Pinterest: A Vehicle to Promote Cross-cultural Awareness in an Introductory Spanish Course

TLDR: The authors explored the use of Pinterest to encourage cross-cultural awareness inside the introductory-level foreign language classroom and found that Pinterest, through the visual nature of the platform, provided an insider's view into the target culture(s) and allowed the majority of learners to connect on a more personal level with the target cultures(s).

Abstract: While culture has become an increasingly central component of foreign language learning (Garrett-Rucks 2016), the ongoing debate regarding how to implement in-depth cultural instruction inside the foreign language classroom continues, especially at the introductory level (del Valle 2014; Mitchell 2016). Adopting a qualitative approach, the present study explores the use of Pinterest to encourage cross-cultural awareness (Knutson 2006) inside the introductory-level foreign language classroom. Participants (n = 28) completed a project in which they explored the target culture(s) via Pinterest and then completed a series of reflective activities. Triangulation of data from Pinterest posts and post-project journal entries reveal that when learners explored the target culture(s) via Pinterest, the majority (n = 23) realized that culture is more than just a set of facts and made deeper connections with the target culture(s) through their investigations of cultural-bound values and behaviors (Knutson 2006). The data also show that Pinterest, through the visual nature of the platform, provided an insider's view into the target culture(s) and allowed the majority of learners to connect on a more personal level with the target culture(s) and subsequently develop their cross-cultural awareness.