毕 业 论 文
学生姓名
院 (系)
专 业
题 目
王召妍 讲 师 周兵红 学 号 04级淮阴师范学院本科函授 英 语 在初中英语教学中培养文化意识
指导教师
（姓 名） （专业技术职称/学位）
2008 年 4 月
淮阴师范学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
On Cultivating Cultural Consciousness in Junior
English Teaching
By
Zhou Binghong
A Thesis Submitted to
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of B.A. in English
At Huaiyin Teachers College
Under the Supervision of Wang Zhaoyan
April 2008
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Abstract Successful and effective teaching of English should shift from the simple teaching model of ―for the language to learn language‖ to the combination of language teaching and culture teaching. As teachers of English, we should pay more attention to the introduction of culture to cultivate our students’ cross-cultural consciousness and communicative competence in the teaching. Language is the carrier and container of culture; language, as a mirror of culture, is strongly influenced and shaped by culture. Language and culture is closely related, each influencing and shaping the other. In accordance with the requirements of English Curriculum Criterion of Junior School issued by Ministry of Education, this paper aims at describing the importance of infiltrating cultural education into the English teaching during junior school from the relationship between language and culture. The paper analyzes the abundant cultural resources in the junior English textbooks and tries to explore some detailed procedures of infiltrating cross-cultural education into English teaching in junior school including supplement of cultural background, cultural comparison, and application and comparison .
Key Words Cross-cultural education cultural consciousness
junior English
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摘要 成功有效的英语教学应该改变单纯“为语言而学语言”的课堂教学模式，应向语言知识教学与文化内容传授相结合的方向转变。英语教师要重视文化导入，在教学中注重培养学生的跨文化交际意识和能力。本文立足于新颁布的《初中英语课程标准》的目标要求，从语言与文化关系出发，提出在中学英语阶段教学中渗透跨文化教育的重要性。分析了初中英语教材中丰富的文化资源，并结合自身的教学实践，尝试探讨在中学英语教学中渗透跨文化教育的一些具体做法,如文化背景补充、文化比较、运用和比较等。
关键词 跨文化教育，文化意识， 初中英语
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Contents
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………1
2. The importance of cross-cultural education during junior school…
3. Abundant cultural resources in junior English textbooks………… Picture resource………………………………………………… Reading material resource……………………………………… Vocabulary resource……………………………………………
4. Methods of cross –cultural education………………………………
4.1 Language supplement and cultural comparison………………
4.1.1 Language supplement………………………………………
4.1.2 Cultural comparison…………………………………………
4.2 Specific methods…………………………………………………
4.2.1 Cultural aside…………………………………………………
4.2.2 Appreciation and analysis of language………………………
4.3 Words application and comparison………………………………
4.3.1 Words amplification…………………………………………
4.3.2 Words comparison……………………………………………
5.Conclusion……………………………………………………………… 5
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1.Introduction
Issued newly English Curriculum Criterion describes the objective of course, which indicates the overall goal during junior school is to cultivate students’ application abilities of general language. The form of application abilities of general language is based on the integrated qualities which are language knowledge, language skill, feelings and attitude, strategy of study and cultural consciousness. To accomplish the overall goal, the five qualities cannot be applied absolutely, in which cultural consciousness is the bulwark of using language correctly and includes cultural knowledge, cultural comprehension and cross-cultural communicative consciousness and competence. Besides that, English Curriculum Criterion emphasizes that students should have a general knowledge of the differences between the cultures of English-speaking countries and between Chinese culture and the cultures of English-speaking countries. In the teaching, when it comes to the cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries, the knowledge should be closely bound up with the everyday lives of students and also can stimulate them to learn English .
2.The importance of cross-cultural education in English teaching
In the USA, a student studying abroad was killed with a gun because he couldn’t understand the colloquialism ―Freeze!‖ ,―Freeze!‖ means “站住”“不许动”which is known by many Americans. I think that this student should have known the basic meaning “冰冻”、“结冰”.As he didn’t know the cultural meaning of this word in the USA, he paid for his life as a result. This painful lesson is worth of pondering to us: If this student had known more about the differences between Chinese culture and western culture, he wouldn’t have come to harm.
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From the above story, we can acquire a message: In the teaching of English, we should not be limited to the input of language knowledge, but take the input of culture into account. It is necessary to cultivate students’ cross-cultural communicative competence.
