CultivatingStudents’CulturalAwarenessinEnglishTeaching-精選文檔

1、CultivatingStudents Cultural Awareness inEnglish Teaching: With the fast development of Chinese economy and society, the communication between China and foreign countries has been more and more frequent. And China is a country where English is taught as a foreign language. Therefore cultural differe

2、nces have become more and more significant in English teaching. Both language teachers and students should be aware of the differences between eastern and western culture in their teaching and study.1 IntroductionWith the deepening of our reform and opening up policy, the interactions with people al

3、l over the world are ever increasing in areas like politics, economics, science, technology, culture and education. As a result, a daily increasing number of foreign guests come to China. At the same time, many Chinese go abroad to work, study, do business and attend international conferences.Commun

4、ication also takes place within the areas of military cooperation, entertainment, tourism and immigration caused by labor shortage or political conflicts. In allthatthese contacts, there is communication, which needs to be as constructive as possible, without misunderstandings and breakdowns. Nowada

5、ys, English is one of the most influential commonl anguages all over the world. Accordingto statistics, some 360 million speak English as a first language and perhaps an equal number of people use English as a second language, while the number who use English as a foreign language amounts to at leas

6、t as many as those who speak English as a first and second language. In China, English is taught as a foreign language. The purpose of teaching English is not only to improve the studentsoverall language proficiency like listening, speaking, reading, writing skills but also to cultivate their cultur

7、al awareness in order to avoid the barriers when communicating with foreigners.2 Culture and CommunicationThe first step in learning to communicate across cultures is to consider what people mean when they talk about culture. In fact, people mean quite different things when they talk about culture.

8、The most usual meaning is that culture refers to peoples customs and behavior.According to Taylor(1871) defined culture ascomplex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and many other capabilities and habits acquired by members of society.” While the following isthe defini

9、tion given by Davis(2001, 18-21): culture is like an iceberg; culture is our software; culture is like the water a fish swims in; culture is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves; culture is the grammar of our behavior. The term cross-cultural communication refers to the communication between

10、people from different cultures, so it implies a comparison between cultures. Samovar Porter&Stefan define it as the communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event.4.2 Ways to Help Students Overcome Cultural BarriersIt i

11、s well-known that cultural differences have a great effect on EFL reading comprehension. In order to improve Chinese students reading comprehension, teachers should bring cultural awareness into consideration. There are several ways to help students overcome cultural barriers in EFL reading comprehe

12、nsion, such as, enriching students cultural backgroundknowledge. Comprehending a text is an interactiveprocessbetween the reader s background knowledge and the text. If the students do not have enough relevant knowledge and comprehensible culture-based input to the text, they will fail to read and u

13、nderstand even the simplified text of a major field. To enrich students cultural backgroundinformation, teachers can select appropriate materials for students to read in order to help them minimize misunderstanding and interference and maximize comprehension of reading materials. And the students th

14、emselves should read extensively which means students should read various kinds of books about western culture.To do this, teachers can encourage and lead students to read more about history, geography, customs, habits, and behavior patterns of native speakers and reading literature in English is al

15、so important because it is a means of broadening their cultural knowledge and literature reflects the life and culture of a people.5 ConclusionFrom the above analysis, we may draw the conclusion that cultural background knowledge plays a significant role in EFL reading comprehension because it can h

16、elp students better understand the different cultural connotation and extension of vocabulary and pave the way for understanding the contents of texts. So it is hoped that with the help of the teachers, students would try their best contact the social and cultural aspects of English countries and le

17、arn the cultural background knowledge of literature, history, geography, local condition and customs in order to understand the differences between eastern and western culture and overcome comprehension barriers.References:1Davis Linell, Doing Culture-Cross-Cultural Communications in ActionM, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1999.2Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter and Lisa A. Stefani, Communication