Productive Diversity, Multicultural Potlucks and Technology

​Starting around the time of Thanksgiving through Christmas, teachers in the United States who work with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners use the holiday seasons to give their students an opportunity to share their culture through food. 

​These social events at schools and in classrooms give students an opportunity to take on the instructor role, as they describe their dish, how it is made and any historical significance. The EFL learners practice English while sharing a significant part of who they are.

​A question is how to bring that experience and its benefits to an online community? What technology
can be used? The experience is not just bringing the food but it encompasses tasting the food and having
discussions around it.

​Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, here is an outline of how this could work in an online community.

​1. Remember – Students from different countries or regions would be paired. They would recall a dish from
their home country, write a recipe for it in their home language and exchange it with their partner using an
online drive.
2. Understand – Student would translate the recipe they received – ingredients, measurements, and
instructions - into English. The sender of the recipe would provide feedback as to whether they thought
the translation was accurate.
3. Apply – Each student would prepare two dishes. One would be the recipe received from their partner; the
other would be from the recipe they gave their partner.
4. Analyze – The day of the potluck students would exchange photographs of their dish showing the outside
and inside and would interact using video chat software that had a/v recording capabilities. They would
hold up the same dish and in English compare, contrast, identify and categorize the tastes, smells and
explain any substitutions they may have made in English.
5. Evaluate – They would recommend to each other changes, if needed.
6. Create – The students would brainstorm and plan a fusion dish that had elements of recipes from each of
their country; and prepare the new dish for when the whole class met.
7. The pairs would meet online with the whole class, provide background on the dishes they chose to share,
and taste their fusion dish and discuss the results.

To summarize, in order to make a multicultural potluck work online, the digital technology needed would be file-sharing and video
conferencing.