Real World English
Tuning In to Language and Culture

"Tuning In to Language and Culture" (TILC) is a revision of the "Tuning in the USA" series that we authored for Macmillan Publishers. Because the core assets of these audio dramas are of such high quality, we sought to make them much more useful in classrooms than they have previously been. Before the "Improving English Language Teaching and Learning in Mindanao" (IELTLM) project, there were no Teacher's Guides to help teachers create lessons using the TILC materials (8 CDs and 2 Listener's Guides). Today there are four such Teacher's Guides - each having 240 pages and each providing 52 detailed lesson plans). Our classroom materials are designed as an additional asset to enrich English language teaching, not to displace other materials in the class. Teachers are advised to use our audio programs in 26 of the 39 weeks of the academic year. We suggest that, since each lesson is based on one 5-minute act from one of the 10-minute two-act dramas, teachers should use two of our lesson plans in a week so that students can enjoy the resolution of the full 10-minute story in the same week. Two lessons in each of 26 weeks will use all 52 lesson plans. Students may enjoy 52 more unique programs and lessons in the following year. Should students move from an elementary school using our materials to a high school also using our materials, the high school lesson plans are completely different, though the audio is the same.

We know that U.S. culture is just one of many equally interesting cultures on the planet. It happens to be one where English is the main native language. Because TILC dramas present a combination of simple stories from the daily lives of a core cast of characters, and because they present a travelogue where the listener may explore a range of places and cultures within the U.S., it helps international students or new immigrants to the U.S. to understand English in use and in relationship to real situations. These situations reveal something about common interests and positive values of citizens in the U.S.; and they are culturally sensitive for international audiences and they address universal human themes:

All of our materials have been reviewed for their cultural sensitivity by Muslim educators. They have been officially approved for use in the schools of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao by that region's Department of Education.

We have developed the first set of plans with specific reference to the Philippine culture. In each lesson the Teacher's Notes present cultural notes that help guide class discussion about aspects of Filipino life that are thematically related to those they find in the audio dramas. For example, Program 34 features a tense meeting between lumber cutters and citizens interested in preserving forests. This is a vital theme in both the U.S. and the Philippines. The "culture notes" in the Real World English Teacher's Guides provide information about competition between Filipino lumber and forest preservation interests so that children's background knowledge and experience is systematically brought into the lesson before any presentation of the U.S.-based dramas.

This culturally sensitive model is one that can be developed in new sets of Teacher's Guides for other countries, where new culture notes may be written to activate learners' knowledge and interests so they may better engage with the universal cultural themes in Real World English.

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