'Pyeongtaek City Cultural Tour - 24 September 2011 - Republic of South Korea' photo (c) 2011, USAG- Humphreys - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Having English Language Learners give reports about about their home countries is a fairly typical class assignment. And, for students who are not newcomers, it gets pretty old for them to have to do it every year.

I have students in my ELL Geography class do similar presentations each year, though I try to make it a little different from what they’ve done in the past.

I introduce it as a lesson on “culture” — we discuss what culture is and what would be included as its primary components in any country.

After we make a list, we view this simple slideshow I found on Slideshare (it has some errors so you might want to use the resources at the bottom of this post, instead):

Then, students create a poster or slideshow highlighting those elements (and any of other ones of their choice that we might have brainstormed) from their home country:

A planning hand-out usually looks something like this:

Make a report on the culture of your home country. Include these elements (feel free to add other ones, too):

Language:
• Spoken & Written
• Gestures

Social Organization:
• Who are the most important people in a community and why
• What are the most important groups in a community and why

Traditions

Food

Arts

Religion

Form of Government

Last year, students made posters and short oral presentations, which included responding to questions from their classmates:

This year, they made PowerPoints. Here are a few samples, and you can see all of them at our class blog:

Welcome To Hmong Culture

More presentations from kou

Tepalcatepec Mich

More presentations from hector

DR congo

More presentations from A Jay Lor

I’d love to hear ideas on how to make this lesson better!

Here are some resources that you can use to introduce your students to the elements that make up a “culture”: