iCulture is our cultural immersion resource that includes travel videos, day in the life videos, current news articles, and songs. The resources are updated monthly or weekly during the school year, and there is an archive dating back to 2009, giving you and your students access to close to 200 videos, over 1000 news articles, and almost 100 unique song titles.
These resources are all 100% target language, age appropriate, and include topics of interest to teens and young adults. iCulture is available in Spanish, French, and German, and includes cultural topics from a wide range of places in the target cultures.
iCulture is located on the Resources page in the online learning environment for teachers and students. To access your resources in the online learning environment, you must first have a class created.
Once you have selected a class and are on the Class Dashboard, click Content Library in the left column, near the bottom. Then, click Resources.
Click the tile to enter iCulture.
iPassport: These are virtual tours of various places in the target culture. They are introduced by a pair of young native speakers who then narrate actual footage of the location. Activities associated with the 3-6 minute video include: geographical information along with Google Map links, comprehension check questions with immediate feedback, an internet expansion activity to encourage further research, and a full transcript in the target language with difficult words and phrases also defined in the target language.
iVideos: These are videos about various topics that provide cultural encounters to students. The videos come in a range of formats: a day in the life video, an interview, an episode of a web series, a how-to video, etc. Activities associated with the 3-6 minute video include: comprehension check questions, personal opinion questions, advanced prompts, an internet expansion activity to encourage further research, and a full transcript in the target language with difficult words and phrases also defined in the target language.
iNews: These are current news articles from around the world. They cover a wide range of topics that allow students to experience current events in the target language. With the news article comes audio of a native speaker reading it aloud as well as a comprehension-based activity and a grammar or vocabulary activity. There are two versions of the articles: Basic and Advanced, with the basic version being mostly present tense and somewhat shorter in length.
iSongs: These are classic and contemporary songs presented karaoke style. There are various genres and time periods represented so that students are exposed to many types of music in the target language. The songs are a karaoke version, with a thematic prompt, the song lyrics in the target language and difficult words and phrases in the target language, as well as biographical information about the artist.
Each month, September through May, there is a new iPassport, iVideo, and iSong and 3 new iNews articles each week.
iCulture includes great comprehensible input, and the activities students can do with these resources are endless.
These resources are intentionally not leveled so that they may be used with all levels of learners by varying the activities. In line with ACTFL core practices, teachers should “adjust the task, not the text.”
We provide activity ideas for each proficiency level as well as an assortment of graphic organizers to assist you in scaffolding learning appropriately for your students.
While not every entry is explicitly aligned to the units in the language programs, we do have connection documents available to show examples of thematic alignment with units.
All resources are searchable by keyword in the target language and include an index with a brief description. iVideos, iNews, and iSongs can also be searched by category and AP theme.
View the iCulture resources folder for editable Grab and Go activities, graphic organizers and connections to your language program.