Every state has its own culture that is miscellaneous in content. Lots of scholars from different countries give their own definitions of culture. Linell Davis, a famous American scholar, defines culture as ―Culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs ,values, behaviors, instructions and communication patterns that are shared ,learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable group of people.‖ New English course criterion shows that language has rich cultural connotation. In the teaching of English, culture refers to history , geography, local conditions and customs, traditional convention, life style, art and literature , behaviors and values of English-speaking countries. Contacting and understanding the cultures of English countries make for understanding and using English, understanding our own culture, cultivating world feelings, constructing cross-cultural communicative competence. As teachers of English, we should extend cultural scope gradually according to the students’ ages and cognition.
“Language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it.”It comes into being and evolves with human society. Man creates culture with language whereas culture accelerates the development of human society and enriches the expressions of language. Since antiquity, cultural heritage that passed down through the generations has been deeply engraved upon language. Language is the language of culture of human society. it is closely related to human society and human culture. American linguist E.Spir(1884),an American linguist points out that a language cannot exist in a ―cultural vacuum ‖nor can it exist in a vacuum of practices and beliefs inherited from the society .Therefore we should put some cross-cultural education into our English class.
Social scientists tell us “that cultures differ from one another, that each culture is unique. As cultures are diverse, so languages are diverse. It is only natural then that with difference in cultures and differences in languages, difficulties often arise in 7
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communicating between cultures and across cultures. Understanding is not always easy ” However, in our traditional English classes, Many teachers often give too much language knowledge but very few cultural knowledge for the need of examination-oriented education. As a result, many students fall short of cross-cultural consciousness to a great extent. They often have much misunderstanding in culture although they have had better language knowledge. They often fail to communicate with others. So, not only should we help students with their abilities of language, but also we should help them understand the social rule of it. If we can make it, I believe that we can reduce, even eradicate the communicative obstruction that is brought in because of the cultural variance.
3. Abundant cultural resources in junior English textbooks
In terms of English Curriculum Criterion of state (experimental draft) drawn up by Ministry Education, Teaching and Research Room for Primary and Middle School of Jiangsu Province and Oxford University Press compile this set of textbooks for the students of junior high school. Each Unit of this set of textbooks has some cultural subjects. Next let’s have a look at the cultural subject of each unit in 9A and 9B for the students of Grade Nine.
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From the above form, we can see that the topic of every module takes the relationship between communication and culture into account substantially. Language material also reflects communicative culture. While students learn and understand foreign cultures, especially cultures from those countries of English, they also strengthen the understanding of native culture.
Each unit of this set of textbooks is composed of nine parts which are comic strip, welcome to the unit , reading, vocabulary, grammar, Integrated skill, study skill , main task and checkout. When using this set of textbooks, I found that there are a lot of cultural resources which are mainly distributed in comic strip , welcome to the unit ,reading and vocabulary. According to the four parts, I divide the cultural resources in the textbooks into three types:
3.1. Picture resource
This set of textbooks are excellent in both pictures and language, Comic strip of each unit is composed of four pictures which are closely related to the topic of this unit. The brief and interesting dialogue between lovely Eddie and Hobo brings the gist 9
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of this unit to light. For instance, the four pictures of Unit1 in 9A describe vividly that Eddie guess what he can eat on that day from his star sign. Welcome to the unit is a warm-up activity which aims at arousing students’ interest. For example, the five pictures of Unit 4 in9B show us some famous great people from many countries who got great achievements in every field.
3.2. Reading material resource
Each unit of this set of textbooks has a reading article. All these articles are plentiful in content and diverse in the choice of subject. They nearly covers all kinds of realistic lives of English-speaking countries，such as school life , society of the day , nature protection, interpersonal relationship, physical culture. These articles get close to social life and students’ life ,for example :students and their school life can be seen in Unit 2 of 8A；When we read about charity in Unit 4,5,6.of 8B, we can see what responsibility and obligation we should have to this society; if we open our textbook 9B in Unit 1and Unit 2,we can feel the development of the future technology. These articles with humanistic value consolidate students’ life experience 、social development and scientific knowledge .
3.3. Vocabulary resource
In this set of textbooks, the part of Vocabulary mainly helps students learn new words to enlarge their lexical numbers from two sides. One introduces more vocabulary classification closely connected with the topic of this unit to the students from word family which can be seen in many units of this set of textbooks. On the other hand, many words are imported to help students induce those words learned before from word-building which can help students remember new words effectively according to the patterns of them. We can see something about it in Unit 2, Unit 5 and 10
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Unit 6 of 8B.Besides that, these words also have a characteristic of melting the development of English and some unique cultures of English-speaking countries, for instance some idioms in Unit 4 of 9B.
