Didactic Briefcases as a Means to Foster Colombian Culture in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of implementing the didactic briefcases (maletas didácticas) from El Museo del Oro in the EFL classroom as a means to foster culture through the use of a theme-based approach. To this end, a bibliographical review was carried out by searching different research articles master and BA theses in order to know about the implementation of the didactic briefcases in Colombia. Thus, the information presented in this paper is to help EFL teachers to realize how beneficial it could be to integrate the didactic briefcases and Theme-Based Instruction (TBI) in their lessons to make them more didactic, flexible, engaging, collaborative, and dynamic while integrating culture in the curriculum. In fact, some studies showed that the didactic briefcases have been used in different areas of Colombian education, such as Arts and Social Science, but not in English. Finally, the results showed that it is possible to implement the didactic briefcases through a theme-based approach because it allows students to open their minds to their own roots and become more critical when interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds.