中国中学英语教学中如何融入文化背景教学(1)(2)
2015-12-06 02:12
导读：This paper, therefore, aims to present what most actual practices in the classroom are need to be clarified before anything can be done to improve future practices, when the new English Curriculum Sta
This paper, therefore, aims to present what most actual practices in the classroom are need to be clarified before anything can be done to improve future practices, when the new English Curriculum Standard is to be carried out in elementary education.
There are three major parts in the paper: firstly, it is the literature review, which consist of the relation of culture and teaching and current situation of English Teaching in China. Secondly, the extent to how to present cultural background information and expose learners to it in the need of English teaching so as to help learners grasp the crux of the language and develop their ability to communicate in English, followed by the introduction of some of such techniques. Finally the model of classroom practices was proposed by the teaching culture.
2 Culture teaching and language teaching
2.1 Definition of the culture
Definitions of culture range from broader ones to narrower ones since culture is ubiquitous, multidimensional, complex, and all-pervasive and many definitions have been suggested from different angles. From a definition that includes all learned behavior, we can move to a definition that proposes culture with distinct boundaries. “Bates and Plog (1990) proposed a descriptive definition that includes most of the major territory of culture on which scholars currently agree.
Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with. Their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning”. [2](p1)
This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought, artifacts, and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques used to make the artifacts.
Culture was defined as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. [3](p21) Therefore, culture can include everything from rites of passage to concepts of the soul.
（科教范文网 fw.nseac.com编辑发布） 2.2 Language and culture
Languages are generally accepted words and rules drawn from speech. Language is the carrier of culture and culture is the content of language. There is no language without culture content. Social linguistics show that language is a system of structure rules and culture-specific behavior rules that humans use to interact with one another. Knowing a language is known not only the grammar, vocabulary and discourse patterns but also the cultural rules of using those components so as to use appropriate language in a particular context.
It is quite true that nothing more clearly distinguishes one culture from another than its language. For example, a major linguistic difference between Americans and Chinese lies in the use of direct and indirect language. Most Americans learn to say “yes” and “no” as a means of expressing their individual views. However, the Chinese usually use “yes” and “no” to express respect for the feeling of others. [4](P23)
