This always seems to make it into my intermediate/advanced classes at some point! It is helpful for students to have a little understanding of cross-cultural communication since they are studying another language/culture. I will add this activity into a unit that covers food, festivals or fashion. It has been most successful with my advanced classes.
The idea is that what is visible in a culture (food, fashion, festivals, games, and music) has deeper roots to the invisible aspects of that culture. For example, when we look at an iceberg, the portion above water is only a small piece of a much larger picture. Similarly, one tends to understand culture as the observable characteristics of a group like food, dress, and rituals. However, these are just external manifestations of the deeper roots of culture – attitudes and values.
I go through this worksheet with the students and then have the students present their cultural iceberg to the class (or small group). I also have had students write other metaphors for culture and have had some very creative responses. Depending on how much interest the students show, this lesson can be expanded into hours of conversations or can be for just one class period.
I also use this site to compare it with the student created icebergs.
ESL Instructor