4. Methods of cross-cultural education
With regard to these so abundant cultural resources in junior English , in my ordinary teaching, I make a intensive study of this set of textbooks and look up some background materials related to it. Next I tell you about my own methods of filtrating cross-cultural education into English class.
4.1 Language supplement and cultural comparison
4.1.1 Language supplement
The part of Welcome to the unit has rich pictures, but there are few language materials matching with them. When we develop some activities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, rare language materials in the book are not enough .We can supplement some words materials related to the topic of this unit according to the pictures .If so, students not only learn some language knowledge but also feel the different cultures from it .
Take Unit 3 A day out in 8A for an example, The following is the pictures:
Step 1 Picture-talking
A. Get some students to describe the pictures with the help of some questions : a. What is in the picture? Where is it from?
b. How do you like it ? What else do you know about it ?
B. The teacher gives brief introductions to these places of interest.
Step 2. Listening-matching
Get the students to listen to some data from them and match them
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Step3 Discussing
Get the students to discuss the questions in this part.
2. In the above procedure, I use the description of picture , introduction to places of interest , match for the relevant material ,discussion of question to supplement the language materials such as listening, speaking, reading .During the course of class, the students not just acquire the input of language message but also know about places of interest in modern or ancient times, in China or elsewhere and local conditions and customs in the world ,especially English-speaking countries.
4.1.2 Cultural comparison
Including comparison and contrast, it mainly means that Chinese culture shares the same characteristics with other cultures but there are some differences between them.
First take Unit 1 Star signs of 9A for an example, the following is the pictures: These are western star signs. At the beginning of class, I set some questions for the students:
a. Can you tell me what the 12 animal signs of the Chinese horoscope are?
b. Is the animal sign relevant to the year or the month?
c. What animal sign are you? Do you know what the animal sign represent?
The students were so interested in these topics that they all fell over themselves to answer these questions. It took a few minutes to answer them, but this class led to a new direction and aroused the students’ interest. Afterwards, when the pictures of star signs in the book were introduced, the students experienced the differences between Chinese culture and western culture. In order to let them say the differences on their own, I divided the groups into three .In a short time, they gave their answers, such as the difference of animals, the difference of time. Besides that, they also share some the same characteristics. I let the students say out them in the same way. During the course, the students learned how to get on with others from what these animals present.
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4.2 Specific methods
4.2.1Cultural aside “Cultural aside⑧”is the cultural teaching method given by Hu Wenzhong and Gao Yihong .When the students read the article, the variance in culture stops them to understand further. Cultural teaching method is the one that not only can make the students learn language knowledge, but also can make the students understand the culture hidden in the language knowledge through adding the introduction of cultural background by different teaching procedures to students .I think it is an effective teaching method. It can encourage students to study further easily.
Now take Unit 5 Hollywood’s all-time favorite -Audrey Hepburn in 9A for an example .First I import the text from cultural view point:
A. Play a video about Audrey Hepburn.
B. Get the students to write down some new words in this passage to describe what they can see and hear from the video.
C. Collect students’ answers and tackle the new words by asking some questions: a. About whom is this video? And what is she?
b. Where and when was she born?
c. What did she do before she became a Hollywood superstar?
d. Which film made her famous instantly?
e. When did she end her acting year?
f. How do people in the world look on her?
D. Present the following new words while answering these questions: （） th 1929 In 1989,（） The teaching activities before reading are to ―arouse the students’ interest in the topic or type of text; motivate students to read the text by providing a purpose for reading; prepare the students for the content of the text‖. As the students are 13
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unfamiliar with Audrey Hepburn, the teacher needs to provide the students with some background about her. I downloaded some video about Audrey Hepburn from the Internet. On one hand, after watching the frame and listening to the comments , the students were asked to describe what they had seen and heard with the words of this unit . Then these words were presented one by one in the form of question. During the course, the students practiced listening too. On the other hand, the students were guided to have an initial knowledge of Audrey Hepburn who got successful and outstanding achievement during her life. So, the teaching activities that foresee the message of a text and lead to it naturally bridge between the newly—learning knowledge and the learned knowledge .
