks complexity. Many aspects of pop
culture have pedagogical potential; we feel one of the central responsibilities of teachers is to teach students how to
think critically about the present. This curriculum strives to bring the reality of the target language community to the
classroom through exposure to contemporary culture. Our goal using a popular culture based curriculum is to motivate
and reach out to students through providing content in which they can identify. In addition, we hope this connection
will foster cultural understanding and awareness and ultimately facilitate L2 learning.
Curriculum Overview: This curriculum teaches the Spanish language through a 15-week contemporary culture unit
and implements the ten macrostrategies in Kumaravadivelu (2003) Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language
teaching. The curriculum is based on a needs assessment conducted at the Monterey Institute of International studies
reflecting: student needs, interests and perspectives; a model of cultural context appropriate to intermediate level
course; and assessment data from pilot classes.
Our Aim: We hope that teachers will grasp the significance of each of the ten macrostrategies and understand their
appropriateness in the language classroom. Furthermore, world language teachers will adapt and integrate
Kumaravadivelus macrostrategies into their curriculum through contemporary culture; teachers can similarly select
cultural context and adapt it for their own students in accordance with the academic environment, class size, ethnicity,
language level and students interests.

Abridged Curriculum Macrostrategies through Teaching Spanish Culture:

Week

Content

Kumaravadivelus (2003) Macrostrategies

Week 1

Learning Training

Week
2&3
Week
3&4

Music

Raising intuitive heuristics

Fostering language awareness
Ensuring social relevance

Art

Promoting learner autonomy

Week
5&6

Theatre & Cinema

Fostering language awareness

Facilitating negotiated interaction

Week
7&8

Literature

Raising language awareness

Raising intuitive heuristics

Week
9 & 10
Week
11 & 12

Cuisine

Facilitating negotiated interaction

Sports
Soap Operas
Fashion
Media

Raising cultural consciousness

Week
13 & 14

Contextualizing linguistic input

Raising intuitive heuristics
Ensuring social relevance
Week 15
Final Projects
Promoting learner autonomy
Facilitating negotiated interaction
*The three following Kumaravadivelus (2003) macrostrategies are the foundation of the curriculum:
Integrate language skills Maximize learning opportunities Minimize perceptual mismatches
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.