Importance of Cultural Introduction in English Teaching英语教学中文化导入的重要性.docx

Importance of Cultural Introduction in English TeachingAbstract Nowadays, the importance of culture teaching is an increasingly hot topic in the field of English teaching. However, there are still some problems that exist in English cultural teaching. The students have a quite good mastery of grammar and vocabulary, but they cannot communicate with the native speakers successfully when the information is related with social culture. Therefore, it is necessary to develop students interest toward cultural learning and cultivate their ability of systematic and effective techniques of culture introduction. This paper is divided into three parts.The first part tell us what is language，what is culture，and the delicate interdependent and interactional relationship between them.On this base,the second part firstly analyze the problem of cultural background knowledge in English teaching.Then discuss the necessity of cultural background knowledge in listening，speaking，reading，writing and translating so that the reader realize how important of cultural knowledge introduction in English teaching it is.Finally this paper puts forward a series of strategies and suggestions of cultural introduction in English language teaching,aiming to those issues and the differences between Eastern culture and Western culture。Keywords: Language，Culture，Cultural background introduction，English teaching，strategy and suggestion 小四号 Times New Roman行距：多倍行距，设置值1.25英语教学中文化导入的重要性摘 要 现今，文化教育的重要性已成为英语教育界一个越来越重要的话题。然而，英语文化教育中仍然存在着一些问题。学生能够很好地掌握语法和词汇，但是当涉及到社会文化信息时，便不能和本族语言的使用者成功地进行交流。因此，培养学生文化学习的兴趣以及适当进行系统而有效的文化导入是非常有必要的。 本文一共分为三部分。第一部分简要介绍语言是什么，文化是什么，然后概括地论述语言和文化之间相互依存，相互作用的微妙关系；在此基础上，第二部分先简析文化背景知识在英语教学中存在的问题，然后论述在英语教学听，说，读，写，译上的必要性，让读者意识到文化知识导入在英语教学中的重要性；最后一部分是针对这些问题和中西方的差异，提出了一系列英语教学中实现文化导入的策略和建议。关键词：语言，文化，文化背景导入，英语教学，策略和建议小四号 宋体行距：多倍行距，设置值1.25 IIICONTENTSAbstract摘 要Introduction11 Language and Culture2 1.1 Definition of Language. 2 1.2 Definition of Culture .2 1.3 Relationship between Language and Culture.32 The importance of Cultural Introduction in English Teaching5 2.1 The Problems of English Cultural Background Knowledge in Teaching.5 2.2 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Aural Comprehension5 2.3 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Oral English. 6 2.4 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Reading.7 2.5 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Writing and Translation83 Instructional Strategies for Teaching Cultural Background Knowledge in English Classroom.10 3.1 Authentic Materials.10 3.2 Film.10 3.3 Literature.11 3.4 Encouraging Wide Reading to Improve English Proficiency.11 3.5 Encouraging Communication with Native speakers of English.11 3.6 Eliminating the Cultural Barriers.12 3.7 On class discussion.12 3.8 Role play.12Conclusion14Bibliography15Acknowledgments16小三号 加粗Times New Roman Introduction It is believed that language and culture are undividable. Without cultural setting, Language itself is nonsensical. They are complicatedly interconnected with each other. People believe that the cultural knowledge is as important as proficiency in their language uses. Cultural teaching in foreign language classrooms should be as important as linguistic knowledge teaching. Culture introduction should be integrated with language teaching in many aspects and at multiple levels so that learners' intercultural communicative skills can be improved. Byram (1989) states that when people learn a new language, they also learn its culture and when they learn to use the language, they are learning to make conversations with other people from a new cultural situation. The knowledge of culture has a great impact on learners' language use and sometimes directly influences the result of communication with native speakers. Most language teachers would agree that in order to apply language skills successfully and efficiently, the knowledge of cultural environment is crucial. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why the culture component is so important in foreign language teaching. 小四号 Times New Roman行距：多倍行距，设置值1.251 Language and Culture1.1 Definition of Language We live in a world of words.Hardly any moment passes without talking ,writing or reading by language.But“what is language?”Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated: “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.”1The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”2And most linguists agree that language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication3. However, they all have limit.According to my understanding, human language is and unique in being a symbolic communication system that is learned instead of biologically inherited,they born of naturally but not randomly.1.2 Definition of Culture Culture here is a ubiquitous word, which has a complex history and diverse range of meaning. Therefore, it is very difficult to define culture because it has a multi-face nature. Different Scholar from different filed have different definitions, and they will be explained in the following in detail. Hoebel and Frost (1976) saw culture in nearly all human activities, according to them; culture is an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance.4Based on their definition, culture is not determined by peoples genetic or instinct, but it is learned and when a person is born, he or she is restricted to a particular geographic location and they are exposed to and surrounded by some certain people and certain messages. All the materials used by a person are culturally based. Therefore, according to the statements above, everything that persons experiences can be accounted as one part of his or her culture. Sapir defines beliefs that determine the culture as “the socially inherited assemblage of practices and texture of our lives”. According to Nida, culture is “all learned behavior which is socially acquired”. 5 Porter and Samovar (1994) claim that culture refers to knowledge, experience, meaning, beliefs, values, attitudes, religions, concept of self, the universe, and self-universe relationships, hierarchies of status, role expectations, spatial relationships and time concepts acquired by a group of people. 