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Guide > Core: Introduction to the Cultura Guide > Rationale

Rationale

It has become commonplace to say that our world is now a global one, and that our students will increasingly find themselves working for transnational companies. This means that they will need to learn how to interact and communicate across cultures. In order for their interactions to be successful, our current students will need to know and understand the different cultural value systems that shape the thoughts and actions of their global partners.

We, language teachers, are particularly well-positioned to play a key role in helping our students understand another culture since we teach both language and culture. However, more often than not we tend, in our language classes, to focus our attention on developing our students' linguistic skills and we spend rather limited time developing their understanding of the "foreign" culture.

Cultura is an attempt to make culture the focus of the language class, so as to respond to the increasing needs of our students within our global world.