1For more than one hundred years teaching materials for the EFL classroom in Germany have been concerned with Great Britain and with the United States of America (especially after World War II). Nowadays there is a growing interest in other English-speaking countries, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. Modern curricula reflect the increasing significance of these countries for teaching the English language and the literatures of anglophone countries. Their multicultural societies are appropriate objects for intercultural teaching and learning. Along with communicative competence, which was introduced to German classrooms in the early 1970s, intercultural competence has become one of the most important key concepts of teaching and learning. According to the aims of intercultural education students are to develop intercultural understanding, empathy, tolerance and they should learn to accept cultural differences and otherness. In the last twenty years a great number of books and articles on introducing foreign cultures to our students have been published to make them acknowledge cultural differences and commonalities and recognize their preconceived images and hetero-stereotypes. Again, most of these publications deal with US-American society and British society. Only a few, though a growing number, focus on, for example, cultural communities in Canada, Australia or South Africa. In order to illustrate the complex interrelationships in multicultural societies it is not sufficient to present facts and figures, customs and traditions, but to enable the learner to change the perspective, to evaluate attitudes and to redefine his / her self-image and image of the target culture(s).

2As the following chapters show it is necessary to combine both educational and cultural aspects to present modern Canadian society adequately as a topic in the EFL classroom, in order not to present the country from a Eurocentric perspective.

What German students know about Canada

3In 2002 and 2003, 122 undergraduate students of English took part in a survey which I conducted at the University of Würzburg in order to obtain information on their previous knowledge of Canada. They were asked about three main topics, namely ‘society,’ ‘literature,’ and ‘culture’. First they were supposed to draw a simple map of Canada which was supposed to comprise the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence River. Although many of the students’ maps correspond more or less to the factual geographical conditions some show that a considerable number of students do not have the slightest idea of the country’s natural features, e.g.:

1. There is only ‘one’ Great Lake (Fig. 1).

2. The Great Lakes are at the foot of the Rocky Mountains (with Alaska being in the north-eastern part of North-America; Fig. 2).

3. The Rocky Mountains stretch from East to West and the Great Lakes are somewhere in the (sub)arctic north (Fig. 3).

4. The St. Lawrence River runs from the Rocky Mountains—which mark the American-Canadian border—westward to the Atlantic Ocean (Fig. 4).

5. The Great Plains are in the north-west of Canada next to Alaska (Fig. 5).

4Even more surprising than the lack of geographical knowledge are the students’ answers to the question ‘Which cultural communities / ethnic groups live in Canada?’ As the students do not know the term ‘hyphenated Canadians’, their answers reflect the image of a multicultural society which is not Canadian but an amalgamation of different nations. They also reveal the Eurocentric perspective which regards the English- and the French-speaking communities as dominant cultural groups whereas the indigenous population is an exotic, albeit distinctive feature of society. The ‘real Canadians’ are the Anglo- and French-Canadians. All the other groups are marginalized cultural facets. The different communities were termed as follows, e.g.

1. English (Anglo-Canadians),

2. French (French-Canadians),

3. Québécois,

4. Indians,

5. Inuit,

6. Aboriginal peoples,

7. Eskimos,

8. Italians,

9. Americans,

10. Chinese,

11. Japanese.

5Further questions which were closely related to the question on the cultural heterogeneity of the population were

1. about the symbols of Canada, especially about those which Canadians identify with and

2. about the students’ hetero-stereotypes of Canada.

6Both issues aimed at the national identity of the Canadians—the first one from the presumed Canadian perspective, the second one from the German perspective. The answers reveal that the dominant symbol of Canada undoubtedly is the Maple Leaf. Apart from this unifying symbol the students mentioned the Mounties, the beaver, the moose, the grizzly bear, ice hockey and in some cases CN Tower in Toronto. Some of the distinct features of Canada are

1. the enormous size of the country,

2. the mountains,

3. the rivers,

4. the forests,

5. the wildlife,

6. the snow and

7. the lumberjacks living in log houses.

• 3  Daniel Francis, The Imaginary Indian. The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture, Vancouver: Arse (...)

But no one could rival the popularity of Karl May. A native of Germany, May never even visited the American West, but this didn’t stop him from setting dozens of his novels there, featuring Indians that read Longfellow and spoke German. Ridiculous as they may seem in retrospect, May’s books were translated into twenty languages and were read by an estimated 300 million people.3

8Neither modern Canada with its complex multicultural and polyethnic society nor the peoples’ search for cultural, national, regional or other identities are taken into consideration when thinking of the country. Therefore it is necessary to look at the Canadians’ view of their native country and at various aspects of their self-image to gain a better understanding of how Canada can be introduced in the EFL classroom and how multiculturalism contributes to modifying the preconceived images of our students.

