Mission+and+Vision+of+NNELL+Culture+Committee

**__Our History:__**
====The NNELL Culture Committee was created after several NNELL members at the 2009 Summer Institute were inspired by Dr. Mimi Met’s presentation and workshop about culture in early language learning classrooms. Sandra Schoder and Kathy Duran co-chaired the committee and were joined by Yan Wang, Cheryl Berman, Victoria Gilbert, Gustavo Barros, and Akiyo Hirose. ====

==== The NNELL Culture Committee acknowledges culture as the fundamental context for learning a language. Cultural sensitivity, cultural literacy, and intercultural competence are an integral part of learning a new language. The youngest learners do not learn language in isolation from culture, rather through meaningful experiences with the language. Thus, this committee’s mission is to examine ways to teach culture in the world language classroom and share best practices. ====  The NNELL Culture Committee strives to create a web-based bank of cultural resources that will support teachers and learners. The committee welcomes members to submit their cultural lessons to this bank so that high quality resources may be shared on a larger scale among members of the K-8 world language community.

** __Our Goals__: **
· Cultural enrichment and continuous learning for the global community through our web content

· Promoting understanding through cultural activities for and of children around the globe

· Spreading the spirit of cultural diversity through understanding

· To serve as a support network and active resource for our members

· A respect and an appreciation for cultural diversity

· A collaborative, creative, and team-spirited approach to cultural understanding