AnalysisofChineseCulturesImpactonOralEnglishCommunicationBarriers

1、analysis of chinese cultures impact on oral english communication barriersabstractwith chinas entry into wto, chinese are paying more attention to the ability of speaking oral english. however, people still have some problems as to how to overcome the barriers in oral communication. this paper attem

2、pts to assess english teaching situation in junior middle schools and senior middle schools in china from the following perspectives: the classroom environment, the family background, the class activities in language learning, teaching methods, teaching syllabus, with a view to reveal the potential

3、disadvantages of the oral english teaching practice in junior middle school and senior high schools english circumstances. the author tries to explore the barriers in oral english teaching and learning through the instruments of questionnaire, interview and class observation. with a combined analysi

4、s of the environment of learning spoken english, the data collected in the interview and the scores of the spoken english tests, the author found out some possible reasons for learners silence in language class such as dissatisfaction with the teaching methods, fear of losing “face”, stress caused b

5、y parents expectation, etc.in order to promote english learning on an overall scale, students affective demands should be identified, and language teachers should pay enough attention to heuristic teaching method. the author suggests that the language teachers should play the role of resource provid

6、er and activity organizer instead of being the dominant figure in class. besides, it is also suggested that students take initiatives to overcome the anxiety in using a foreign language and throw away the false concepts such as fear of losing face; transform the idea of competition to the spirit of

7、cooperation; reduce the stress caused by the authoritarian figures in chinese culture.key words: chinese culture; communication barriers; oral english中國(guó)文化對(duì)英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)交流障礙的分析摘要隨著中國(guó)加入世貿(mào)組織以來(lái)，我國(guó)越來(lái)越重視英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)的交流。但是，在影響口語(yǔ)能力提高的因素的問(wèn)題上，雖然學(xué)界做過(guò)一些討論，但一直沒(méi)有形成統(tǒng)一的看法。本文對(duì)初中高中英語(yǔ)教學(xué)的環(huán)境及家庭環(huán)境的各個(gè)側(cè)面，諸如教學(xué)大綱、教材、中國(guó)的應(yīng)試教育的影響以及學(xué)生的焦慮心理等等進(jìn)行分析

8、，從中分析口語(yǔ)教學(xué)的所面臨的不利因素。作者通過(guò)對(duì)學(xué)生的問(wèn)卷調(diào)查，訪(fǎng)談，觀(guān)察課堂等形式，探索初高中英語(yǔ)課堂口語(yǔ)教學(xué)中教師和學(xué)生在教與學(xué)中遇到的具體障礙。并且結(jié)合面談和對(duì)學(xué)生平時(shí)練習(xí)口語(yǔ)的環(huán)境包括平時(shí)口語(yǔ)考試成績(jī)的綜合分析了解到學(xué)生較為集中地傾向于用以下原因解釋其在英語(yǔ)課上的緘默，即陳舊的英語(yǔ)課教學(xué)方法，英語(yǔ)教師對(duì)個(gè)別學(xué)生的偏愛(ài)，怕丟“面子”，謙遜、避免張揚(yáng)維護(hù)集體和睦，父母的過(guò)高期望造成的學(xué)習(xí)壓力等。同時(shí)文章重點(diǎn)分析了受中西不同思維模式對(duì)英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)交流障礙的影響。作者建議在素質(zhì)教育模式的引導(dǎo)下，語(yǔ)言教師、外語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)者共同努力，重視影響我國(guó)外語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)者語(yǔ)言焦慮的文化因素，減輕其對(duì)學(xué)生情感的負(fù)面影響，提高

9、學(xué)習(xí)效果。從教師來(lái)說(shuō)，語(yǔ)言教師充分認(rèn)識(shí)學(xué)生的情感需要，將課堂競(jìng)爭(zhēng)變?yōu)檎n堂合作學(xué)習(xí)；教師應(yīng)與學(xué)生普遍進(jìn)行思想交流；教師之間多進(jìn)行教學(xué)法交流探討，引導(dǎo)學(xué)生認(rèn)識(shí)到語(yǔ)言焦慮對(duì)外語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)的負(fù)面影響，幫助學(xué)生積極主動(dòng)地克服焦慮。同時(shí)教師應(yīng)引導(dǎo)學(xué)生在口語(yǔ)交流時(shí)應(yīng)注意中西思維模式的轉(zhuǎn)換。此外，對(duì)學(xué)習(xí)者而言，外語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)者應(yīng)積極從自身克服障礙，摒棄“面子第一”的錯(cuò)誤思想，摒棄認(rèn)為積極主動(dòng)參與外語(yǔ)課堂活動(dòng)便是張揚(yáng)、炫耀的傳統(tǒng)觀(guān)念，把競(jìng)爭(zhēng)意識(shí)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)榻涣?、合作學(xué)習(xí)意識(shí)。從家庭的角度看，建議學(xué)生主動(dòng)與教師和家長(zhǎng)溝通思想，與父母和教師做朋友，減輕傳統(tǒng)觀(guān)念中教師和父母權(quán)威地位對(duì)自己外語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)的負(fù)面影響，建議學(xué)生克服怕出錯(cuò)的心理礙。

10、關(guān)鍵詞:中國(guó)文化；交流障礙；英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)contentsabstracti摘要iichapter 1 introduction11.1 problem statement11.2 purpose of the research21.3 significance of the study21.4 the overall frame of the paper2chapter 2 literature review32.1 language and culture32.2 oral english communication barriers3chapter 3 factors affecting la

11、nguage communication barriers43.1 detouring round the cultural barriers43.2 chinese and western language habits and ways of thinking63.3 analysis of the teaching methods and chinese students learning circumstances of middle school and high school73.4 analysis of exam-oriented education in china93.5

12、the students seven factors of anxiety103.6 summary11chapter 4 finding analysis134.1 an investigation into the juniors and seniors on oral english communication barriers134.2 an investigation of the english teachers in middle school144.3 summary15chapter 5 conclusion165.1 the significance and suggest

13、ion for students spoken english165.2 suggestion for teachers17works cited19analysis of chinese cultures impact on oral english communication barrierschapter 1 introduction1.1 problem statementright now in china, much importance is given to english learning. since the third grade in the primary schoo

14、l, all pupils have to learn english. english language is one of the basic courses along with chinese language and mathematics in junior and senior middle school. in universities, english course is for all students. undoubtedly, english enjoys high popularity owing to its status as lingua franca of w

15、orld. but english education in china has received a lot of criticism as high scores and low abilities, dumb english, low efficiency and time consuming, for many college students can pass cet 4-band or cet 6-band tests but cannot express themselves in english. the poor communicative competence of mos

16、t english learners remains the main problem challenging english teachers and researchers in china.since 1980s, when krashen's input hypothesis (1985) was introduced into china, foreign language teachers and experts in china seemed to have found the right theory to promote their foreign language

17、teaching community. language input theories had become the horn of foreign language teaching. yet in actual practice, there have emerged some problems, for example, efl in china consumes a considerable amount of time, but produces little desirable result. according to the english course syllabus iss

18、ued by the chinese state ministry of education in 2001, the situation of the current english education in china has not been adapted to the need for economic construction and social development, and there exists a distance between the reality and the requirement for the progress of the times. in ord

19、er to solve those problems, swains output hypothesis theories (1985) were introduced into china and arouse intense interest of teachers and scholars in efl field. though a lot of studies have been done for the significance and application of the output theory in the real english learning process, fo

20、r instance, in the classroom setting, teachers have long been puzzled by students inactive participation and poor communicative competence which is incongruous with their grammar and vocabulary level. hence, the applicability of those popular models still calls for some adaptation before we employ t

21、hem in our practice.1.2 purpose of the researchalthough there has been much research on output theory, those researches remain limited in their discussion on the significance and application of swains output theories. besides, there has been little research on the cultural implication of the output

22、theory in chinese cultural contexts.it is hypothesized that output theory is general principle and in non-western cultural context it may have specific implication.(gao 2008) this paper tried to explore possible barriers in oral english output, based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative

23、methods. it is assumed that besides those linguistic issues, cultural barriers should be taken into account. 1.3 significance of the studythe increased scrutiny has been placed on the social environment of learners. learners do not learn in isolation but rather in a social environment. there are cul

24、tural and social influences that can affect individuals perceptions and expectations of the future.1.4 the overall frame of the paperthe whole paper is divided into 5 parts. chapter 1 is an introduction to the topic. in chapter 2, the concepts of text, theme will be introduced and explained. chapter

25、 3 will introduce some factors that may affect language communication barriers. chapter 4 is an investigation of the juniors and seniors on oral english communication barriers. chapter 5 is the conclusion section of the paper.chapter two literature review2.1 language and cultureculture is a pattern

26、of ideologies and practices that have been established for a long time, which has an effect on all aspects in daily life. in other words, thought is determined by culture. language is no exception. for example, if you are a chinese and a beginner in a foreign language, when you want to make up a sen

27、tence in that language, you will probably think of the chinese meaning firstly, and then translate them into english. this process is called cultural transformation. we usually say that language is an expression of peoples minds. therefore, different languages embody different culture backgrounds. 2

28、.2 oral english communication barriersthese researches didnt recognize the factor of chinese culture which can cause some troubles in communication. sometimes, native speakers of english cant understand what the chinese people are talking about. also, chinese people cant understand others if they sh

29、are different cultural knowledge.chapter 3 factors affecting language communication barrierschinese cultural factors are as follows: firstly, chinese and westerners ways of thinking; secondly, the traditional chinese educational conception; thirdly, the exam- oriented education system operated in ch

30、ina right now; fourthly, the teaching methods employed in language teaching.3.1 detouring round the cultural barriersanother problem that influences oral output is vocabulary. i think enlarging the vocabulary is not omnipotent. as far as the college students are concerned, english is just one of the

31、ir courses, which means they cant devote most of their time into english. even under this situation, college english study has been criticized for taking up too much of non-major college students study time. students need to indulge in their own major instead of english! furthermore, chinese student

32、s are likely to encounter more difficulties when dealing with language output. in order to show the difficulties more clearly, i resort to a paper entitled the name of sentence and word alignment in the crater project in the field of corpus-based research. the first column of table 4.3 is language p

33、airs tested, parallel corpora between english and french, english and german, english and polish, english and spanish, chinese and english. the second column is the field of terms tested, ranging from itu to newspaper. table shows that the language alignment between chinese and english is less encou

34、raging!success rates for the gale and church algorithm language pair domain regions tested % correct english - french itu corpus 100 98.0 english -german economics 36 75.0 english- polish fiction school 89 100.0 english- polish fiction (tigers) 132 64.4 english-polish medical 72 66.7 english- polish

35、 finance 27 85.2 english- spanish itu corpus 222 93.2 chinese- english newspaper 171 54.5 note 1 crater project means corpus resources and terminology extraction note 2 gale and church is parallel corpora for lexical acquisition system in machine translation and multilingual natural language note 3:

36、 gb a simplified (chinese) character computerization code under this very severe situation, i think we need the strategy of detouring round which means getting away from some areas (just like traps) where students may have very little vocabulary to deliver a meaningful oral output. oral output traps

37、 arising from culture differences. as experienced teachers, they know how to lead the students to detour those unknown expressions and lead students to deliver a smoother language output. that will encourage students a lot and preserve their passion on speaking more. when getting to a specific topic

38、, teachers should carefully guide the students to approach the topic from a certain perspective for which they know many words to express their ideas on this topic. in other words, teachers should lead the students away from thistles and thorns of cultural barriers. this may not comply with one func

39、tion of output the noticing/triggering function, for oral english output is to help earners to find out the gap between what they want to say and what they can say, emoting learners to get to know something new. it is supposed that if learners want to say something that they cant say, they would get

40、 to find some aid, for example, to ask for answers from teachers or books. but it is not so practical to our students for following reasons: (1) usually the discussion topics have close relationship with text content. the text presentations have already provided a lot of new words and expression to

41、the students which are main task to remember and to use in their later exercises and language output. however the new vocabulary will never be enough to express their individual point of view when they intend to express themselves in their discussion.(2) the classes for college english are often too