The Self-Image of the Canadians

9If we search the Internet for the self-image Canadians have of their native country, we might be presented national symbols or national emblems which reflect both the history of the country and the pride in being Canadian. Take for example the homepage of Canadian Heritage / Patrimoine canadien where national symbols are described as follows:

• 4  <http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/sc-cs/index_e.cfm> (June 27, 2005).

The symbols of Canada can heighten not only our awareness of our country but also our sense of celebration in being Canadian. The symbols of Canada are a celebration of what we are as a people.
– The Arms of Canada
– The National Flag
– The Royal Union Flag
– Other National Emblems4

• 6  <http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/sc-cs/df1_e.cfm> (June 27, 2005).

A symbol of Canadian identity
[...] The following words, spoken on that momentous day by the Honourable Maurice Bourget, Speaker of the Senate, added further symbolic meaning to our flag: ‘The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.’6

11A further characteristic facet is the beaver, to name only one of the many features representing Canadian history and the citizen’s close relationship to nature.  

• 8  Margaret ATWOOD, Survival. A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Toronto: Anansi, 1972, 32. Atw (...)

I’d like to begin with a sweeping generalization and argue that every country or culture has a single and informing symbol at its core. [...] The symbol, then—be it word, phrase, idea, image, or all of these—functions like a system of beliefs (it is a system of beliefs, though not always a formal one) which holds the country together and helps the people to co-operate for common ends. Possibly the symbol for America is The Frontier, [...]. The corresponding symbol for England is perhaps The Island, [...]. The central symbol for Canada—and this is based on numerous instances of its occurrence in both English and French Canadian literature—is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance. Like the Frontier and The Island, it is a multi-faceted and adaptable idea. For early explorers and settlers, it meant bare survival in the face of ‘hostile’ elements and/or natives: carving out a place and a way of keeping alive. [...] For French Canada after the English took over it became cultural survival, hanging on as a people, retaining a religion and a language under an alien government. And in English Canada now while the Americans are taking over it is acquiring a similar meaning.8

13She deduces from the concept of survival a ‘victim mentality,’ as Shannon Hengen points out:

• 9  Shannon HENGEN, “ATWOOD, Margaret Eleanor,” in William H. New, Encyclopedia of Literature in Canad (...)

The motif of Canadians as survivors with a victim mentality, which, she argues, describes many characters in Canadian fiction, is in fact frequently evoked by other critics to describe Atwood’s own characters.9

14A similar concept based on nature was developed by the critic Northrop Frye who focuses on the influences of the surroundings on the individual. It is especially the environmental conditions, to be more precise the vast wilderness and the extreme climate, which lead to the isolation of man. This isolation determines the character of the country and its people. Frye describes the special situation of Canada in his pioneering book The Bush Garden. Essays on Canadian Imagination as follows:

• 10  Northrop FRYE, The Bush Garden. Essays on Canadian Imagination, Concord: Anansi, 1995, 166. But Fr (...)

It is not a nation but an environment that makes an impact on poets, and poetry can deal only with the imaginative aspect of that environment. A country with almost no Atlantic seaboard, which for most of its history has existed in practically one dimension; a country divided by two languages and great stretches of wilderness, so that its frontier is a circumference rather than a boundary; a country with huge rivers and islands that most of its natives have never seen; a country that has made a nation out of the stops on two of the world’s longest railway lines: this is the environment that Canadian poets have to grapple with, and many of the imaginative problems it presents have no counterpart in the United States, or anywhere else.
In older countries the works of man and of nature, the city and the garden of civilization, have usually reached some kind of imaginative harmony. But the land of the Rockies and the Precambrian Shield impresses painter and poet alike by its raw colours and angular rhythms, its profoundly unhumanized isolation.10

15The most distinctive feature of the individual is his/her ‘garrison mentality’ which resulted from the need of the early settlers to protect themselves from the intimidating physical environment, from enemies and even from influences from other cultures. Frye argues:

• 11  Northrop Frye, op. cit., 227-228. In her foreword to The Bush Garden Linda Hutcheon writes about t (...)