6Based on Porter and Samovar, culture refers to the whole environment of particular groups of people. It includes everything that a group of people think, say, do and make; Brown also comments “A culture is a collection of beliefs, habits, living patterns and behaviors which are held more or less in common by people who occupy particular geographical areas”.7 According to them, culture is everything that ranges from the word in a passage to the trifles in our life.All of these definitions as well as the others all imply that culture is a prevalent phenomenon because it includes not only the customs and habits, ideas and beliefs of a certain group, but also refer to the man made things around the group. From this point, the learners might say that culture is the synonymy with the way of peoples living. In other words, culture is a combination of a nations spiritual and material life1.3 Relationship between Language and Culture It is generally accepted that language and culture are related to each other. Language is not only for communication between people who have their own cultural norms, but as a mirror to reflect the world and people's view of the world. Because of the need of international communication for economic technological development among various countries, English is more and more used in different countries and cultures for exchanging information. Culture and language are related to each other, which is strongly advocated by Byram, who has contended that cultural learning and language learning cannot take place independent of each other.8Culture is a complex concept that includes language. Many theorists have expressed this point of view from various perspectives. For example, Kramsch has made the point that the purpose for learning a foreign language is "a way of making cultural statement" as well as learning "a new way of making communication"while other theorists have attached great importance to culture for language understanding. In sum, culture is related to language and vice versa. Culture would be difficult to be transmitted from place to place and from generation to generation if there were no languages, the principal carrier of values and meanings of a culture. Language would be impossible to be understood without constant reference to the cultural context, which has produced it. It may, therefore, be argued that culture and language cannot be treated exclusive of each other in language teaching program. In other words, it is necessary and more proper to teach both language and culture in an integrated way. It is worthy of noting here that one of the practices of integrating the two is to use the target language as the medium of instruction in culture teaching. 2 The importance of Cultural Introduction in English Teaching2.1 The Problems of English Cultural Background Knowledge in Teaching Recently, the discussion on the relationship between language and culture as well as the input of cultural factors has become a hot topic in the field of the English teaching field. Even though the cultural teaching has been paid attention to, there are some limitations and problems in instruction.For instance,Americans wear black for mourning bur Chinese wear white.Westerners think of dragon as monster.Chinese honor them as symbol of God.Chinese are very hospitable .When inviting someone for dinner,the host always clips vegetables,urges to drink,and until he gets the visitor to be drunk.If we use the same way to entertain the American merchants,we will not succeed in business.It has been given not enough care in English teaching for a long time. Although many students have acquired four skillslistening, speaking, reading and writing according to the demand of our traditional syllabus, they often make mistakes in application of language to real life, because our teaching and teaching materials attach importance to language forms but ignore the social meanings of language forms and language application in reality.2.2 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Aural Comprehension In teaching of aural comprehension,many students complain that much time has been used in listening, but little achievement has been acquired. In order to improve competence of listening comprehension, some students specially buy tape recorders for listening and spend quite a few hours every day on it, but once they meet new materials, still, they fail to understand. What is the reason? On the one hand, maybe some studentsEnglish is very poor and they havent grasped enough vocabularies, clear grammar or correct pronunciation, or maybe the material is rather difficult, etc. On the other hand, an important reason is that they are unfamiliar with cultural background of the USA and England. Aural comprehension, which is closely related to the knowledge of American and British culture, politics and economy, in fact, is an examination of ones comprehensive competence which includes ones English level, range of knowledge, competence of analysis and imaginative power. We may have this experience.When we are listening to something familiar , no matter what is concerned, usually we are easy to understand. Although there are some new words in the material, we are able to guess their meanings according to its context. However, when we encounter some unfamiliar material or something closely related to cultural background, we may feel rather difficult. Even if the material is easy, we only know the literal meaning, but cant understand the connotation, because we lack knowledge of cultural background. Here is a sentence from a report:“The path to November is uphill all the way.” “November” literally means “the eleventh month of year”. But here refers to “the Presidential election to be held in November”. Another example is “redletter days”which is a simple phrase and is easy to hear, meaning holidays such as Christmas and other special days. But students are often unable to understand them without teachers explanation. Below are two jokes often talked about by Americans: 1. A: Where are you from? B: Ill ask her. (Alaska) A: Why do you ask her? 2. A: Where are you from? B: How are you. (Hawaii) A may think B has given an irrelevant answer. But if A knew something about geographical knowledge of the USA, and the names of two states of the USAAlaska and Hawaii, he would not regard “Alaska” as “Ill ask her”, or “Hawaii” as “How are you”. According to the brief narration, the introduction of cultural background is necessary in the teaching of English listening.2.3 Necessity of Teaching Cultural Background in Oral English In oral English teaching, students should be trained to speak in western ways, but not formal writing English we have learned. Students need to realize that the key is to let others understand what you say, so try to be clear but not so complex, because the culture of English is s