Canadian Culture?

Does Canada even have a separate culture? Some #EAL teachers have found that immigrants come to Canada expecting it to be the same as the American culture they have seen in movies or on television. (See the video below, third speaker.) They are surprised to find that it is not. I would expect they would be equally surprised to find that much of American culture is not what they see in the fictional media either.



So what is Canadian Culture? Is it poutine and perogies? Hockey and curling? Hunting and fishing and farming? Summers at the lake and winters spent shoveling snow and slogging around in the salt and sand and slush, waiting for spring break to head south for a reprieve? It's all those things, but a lot more too. It's music and festivals and art, research and innovation, peace-making with ideas instead of weapons, two languages sometimes at odds with each other, but also blending  incorporating elements of many other languages (see poutine and perogies, neither of which the spellchecker on this app recognizes).

There are some unpleasant elements as well. Our history of sorely mistreating aboriginal populations, yet to be fully reconciled. High taxes and housing prices, bad decisions by bureaucrats and politicians, failing infrastructure and even infamous killers. However, we notice these things because they are, for the most part, not the norm. And we keep working on trying to fix them, while at the same time welcoming newcomers by the hundreds of thousands, helping them to get settled and to learn our languages -- and our culture.

Vicky Isliefson
#TESL0160
#CdnELT
#transitioning
#culture

Resources: 

ESL Student & Teacher Interviews: Canadian Culture - Sneak Peek (Sept. 2016). Advance Consulting for Education [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/MOE9ARihBgA .

Learning English with CBC (a) (2013). Listening Lessons for Intermediate Students. Lesson 85: Canadian Citizenship. [PDF document]. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/eal/lessons/jan18s_2013.pdf