Teaching culture in foreign language programmes at third level education

STRACT; This chapter deals with the following áreas in foreign language teaching:; negotiating what culture to teach, what aspects of this culture to focus; upon, how much to teach of each aspect, when a programme demands revisión,; the importance and relevance of Web and INTERNET sources in teaching; culture, autonomous learning and culture exposure. The main aim of; this chapter is to reflect upon the reasons we may argüe in favour of a; specific culture element in a foreign language course as part of a university; degree programme. I will cali upon my own experience as a module-course; designer in Spanish for different degree programmes at the University of; Limerick.; It may seem an easy and obvious task for some to decide on what to; teach as regards the culture element in a foreign language course. However,; not even in mono-lingual countries should this task be taken lightly. Therefore,; when we are dealing with a language spoken in many countries, the problem; seems to raise a number of questions. I will not be dealing here with the decision-making; process concerning what variation of a foreign language is to; be taught. I also want to emphasise that the teaching of a foreign language,; by no means, can be divorced from teaching culture.