Small and isolated communities surrounded with a physical or psychological ‘frontier’, separated from one another and from their American and British cultural sources: communities that provide all that their members have in the way of distinctively human values, and that are compelled to feel a great respect for the law and order that holds them together, yet confronted with a huge, unthinking, menacing, and formidable physical setting—such communities are bound to develop what we may provisionally call a garrison mentality. In the earliest maps of the country the only inhabited centres are forts, and that remains true of the cultural maps for a much later time. [...] A garrison is a closely knit and beleaguered society, and its moral and social values are unquestionable.11

• 14  Arun P. Mukherjee, Postcolonialism: My Living, Toronto: TSAR, 1998, 72-73.

Canadian literature, created, published, taught and critiqued under the aegis of Canadian nationalism promotes the settler-colonial view of Canada. Nationalist critics like Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, D G Jones and John Moss produced an essentialized Canadian character that, according to them, was discoverable in the literary texts of canonical Canadian writers. Canadians, these revered critics have told us, suffered from a garrison mentality because of their intimidating physical environment. They developed a victim complex, aiming only for survival rather than grandiose achievements unlike their neighbours to the south.
Although these environmentalist explanations of a Canadian identity, as well as the very obsession with a Canadian identity, have been challenged often enough, they have not been replaced yet by more inclusive theories of Canada and Canadian literature. Now we hear talk about postmodernist irony and dominants and marginals, but we do not hear any concerted responses to what Aboriginal and racial minority writers tell us about Canada and Canadian literature. Like our political leaders, who virtually ignored Aboriginal and racial minority Canadians’ concerns when they came up with their Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, much critical theory continues to be churned out in Canada that is premised on notions of Canada’s duality and remains profoundly oblivious to Aboriginal and racial minority voices.14

• 17  Arun P. MUKHERJEE, op. cit., 8-9.

The problem with this unitary theorizing which insists on speaking about all ‘postcolonial culture’ as one and which selectively focuses on issues of identity, hybridity, creolization, language, subversion of imperial texts, parody and mimicry, etc. is that it gives the impression that the texts being written in postcolonial societies are really about the angst of losing one’s precolonial identity and language. In fact, that is not the case. I have heard and read many writers comment about their unproblematic relationship with English. Nor are they concerned with ‘subverting’ or ‘appropriating’ Eurocentric codes as the Empire Writes Back type of criticism claims. Instead, they are concerned with writing about their societies’ material and ideological conditions. Aboriginal Canadian writers Maria Campbell and Jeannette Armstrong write about the realities of Native life and political struggles of Native peoples. [...] The Caribbean Canadian writer Dionne Brand ‘interrogates’ Derek Walcott and not some British writer in her poetry.17

• 20  Linda HUTCHEON, “Rudy Wiebe: Interview by Linda Hutcheon,” in Linda HUTCHEON and Marion RICHMOND ( (...)

Very rarely. I’m a Canadian because I was born here; I’m as Canadian as anyone can be, though my parents had only lived here four years when I was born. The fact is, a Mennonite has no country; that makes one different from being a Ukrainian, Greek or, as in your case, Italian. Since I come from no country, I also cannot ‘return’ to one, so in effect wherever I am, that’s my country.20

Teaching Materials on Canada for the EFL Classroom

20One of the most promising German Internet resources is the homepage ‘Education Canada’ which provides valuable information for teaching and learning purposes (cf. <http://www.education-canada.de/​Classroom/​Classroom.html>). Albert Rau who runs this homepage outlines the aims of this Internet resource as follows:

• 23 <http://www.education-canada.de/index-english.html> (July 20, 2005).

In addition to the multiple activities at various universities in the German -speaking countries, Canada has also become a topic in many English language classes at high school level, which is particularly due to an increasing volume of articles, anthologies and books that have become available in the past 20 years, focussing on Commonwealth literature and on Canada in particular. Furthermore, this development also applies to an increasing interest in French language teaching as well as in the Geography and History classroom. Therefore, this website, previously intended as a tool for teachers of English, has now been expanded to French, Geography and History.
It is not only the multitude of literary texts, background information and cultural topics that have become available for teachers, students, scholars and interested people, but also the Internet has developed into a valuable source of information about various aspects related to Canada. Since introducing students to the multifaceted possibilities of the Internet has become a teaching goal, the different sources of information that are offered on the Internet about Canada and its unique culture, people and geography provide an invaluable tool for everybody interested. For example, Canada is actually the first country in the world that has connected all its schools to the Internet.
Thus, this homepage is intended as a guide, online reference and research tool listing on the one hand bibliographical information and comments on published school materials, articles, anthologies etc. and on the other offering several portals with links and cross-references providing information on a variety of subjects and topics.
‘Education-Canada’ is primarily designed for teachers who intend to integrate Canada into their teaching syllabus, but should also be useful for students and experts in the field not only from the German-speaking countries, but basically for anybody related to the teaching of Canadiana or only interested in Canada and its people.23