42、 big; sometimes we have to handle the class of more than 100 students. it is not easy to answer the questions from students from all sides. and another reason is chinese students are too considerate to ask questions outside the textbook. under all these circumstances, the strategy of detouring is in

43、evitable; however the key point is how we can practice it in real teaching practice. needless to say, we shall analyze it from cultural perspective and find the true crux of the barriers. i shall try to analyze some real cases. during some classes, i asked students to record the sentences they want

44、to say but they cant say.3.2 chinese and western language habits and ways of thinkingcultural and societal conventions and norms do not get left behind at the classroom door. the students bring them into the classroom as they interact with each other, with the teacher, and as they carry out their le

45、arning tasks. confucian-based ideals have long extolled the virtues of hard work and devotion so long as there is a de-emphasizing of the individual and an emphasizing of the individual responsibilities and obligations to society at large, such as learning to work well with others. from the above in

46、vestigation, three barriers protrude as the most significant reasons for chinese students in their oral output. the first one i would like to talk about is students lack of courage to express themselves in the english classes.it has been a stubborn problem that chinese students are reluctant to expr

47、ess themselves in classroom and some of them are even feeling afraid, though the teacher try to create a relaxing learning circumstance. admittedly, for considerable large part people, speaking in the public is most frightening, but chinese students are extraordinarily quiet in the classroom, which

48、cause some misunderstanding to the foreign teachers in language learning classroom. foreign teachers felt puzzled to chinese students silent response. they thought chinese students may not like their teaching for being so quiet. actually, just on the contrary, chinese students often show their respe

49、ct to the teacher for being very quiet and obedient, while to the teachers or classes they dont like, they would be very noisy or do something which is irrelevant to the class. this phenomenon belongs to the domain of cross-culture study, and what i would talk about here is the reason why our studen

50、ts thought it improper to express themselves in language learning classes. i think the reason for that needs tracing back to some historical cultural difference between east and west.3.3 analysis of the teaching methods and chinese students learning circumstances of middle school and high schoolin c

51、hina, there are usually over 80 students in one class. so many students in one class can't keep order in their classroom. there teacher have difficulties to know every students advantages and disadvantages in the course of study. also, they have no enough time to correct the mistakes their stude

52、nts made in class or in their homework (zhong 2008). furthermore, there are only some simple teaching tools follows: a blackboard, some chalk, english textually, a tape recorder and some english tapes. for a long time, the english teaching methods in china was dull and ineffective. look at the follo

53、wing lesson preparing. the lesson plan of lesson 96teaching aims(1) practise the writing first orally with the whole class.  (2) train students write a letter.teaching proceduresstep 1 revision(1) revise the contents of the reading passages in lessons 94 and 95. ask a few more ss to say somethi

54、ng about jia sixie.(2) revise indirect statements by getting the ss to report the advice given by jia sixie in his book.step 2 writingsb lesson 96, part 1. do the first two orally with the whole class, and then let the ss work on themselves.suggested questions:(1) what is the name of the book which

55、you have written?(2) how long did it take you write the book?(3) what is the book about?(4) where were you born?(5) what did you use/what used you to do before you studied agriculture?step 3 testbooks closed. ask someone do this passage oral to the ss: for example:jia sixie was one of the pioneers o

56、f farming. he studied, collected information, did experiments and he learnt from farmers and peasants.  in 533-544 ad, he wrote a book which included advice on improving the condition of the soil, growing green vegetables and fruit trees, keeping cows and sheep, and keeping fish

57、in lakes. he also gave instructions for making wine.step 4 writinglet the ss write the letter in their exercise books. they can show it to a partner for suggested improvements.step5 workbooklesson 96, ex. 1 - 3.read through the sentences or dialogues, making sure the ss know what they should do. do

58、the first sentence as an example. then let the ss practice in pairs. finally check the answers with the whole class.step 6 homeworkfinish the workbook exercises.write the final version of the letter.this is a lesson preparing of high school english textbook, which has received an excellence award in high school english teaching group. oral english practice was involved in the lesson prepari