On Crosscultural Education in English Language Teaching英语毕业论文.doc

On Cross-cultural Education in English Language TeachingAbstract ：Nowadays,English has become a universal language which is playing an important part in international communication and cooperation. Due to the different value,religion,custom and history of each country,a foreign language learner studying a language means the study of a culture. Culture is a part of language and plays a very important role in language teaching.In recent years,the relationship between language and culture has become a key subject in teaching English as a foreign language.English teachers should not only teach language knowledge ,but also cultures which language loads.so the understanding of a new language requires the understanding of the other culture.However, for many years, the main work of English teaching has been focused on language teaching. Teachers and students do a lot in grammer ,phrases,structure and meanings.Hence, this traditional grammar-translation method failed to develop communicative competence. with the neglect of the cross-cultural awareness and unreasonable training method, the students often have a poor understanding of cross cultural differences in areas, such as the word meaning and the custom abroad, which can eventually lead to ignorance of English language background. Learning a language,as a matter of fact,is inseparable from learning its cultures.Therefore,language teaching and intercultural awareness is indispensable.English teachers should input the culture of English- speaking countries gradually and appropriately in TEFL.To cultivate the cross-cutural awareness in students is a better way for them to master and use the language.So,the development of Cross-culture education should be drawn more attention in English teaching.Key Words: language teaching , Cross-cultural Education , obstacles, Solutions Chapter 1 Introduction The present thesis aims at arousing the awearness of the importance of cross-cultural education in English teaching and giving the solutions of cross-cultural education applied in English teaching.In Teaching English as a Foreign Language,the importance and necessity of teaching foreign culture has been widely recognized. As we known,foreign language teaching is the key to cross-cultural communication ,and cross-cultural education is the key to master foreign language.That means getting more teachers and students begin to realize that mere knowledge of languages and skills about culture has been far from meeting the requirements of good communicative competence .The “ability of cross-cultural communication ”is the ultimate goal of foreign language education. Faced to the current situation ,what should a teacher do and what attitude should foreign language learners have? The whole thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter two introduces the definition and necessary of cross-cutural while learning foreign language.Why we cannot avoid the traditional language teaching which focused on reading and writing; grammar and translation; memorization of vocabulary? Why there are still so many problems consisted in leading the cross-cutural eduation in English teaching? In chapter three, the answers will be implicitly presented by analysing the present situation about cross-cutural education from many aspects. Chapter four sets up several useful solutions in view of existing situation .It aims at helping students build up right and positive attitude ,respect foreign cultural and achieve cross-cultural communication.In the last chapter,it sums up the importance of cross-cultural education in English teaching.Chapter 2 Review of Cross-cultural Education2.1 The Goal of Cross-Cultural EducationThe goal is to make students and teachers aware of cultural (Target culture) knowledge,to promote them to foster the positive crosscultural states of mind,and to have the interests of learning foreign language . whats more, let students acquaint with different cultures and respect them,finally master language effectively and fairly in cross-communication.last but not least, to increase the students' understanding of how language function and to bring them, through the study of another, to a greater awareness of the functioning of their own language.Hammerly (1982) summarized the objective of the 10 teaching culture, these goals can become a culture of the objectives: (1) Understand the word and phrase of cultural connotations;(2) Understand the code under normal circumstances;(3)Get the development of cultural interest and objectives of deepening understanding of cultural goals; (4)Cross-cultural communication to understand the distinction;(5) Understand cultural differences and custom ;(6) Identify and understand similar research topics;(7) Institute a comprehensive view of cultural goals;(8)Act with the objective of cultural exposition on the assessment capabilities;(9) Properly treat different views of the other culture; (10)Cultivate academic research capacity of the target culture;2.2 The Necessity of Cross-cultural Education in English Teaching2.2.1 The requirement of enhancing the capacity of language studyWith the establishment and development of Sociolinguistics, There is a growing emphasis on the research of language function and usage. American linguists Sapir (1921) wrote at “ Language “,a book on that “Language has an environment, it should not exist from the culture, society can not be divorced from inherited traditions and beliefs.” The quotation proves the intimate relationship between language and culture and they cannot be divided from each other. To really master a language people must know the particular social background of the language, otherwise, they would not really grasp the language.It is both unrealistic and impossible to understand a language divorced from culture.Now we live in a multicutural society and the association among people having different cultural backgrounds can be achieved by language communication. And it is inevitable to make mistakes in association leading by Cultural differences when there is no awareness of Cultural differences. Therefore, learning a language must learn the corresponding culture.2.2.2 the requirement of developing national education and following the worlds paceCross-cultural education is a new trend of development of higher education.It helps us to study the education principles and modes abroad and treat rationally our education systems.with the consideration of the global problems and national problems,we can imbibe the experience to develop our national education.WinstonBrembeck wrote at The Development and Teaching of a College Coursein Inter-cultural Communication “To know anothers language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of oneself ”. Mr. Winston Bareback，the foreign language teaching expert of the USA indicated,”teaching language without culture is the best way to cultivate a fool with fluent spoken language.” 