21The following examples taken from teaching materials used in the EFL classroom illustrate the basic principles in presenting a foreign country to learners of English. Admittedly, these examples are only a small selection of the diverse materials on Canada. However, they are typical examples of how the image of the target culture(s) is constructed and of how stereotypes dominate our imagination as is shown, for example, in English in Action 4H which was published in 1982. Here, the learners are offered facts and figures to provide them with background information—as is done in many textbooks. What attracts our attention first are the photos which focus on wilderness, wildlife and the beauty of the landscape as distinctive features of the country. The text underlines this image:

• 24 English in Action 4H, München: Langenscheidt-Longman, 1982, 94.

Canada has many different kinds of landscape. A lot of the land is rocky and a lot is in an Arctic climate. There are very high mountains, large forests, and very big lakes and rivers. Almost all Canadian rivers have rapids and falls. The most famous are the Niagara Falls. [...] In the Arctic there are seals, the polar bear, the Arctic wolf and the white fox. Further south there are the moose, beaver, the Canada lynx and the black bear. Many different species of birds, e.g. the Canada jay, the cardinal, the Baltimore oriole and the catbird.24

• 27  Peter DOYÉ, op. cit., 31.

Most human beings function best and feel most at home in their own group, in their own culture. They have been socialized in it, i.e. have internalized its patterns of thinking, valuing and acting and, when confronted with other patterns, tend to reject them for the simple reason that they are unfamiliar. [...] Thinking in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ i.e. placing the group to which one belongs in opposition to a group or groups of others seems to be a fundamental characteristic of all human cognition. We do not know of any culture or language in which this opposition does not exist.27

24And in view of stereotypes and attitudes Magdalena Telus remarks:

• 28  Magdalena TELUS, “The ‘we’ vs ‘they’ opposition,” Internationale Schulbuchforschung, 19/2, 1997, 1 (...)

Like all petrified concepts, the ‘we’ vs ‘they’ opposition seems to have many positive functions, such as giving orientation, strengthening the self, fostering integration, economy etc.. But it has also many disadvantages: it impairs flexibility, maintains the separation between groups and encourages negative views of the out-group.
The ‘we’ vs ‘they’ opposition ignores the fact that an individual is at the same time a member of many groups and there are no social groups with sharp boundaries. It highlights a certain set of features [...] and easily overlooks that there are other features and that group construction comes out in a quite different way if one takes these other features into consideration. The pedagogical approach of intercultural learning can be seen as a reaction to the ‘we’ vs ‘they’ opposition as a perception scheme. Learners have to develop through intercultural learning the capability of counteracting this opposition’s deficiencies.28

• 30  Sylvia Söderlind, “Identity and Metamorphosis in Canadian Fiction Since the Sixties,” in Britta Ol (...)

In order for something to possess an identity, it must be different from everything that is not it. In order for something to be different from what is not it, it must be clearly delimited and set off from what surrounds it. Consequently, identity can only be perceived in terms of difference and delimitation or demarcation. The existential question ‘Who am I?’ can essentially be paraphrased as ‘In what way am I different from others?’.30

27A newspaper article on the following pages of this unit exemplifies cultural diversity and the issue of identity in Canada (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8). This article is about the contribution of immigrants and minority groups to Canadian society. It is not only the cultural influence which can be recognized in all fields of everyday life. As human resources, these people also contribute to demographic and economic development as the journalist Charles Trueheart writes in his newspaper article:

• 37 Ibid., 238.

In any case, there is more than nobility behind Canada’s embrace of newcomers. Immigrants and refugees keep this vast, thinly populated country from losing population. Immigrants contribute to the tax base and the job pool and open lucrative commercial lines to their home countries.37

28What is new here, is that many problems faced by multicultural societies are mentioned: isolation, fragmentation, integration and acculturation. The questions about the newspaper article expect the learner to utter his/her critical opinion of the matter. The learner even is supposed to compare his/her situation with the situation described in the text on Canada. This is called komparatistische Landeskunde (‘comparative area studies’) in German curricula.

29A further example of immigration and multiculturalism is depicted in Fig. 9 and in Fig. 10. This unit is taken from the textbook Canadian Mosaic—Mosaïque canadienne which is partly in English, partly in French. Again, the learner is to compare the situation in Canada with the situation in Germany concerning immigration. In contrast to the aforementioned example this unit concentrates on statistics and the ethnic stratification of the population. Problems resulting from the confrontation of cultures are neglected:

• 40  Peter KLAUS (Ed.), Canadian Mosaic—Mosaïque canadienne, Berlin: Cornelsen, 1993, 50.

