ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the Performed Culture Approach (PCA) as a pedagogy-focused response to the call for a more natural integration of language and culture in foreign language classrooms. Foreign language education has primarily relied on approaches and methods that emerged from teaching English as a second/foreign language, which was generally not motivated by a need to understand the behavioral culture of any English-speaking society. However, behavioral culture is integral to language use and essential to intercultural understanding, especially when the cultures are radically different. Recent developments in applied linguistics and cognitive science also demand a holistic approach to teaching language and culture as a Complex Adaptive System. We argue that PCA meets this demand with a culture-focused paradigm, which initiates a radical shift away from the general communicative language teaching (CLT) framework and generates new principles of language learning. We elaborate on how the PCA framework provides new methods for meeting the old challenges in foreign language education and how these methods apply to designing and implementing curriculum and instruction for Chinese as a foreign language.