4.2.2 Appreciation and analysis of language
Reading articles in this set of textbooks are varied in form . Different types of articles differ in style of writing and language. A teacher should guide his or her students to appreciate the artistic quality hidden in the article so that he or she can help them read the article further and understand English language better.
Take Unit 6 Pets in 7B for an example , After understanding the poem, I carry out my teaching procedure like this:
A. Get the students to read the poems aloud and find the different styles of poems.
B. Get the students to read some sentences and appreciate the styles of poems.
C. Get the students to find out the resemblances and the differences between western poems and Chinese poems.
During the course of reading, the students knew about the features of language of English poems .Not only did they appreciate the features of language ,but also they saw the poet’s attitude to life.
4.2.3 Discussion and extension
Each country has its own culture, While reading and understanding the article, the students can often run into some controversial matters. At this time, the students should be given some time to discuss or even argue about them. But they have to offer their own strong evidence to support themselves.
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Now take Unit 2 Robots in 9B for an example. I get the students to debate the following question. Should robots work for us in our everyday lives? The students were interested in the topic. They all gave their own ideas. At last, they are divided into two sides. One insisted that robots should work for us, because they can help us out of the gruelling work. The other insisted that robots make us lazier. By debating, they opened their ideas and strengthened the abilities to express themselves. On the other hand, they also had a deeper knowledge of the text. To some extent, the debate helped them form right world idea, philosophy and values.
4.3 Words complication and comparison
Leaning words is one of the most important links when learning English. A wealth of cultural connotations are hidden in English words where some are from old stories, some are from legends and some are from literary outputs. In the teaching of English, the introduction of cultural connotation of English words and the comparison of Chinese and English words should appear a lot in case the students have a wrong understanding of English words from the denotation of words themselves or from their own cultural background.
4.3.1 Words complication
The textbooks are different from the textbooks used before. There are more than fifty new words in each unit. These words are closely related to our lives but many of them are not easy to memorize. Take Unit 1 of 9A for an example. The words about star signs are seldom seen at other times and are difficult to spell, but the pictures in the book can provide the students with visual expressions and bring the teaching of words interest. Take Unit 5 International charities in 9A for another example. Some suffixes of word-building such as –ment, --ness, --ion are generalized in a form which can help students know their meanings ,learn the method of word-building and memorize the words effectively.
4.3.2 Words comparison
Because of different cultural background, the connotations of English words may be different from those of Chinese words. Take Unit 4 Great people in 9B for an 15
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example, there are some English idioms in the part of Vocabulary. I ask my students to compare them.
English Chinese
The early bird catch the worm 捷足先登
Many hands make light work 人多力量大
Raining cats and dogs 倾盆大雨
When the cat’s away, the mice will play 山中无老虎，猴子称大王 Too many cooks spoil the broth 人多手杂反误事
Love me, love my dog 爱屋及乌
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket 切勿孤注一掷
The grass is always greener on the other side 邻家芳草绿，隔岸风景好
From the above comparisons, we can see the different expressions of language because of different cultural background . The profound connotations of British and American cultures that are accumulated over the years are hidden in the English words. It is important for students to know some literary allusions, idiom and their origins and evolutions. As a teacher, we should give our students proper guidance of cultural differences and get them to understand the profound connotations of these English words so that they can use the words correctly.
5. Conclusion
What I have written above are my detailed examples that filtrate cross-cultural education into English teaching .I believe that , as a teacher, we should tap the cultural connotations in the textbooks as much as possible to put the knowledge of cultural background into shape. When teaching in class, we can try our best to set some true communicative circumstances. In short, the teachers should cultivate the students’ cultural consciousness with culture and help them get correct communicative culture to improve cross-cultural communicative competence.
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Works Cited
Guo Jianzhong. Beijing: China Translation & Publishing
Corporation, 1999. 王振亚.语言与文化[M].北京：高等教育出版社,1999,PP1
顾曰国《英语教学法》上 外语教学与研究出版社 p131
《英语课程标准》 .cn/ncs/eng/eng.htm
邓炎昌 刘润清 《语言与文化》 外语教学与研究出版社 P3
李运兴. 跨文化翻译中的文化因素[A]. 郭建中.文化与翻译[C].北京：中国对外翻译出版公司 1999,P192
胡文仲,高一虹.外语教学与文化[M].长沙:湖南教育出版社 1997
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