Si les immigrants d’origine germanique, ukrainienne et italienne forment encore aujourd’hui les trois principaux groupes de Canadiens nés hors du pays, la nouvelle vague d’immigration amène maintenant plutôt des Centraméricains (dont le nombre a triplé depuis 1981), des Chinois (ils ont doublé) et des étrangers en provenance du Moyen-Orient (hausse de 81 %).40

30The textbooks Summit (Fig. 11) and Canada (Fig. 12) negotiate the issue of a national identity by citing the writers Peter C. Newman and Andrei Voznesensky, the actor Robert Morley, the historian Richard A. Preston, and the critic Northrop Frye (see Northrop Frye’s The Bush Garden, in chapter 3). These authentic voices represent different views of the Canadian character and mentality. Their comments on this character are related to climatic conditions and the natural environment. Richard A. Preston puts it bluntly:

• 43  Eberhard GAST (Ed.), op. cit., 239.

Canadians often appear to suffer from a pronounced inferiority complex resulting from their proximity to the United States. They are probably the only people in the world whose nationalism consists mainly in complaining that there is no real national identity in the country.43

31One of the decisive criteria of teaching foreign cultures is the learners’ identification with boys and girls of the peer group. In spite of all cultural and national differences, identification makes the process of understanding the other easier. The learner is more willing to take the other’s perspective over and to learn about the other’s everyday life, about the other’s problems and about the society of the target culture. The textbook Colourful Canada offers many opportunities to develop empathy and to initiate understanding. A young Inuit, a young Mohawk Indian and a young Chinese-Canadian are telling about their lives in Canada and about their opinions of cultural, ethnic and national identity:

• 46  Roger Burford MASON, Colourful Canada, Berlin: Cornelsen, 1992, 6.

Thomas
I’m glad we have a modern home, but I’m also proud that we still live by the old ways. My father and uncles, and my cousin Ken and I hunt walrus and seals. There are probably only a few hundred families left who continue this tradition. It’s a hard life. [...] I went to school in the village church when I was little, and then to Inuvik High School until I was 15. Then I left to become a hunter. All my school friends went to work in the oil and gas fields, and most of them have become like Canadians now. They eat hamburgers and French fries, watch videos and earn a lot of money. They say I’m living in the past, and that hunting will only get more difficult. They may be right, but for now I’ll keep on trying. It’s the way of our people, and it’s the way I want to live.46

• 47 Ibid., 8.

Joe
My life as an Indian is similar to, and yet different from, the life of the young white people who live outside the reserve. Although we play on [sic] the same school teams and share in each other’s lives in many ways, there are sometimes tensions between us. It’s a pity we don’t always respect each other’s cultures.47

• 48 Ibid., 9.

Jane
I think of myself as Canadian, and although I am very proud of my Chinese cultural heritage, I will never live in the traditional Chinese way that my parents do. [...] I feel I am more Canadian than my parents and my friends are a mixture of nationalities.48

32The last example from the textbook Canada is a text by Don McIvor who is talking about the problem of being Canadian and belonging to an ethnic minority group—to the Métis (Fig. 13 and Fig. 14). It is also about multiculturalism and the unity of the country which can be realised if all the cultural communities regard themselves as Canadian. McIvor says:

• 49  Kurt OSER (Ed.), op. cit., 41.

I am Canadian first and a Métis second. Some of my people get angry at me for saying this. But if everybody isn’t a Canadian first, we cannot keep the country together. It is just damn foolishness to think that the Métis or any of the different racial groups could prosper if Canada broke up into a lot of little countries.49

Conclusions

33Along with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, Canada is of growing interest to learners of English in Germany. Whereas those textbooks which were published in the 1980s and before mainly focused on facts and figures to provide background information on Canada to our students, modern teaching materials try to enable the learner to initiate cultural awareness and to develop intercultural competence, i.e. for example to arouse interest in the variety of target cultures and to interpret culture-bound behaviour, perspectives and attitudes. Canada is a very suitable object to study the complexity of a multicultural society and the issue of a national identity. The examples taken from textbooks showed that we have to view identity (or identities) from various, non-Eurocentric perspectives. The large number of cultural and ethnic communities in Canada, especially the non-dominant groups, influences our preconceived image of the country which is to a large extent based on heterostereotypes. Minority voices and the perspective of marginalized groups contribute to reaching the aims of intercultural education and to reconsidering our self-image and our views of foreign cultures.