刘静论文定稿.docx

1、刘静论文定稿The Cultivation of Cross-culture Consciousnessin Middle School English Teaching . IntroductionCulture, as the total pattern of human behavior and its products, oversteps geographical limits and historical conditions in many ways, and it is characterized by its strong penetrativeness, people of

2、 different cultural backgrounds apparently interact each other (Wang, 1999: 139). Especially after Chinas accession to the WTO and the outside world power is strengthening in China, second language usage becomes increasingly extensive. Cross-cultural communication is particularly more important than

3、 before.Language is an important carrier of culture, which is assumed have the task of cultural heritage continuation (Wang & Wu, 1994: 89). Whats more, foreign language teaching is the key to cross-cultural communication, that means getting more teachers and students begin to realize that mere know

4、ledge of languages and skills about culture has been far from meeting the requirements of social development, the “ability of cross-cultural communication ” is the ultimate goal of foreign language education.To meet this demand of the situation development, English teaching should be made substantia

5、l adjustments. Among them, “cultural consciousness” plays its role as one of the five basic elements in current situation. How to train students in cultural consciousness, enhance cross-cultural communication ability of students, the new “English curriculum standards” set forth explicit requirements

6、 for teachers: teachers teaching should be based on cognitive features, gradually expand the scope of cultural knowledge (Fan & Jiang, 1997: 80). In the start-up phase, teachers should enable students to understand primary English national culture, the similarities and differences between Chinese an

7、d foreign cultures, students should be closely related to the daily life around them, cultivate their interests in learning English, and encourage them to improve the sensitivity of Chinese and foreign cultures and the ability to distinguish right from wrong, thereby enhancing cross-cultural communi

8、cation ability. The Function of Cross-culture Consciousness in Middle School English TeachingThe function of cross-culture consciousness in English teaching is to make students aware of cultural knowledge, understand not only another countrys social norms, common rules of conduct, values and cultura

9、l structures of social positioning, but also the identifications of important facts in the culture and have the capacities to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable culture by the cultural knowledge in intercultural communication or cross-cultural communication. In China, because of the lim

10、ited English environment, most foreign languages learning happen just in school scene, the vast majority of learners rarely have the opportunity to target cultural community learning, work and life, and most teachers can only stay in the classrooms, their goal is just export the lifeless language po

11、int to students, especially in high school. However, in the new-standard-based teaching, the function of language teaching is to help students develop the intercultural communication skills, and interpersonal skills on the language forms of words the importation of cultural objectives can insert the

12、 language learning process (He, 2000: 267). . The Problems in Middle School Cross-cultural Teaching The middle school study period as a basic foundation of second language study play an importance role in further English study. That causes our special attention to high school students study. However

13、, many problems exist in high school teaching affected English study.3.1 English vocabularies and English grammars are emphasizedThe current problems in high school English teaching is that they emphasize primarily teaching English vocabularies and English grammars, Most teachers focus on the senten

14、ces structures and grammars knowledge analysis, and neglect of cross-cultural interpersonal skills training (Yang, 2002: 118). Some teachers think the cross-cultural penetration is a waste of time, the time of a class is limited, if to talk about cultural knowledge in the classroom, they can not com

15、plete courses on time, and therefore affect the scores of students, the phenomenon most can be seen in high school class-room teaching.3.2 Lack of speaking environmentForeign language applications will inevitably involve different cultural practices, different world outlooks, and different ways of t

16、hinking, different political beliefs and religious beliefs. However, for a long time, the mother tongue always consciously or unconsciously involved, because our students live in the mother tongue country, and China is lack of the environment that everyone speak English. When come to the internation

17、al communication, the United States people often do not understand our culture, Chinese either, that result in the actual cross-cultural communication in which students often have some “cultural errors” (Zhang, 2003: 94). Our teaching material do not pay attention to offer a humanistic content and s

18、entences using, which even mislead our students, so they are still follow the incorrect material and writing or speaking “Chinglish”. In this sense, I think, maybe we can say the problems is not made by the students, but the society and educator should take more responsibility for the consequence.In

19、 a word, the education method should be renewed, that means the “exam-oriented-education” should be replaced, otherwise the new method of teaching will not be a practical reformation. The Reasons for the Culture UnawarenessThe cause of the mistakes made by Chinese students in cross-cultural communic

20、ation involves both cultural and communicating knowledge. Only knowing different cultural features, and how to get a successful communicating with members of other cultures with sincerely “desire”, can our students farthest overcome cultural differences caused by different cultural barriers? Chinese

21、 high-school students mistakes in cross-cultural communication maybe result from following reasons.4.1 Lack of knowledge and understanding of different cultural differencesEnglish language and Chinese cultural differences often cause students make the same mistake. Firstly, the title in English and

22、Chinese languages cultural differences exists. In informal occasion, Chinese and Westerners will directly call people names, to show the close relationship. Chinese think it is impolite to call strangers given name. Therefore, when Chinese people called directly called foreigners given names，the Chi

23、nese people will feel sorry for the people with feeling inadequate or immodest, but the fact is different. Secondly, the greetings cause cultural differences between the two which we will explore in next section. Holding the Chinese way of thinking, transplant it to the English expression, commonly

24、known as “Chinglish” equate to neglected cultural differences. As a member of cultural observers, another culture, he often used own culture model to judge and interpret the observed phenomena. When the two cultures conflict with each other, these students are apt to use native model to understand “

25、Greek” culture, thought and expression. For example, English words are often used in the greetings “Hi/Hello!”“How are you? Good morning! Good afternoon! Good evening (Good night!)” above in the Chinese language greetings is rarely used, and we Chinese people in the party, commonly used are: “Have y

26、ou eaten?” (Scollon, 2000: 285)This is the Chinese peoples common greetings. In fact, do not really want to know the experience of the others meals. However, in English, the language is not in such greetings, and invites each other to express the meaning of a piece of dining. Another common Chinese

27、language is “where are you going”? It is not really want to know who regards to where to go or anything. If asking Westerners in this way, they are often unhappy, and will consider such issues in their affair. Instead, they talked about the weather. Therefore, if you do not understand cultural diffe

28、rences in the West, there will be many misunderstandings. Conscientiously study and the correct use of English greetings differences are particularly important. Moreover, the West cross-cultural communication is usually the way through conversation. “Teacher” is the title phrase that can not be used

29、. Chinese people often greet their teachers “Good morning, teacher”. In fact, it is incorrect, in English language, “teacher” can not be used as a title, they usually use “Mr. or Miss.” in the class.4.2 Lack of real language environment.As everyone has realized, English is not our first language, th

30、e language is restricted to the classroom practice and presentation, due to the lack of practical language environment. Because of the traditional teaching methods-Law tradition impact on my classroom teaching as a “spoon-fed” education, classroom teachers become the “voice” of teachers reading of p

31、repared statements, the students learn only blind, passively language information as an international language, English should be dynamic and colorful. Not only just in its grammar and fixed sentence, but also in the setting of a good topic for students to create the atmosphere of learning English,

32、students wont feel learning English is tasteless, lose interest in learning English. In this way, students communicate with teachers and class-mates more than before, which can improve their spoken English and correct their mistakes (Hu, 2005:72-73).4.3 Lack of the horizon of worldwideMost teachers

33、themselves are lack of the horizon of worldwide, they are accustomed to the old teaching method of mechanical information export, they havent realized in current situation they should improve themselves to catch on with the modern society and meet the need of students, which can make the students lose more interest in