Building Authentic Cultural Connection

Throughout this series, we've been exploring what it truly means to teach culture in today’s World Language classroom. Rather than presenting culture as a set of facts to memorize, we've focused on interculturality, which offers a richer approach that honors the deep connection between language and culture. Our webinars and resources have centered on three interconnected ideas: Knowing Myself, Exploring Communities, and Engaging with the World, guiding students to both investigate cultural products, practices, and perspectives and interact with others in culturally appropriate ways. These two actions work together to help students move from surface-level observation toward authentic cultural connection. 

Structural Competency: The "Why" Behind Culture 

Structural competency offers language educators a framework for going deeper. Rather than asking what a cultural practice looks like, it asks why it exists. This approach helps students recognize that history, geography, economics, and community values all shape the way people live, speak, and relate to one another and that no culture is uniform, even within the same country or group. 

Structural competency complements each pillar of this Grow to Glow series. It deepens how we know ourselves by revealing that our own lens is shaped by systems, not neutral. It enriches how we explore our communities by pushing students to ask why, not just what. It reframes how we engage with the world, showing students that every interaction is shaped by cultural context. 

Listen: Language Lounge Podcast, Episode 86, “Structural Competency with Peggy Malec” 

Ready to learn more about how structural competency comes to life in the World Language classroom? Listen to episode 86 of the Language Lounge podcast, "Structural Competency with Peggy Malec," hosted by Michelle Olah. It's a conversation that will change the way you think about teaching culture.