Jewish texts from the Holocaust: A didactic proposal for intercultural EFL teacher training

Abstract

The present study discusses in general and specific terms the importance of teaching culture in class and proposes a specific example of doing so focusing on Jewish culture. Firstly, a review of cultural aspects such as multiculturalism, interculturality, otherness and identity is presentedand the importance of such aspects for education and, as a consequence, for teacher trainingis explained. Once such concepts and the connection between them and our current education system have been explained, the study focuses on the means by which such connection can be put into practice by teachers. Based onthe power of fictional resources as a useful tool, the present work delves into the role of multicultural fiction in the didactics of foreign language and literature. First, the importance of this kind of fictional works is shown. Subsequently,several fictional resources are analysed. These resources are literature, cinema, music and drama. In order to support their positiveeffectsin class, some real experiences carried out by teachers are presented. The second main part of the study focuses on the Jewish question by explainingthe conflict between Jewish memory and history. In addition, the widely known concepts of diaspora and antisemitism are explored as well as the possible reasons that led to the Jews as the nation beingstigmatised. As it could not be otherwise, theholocaust also plays a part in the present study. The main areas of analysis will be the different representations that have been made of it, the responses obtained on behalf of the European and American contexts and the heart-breaking story of the most underserved victims: children. Once these general aspects of Jewish history are analysed, the study continues withexamples of Jewish fiction and the controversial depiction of Jews in literature in particular and fiction in general. Since the main aim of this work is to present a didactic proposal for the teaching of culture, the third partpresents the criteria for the selection of texts which have been used as a guide when choosing the fictional works which constitute the basis of the proposal. The last part of the study is the design of a didactic proposal to work with pre-service teachers based on Jewish fiction. To this end, variousfictional works of literature, cinema and photography are analysed in terms of several indicators of linguistic, conceptual and cultural analysis. After that, a precise proposal for some of them will be presented in order to make a contribution to the current necessity of training teachers in multicultural aspects so that they, in turn, are able to form culturally competent citizens.