1 In this case,the students cultivated will not be adapt to the new century. Obviously, its consequence is serious. With the increased power of our country and association with other countries,we need talents who have great understanding of exotic cultures. Hence,it needs us to pay big attention to cross-cultural education in English language teaching.Chapter 3 Obstacles and Analysis of Cross-cultural TeachingAlthough cross-cultural teaching is so important in English teaching, the awareness of this teaching method is ignored in most cases by both teachers and learners.In fact ,many obtacles and problems have to be faced in practice which lead to the difficulties in the process of carring out. For instance, in high school English teaching , they emphasize primarily teaching English vocabularies and English grammars; most teachers focus on the sentences structures and grammars knowledge analysis, and neglect of cross-cultural interpersonal skills training.3.1 the analysis of cross-cultural teaching3.1.1 teachers are lack of the awareness and ability of cross-cultural educationAlthough many English teachers has increased awareness of cross-cultural education , most teachers themselves are lack of the horizon of worldwide . Commonly they still follow the traditional grammar-translation method; they neglect cultural teaching in English teaching. The New Curriculum Standards emphasizes the necessity of developing students intercultural competence. However, The current problems in high school English teaching is that they emphasize primarily teaching English vocabularies and English grammars; most teachers focus on the sentences structures and grammars knowledge analysis, and neglect of cross-cultural interpersonal skills training. Some teachers think teaching cultural knowledge is a waste of time, because the time one class had is limited.And if to do it in the classroom ,they can not complete courses on time, and therefore affect the process of teaching ,even the scores of students. In order to help students score high on linguistic proficiency, teachers pay a lot of time to explain vocabulary and grammar knowledge in the class. In this case, students have improved their language knowledge, but their intercultural communicative competence has not enhanced. The phenomenon most can be seen in high school class-room teaching ,and the high-school study period as a basic foundation of second language study play an importance role in further English study. That cause our special attention to high school students study.Whats more, some teachers regard cultural teaching as their extra burden. They are not so experienced in culture instruction and not so confident to act as guides. Meanwhile, they dont have a desire to go on studying; they prefer to let their students to learn cultural knowledge all by themselves. Under this circumstance, intercultural awareness cultivation cannot achieve the ideal effect.As a English teacher ,he or she should not only master the tradition and culture of our nation,know the unique allusions of china,skillfully express native culture,but understand the differences between Chinese and Western cultures,master the balance between target language and mother tongue.as a result ,teachers cannot impart the cross-culture knowledge to students and train their cross-cultural communicative competence.3.1.2 Students attitude towards cross-culture is not reasonableLimited by our educational system and policies,students have the unreasonable attitude while learning english.Now most students who are learning english are for the purpose of passing exams , get diploma and finally find a ideal job. So the exam-oriented education usually play a decisive role.And students cannot correctly deal with foreign cultures while learning a language.To them ,english is only a tool helping to obtain a more satisfied live and they have no desire to know other cultures and no strong desire to communicate with people of the target language. So its not difficult to understand that they show little interest in English cultural knowledge, but indulge themselves in grammar learning and vocabulary building. Although some students are interested in the western culture, they rely on the teacher excessively and fail to search for deep understanding by themselves. So they cannot really master a foreign language.Students under this circumstance often have some typical expression.For example holding the Chinese way of thinking, transplant it to the English expression, commonly known as “Chinglish” Equate to neglected cultural differences.We all know,students often used own culture model to judge the observed phenomena. And when the two cultures come to the conflict with each other, these students are apt to use native model to understand the other culture, thought and expression. Thus often misleading. For example ,when we want to say hello to a teacher, Chinese people often say “good morning, teacher”. And “teacher” here is used as a title .however, in English language , “teacher” can not be used as a title ,they usually use “Mr or Miss” in the class.Students ignore the differences of cultures in teaching English. Consequently, they fail to provide the students with an introduction of culture of English-speaking countries which lead to the students “communication block”. Kramschs keen observation should not be unnoticed:“Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them.”23.1.3 Lack of real language environment .Language is used for communicating with others. It is sad that one cannot speak the language fluently after learning several years.And students can be found with poor oral English. As everyone has realized, English is not our first language, the language is restricted to the classroom practice and presentation, due to the lack of practical language environment. Language environment is very important. Here is a research about it : a child was limited in a small place, and not allowed to communicate with anyone, but provided with some kind of media for satisfying his require of listening and watching. After a few days, the child came out into the real life; he could not know how to communicate with others by language. This experiment proves that speaking cannot be achieved without the contact with others. So language learning, either cannot be separated from language environment.The environment now existed in most schools is beyond optimistic. First, the communication happening among teacher and students after class is limited.The majority of English teachers are chinese and they often speak native language after class.So are students.The only chance to speak English between teachers and students is confined in language class. Besides, the text book is the main tool of learning English and students learn English mostly in written materials.So It is hard to cultivate their oral English. Furthermore,the level of development of city also affect the learning evironment. A big city must have more associations with foreign countries and the second language is more penetrated into public.So the evironment is very appropriate for foreign language learners.Anyway,the lack of language environment has influenced the effectiveness of students level of English speaking.3.1.4 the method of Cross-cultural education is relatively easyTeachers are not good at flexibility in the use of cross-cultural education teaching methods. Judging from the current situation, many English teachers still can not fully grasp the moder