Abstract:
Since we have known that culture introduction is an important component of English teaching, there are two questions waiting to be solved. One is what kind of culture should be introduced? The other is how to introduce?
Key words:
Language; culture; English teaching; culture introduction
FOREWORD
In nowadays world is changing with a high speed. The distance between countries are shortening. Our country is also preparing for stepping into WTO. It is necessary for one to master one or more languages. English, as the most widely used language, plays an important role in the international communication. As a result, more and more linguists have turned to the research on the Applied linguistics. Many of them realized that culture gap is a big barrier in the intercultural communication and made many theories on culture and language. Some middle school teachers also realized the importance of culture introduction in English teaching and put it into practice.
Based on the theories on the culture and language, this paper tries to seek a way to connect the culture introduction and English teaching closely. Hope by this paper, teachers will pay more attention to the cultural factors in their English teaching, and the middle school English teaching can be greatly improved.
Thanks to my tutor, lecturer Wang Jianghong, who helps me a lot during my paper writing, and also to Pro.Zou Xiandao, who taught us how to write a paper.
I The Importance of Culture Introduction in Language Teaching
"To be bilingual, one must be bicultural."1
Language, as the form of the culture, reflects a certain culture. So, to master a language, one must master the culture of this language. Language and culture can not be departed. Now, more and more teachers have realized this and pay more attention to the culture introduction in their English teaching.
A. Culture And Language
"The relation between culture and language is like that of content and form. The form is determined by the content which, in return, is reflected by the form."2
Firstly, language is a component of culture, it is the carrier of culture, and it reflects the culture and serves the culture. In a language, words, which share the same meaning with words in other languages, may have the different culture meanings. For example, the word "dog" in English is equal to the word "狗" in Chinese. However, English and Chinese have put different cultural meanings on it. In English, dog is regarded as the "man's best friend", many people feed dog as a pet. There are also various special food shops and hospitals for dogs. But in China, dog is not so welcomed; we even hate this animal in some way. So there are a lot of bad words connected with dog in Chinese. Such as : "丧家犬"、"落水狗"、"走狗".
Secondly, how to use a language freely is restricted by the culture. We can't judge a sentence right or wrong only by the form of sentences. For example, "Eat slowly!" the form of sentence is quite right, but if we say it to a native speaker, maybe he'll be puzzled even get angry for thinking you are complaining him eating too much. This is a cultural mistake. So the competence of using a language freely must be based on the deep understanding to the culture which this language depends on.
B. The Importance of Culture Introduction in Language Teaching
The task of language teaching is to train the students to be able to communicate with people in different culture. The aim of it is to realize the intercultural communication. It is very important to teach students to use the proper language form3 (which includes vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation). But it is more important for students to use the suitable sentences to express different meanings with different speakers in different occasions.
For a long time, both teachers and students aimed at the high mark in the exam. So teachers only emphasized the form of language and ignored the culture introduction in their teaching. They taught students a lot of grammar and asked students to do a lot of memorize on vocabulary even the whole passage. Finally those hard-working students "succeed"; they got high mark in the exam. But when they speak with foreigners, they were silent, after a few minutes careful thinking, they opened their mouth and began to speak "English". There are few grammatical problems but the foreigners frowned, because they can't understand these sentences which we call "Chinglish".
So culture is very important in language learning. As a result of having few culture awareness4, students know little culture background of English and use English with the awareness of their own culture. So they don't understand some usage of words and don't know how to use what they have aquaintanced. Those students, though they have a large vocabulary, a great knowledge of grammar, they don't know how to use these words and can't communicate with foreigners.
As a result of ignoring the importance of culture, some people point out" Pronunciation+vacabulary+grammar+one's own culture= communicative competence"5 but in my opinion the communicative competence should also includes the culture competence of both native language and the language you are studying. In language teaching, teachers also have duty to teach the culture language involves. "Language teaching should also be a teaching of culture."6
II Common Culture Differences Between Chinese And English
English, as the second language of most Chinese students, has its own culture which is different from Chinese culture. It is these differences that produce many barriers in the intercultural communication. To eliminate these barriers, we must make clear what are the differences between two cultures. Just as British Applied linguist Swain said, in foreign language teaching we should make clear "what the learners have known and what haven't, then we can determine the content we teach and emphasize"7. So in the teaching we should know the differences between two culture first.
1 Different ways of thinking
The basic difference between Chinese way of thinking is "indirection, like a gyre"8, so they always express their ideas indirectly. However the English and American way of thinking is "linear''9 as they often express their ideas directly. For example when a Chinese wants to borrow some money from others, he will give a lot of reasons before he asks for money while an American will ask for the money directly without any reason.
2 Making greetings
In china, when friends meet each other, they often make greetings with "where are you going?" "Are you going to work?" or "How you had your breakfast?" etc. We don't take them as questions but the greeting words, and just make answers without thinking. But foreigners may take them as questions which are hard to answer, because they think these questions are infringing their privacy, they will fell embarrassed and don't know if they should give the answers. Instead of these questions, native English speakers often talk about the weather when they meet each other.
3 Showing thanks
In china its rare to say “Thank you “ to your relatives or good friends, we only use it in some public occasions. Even when a friend say “Than you” to you when you do something for him, you may think he looks you as a stranger and will be unhappy. But in English countries it’s very common to say “Thank you”. Even between husband and wife.
4 Facing the praise
Facing the praise, Chinese and English speakers have the different response. Chinese always belittles himself to show his modest. But foreigners will take it as a pride and will say “thank you” as a polite answer. Maybe you still remember that old story which tells about a foreigner who was invited to a Chinese wedding. During the wedding, he said to the bridegroom, “How beautiful your wife is!” its very polite to say this in English countries. But the bridegroom was very unhappy when he heard this, but he still answered politely “Where? Where?” it's a Chinese way to show modest, but foreigner thought it a question and felt very embarrassed, then he answered “Her mouth, face, eyes, all the things about her are beautiful.”
5 Receiving a gift
Foreigners will show their great interests on the gift. They think it is polite to open the gift in front of the giver and praise the gift. Chinese hold the different opinion, they think it will show their “greedy” on the gift if they open it at the giver’s presence.
6 Body language
English has a lot of body language to show their affection, Chinese does not. Body language is also called the “silent language”. Knowing a lot of body language is helpful for mastering a language.
7 Taboo and privacy
English has many taboos which Chinese think permitted. For example, English don’t like people to ask for their age, payment, work and so on. Chinese never mind others asking such questions. There is also something English think is privacy but Chinese don’t think so. For example, in your Chinese friend’s room you can appreciate his photo album without his permission, but never do it in a foreign friend’s room without any permission.
III Culture Introduction in Middle School English Teaching
Since we know that the culture is very important for mastering a language, we should pay attention to the culture introduction in the middle school teaching. However, what kind of culture should we teach and how to teach?
A. What to teach?
i Culture different from China’s
Teachers hold different ideas on it. But there’s one thing they all agree to. That is to teach the things which are different from Chinese culture.
a. words
When we teach, we should pay attention to the words which have different culture meanings. If not, students may make some culture mistakes. For example, when we teach the word “dragon”, we can tell students that the “Chinese dragon” is different from “English dragon”. In Chinese culture system, dragon is a symbol of noble, greatness and power, we Chinese often call ourselves “the descendant of dragon” proudly. But in English culture system, dragon is an evil animal, it is always used to say those “fierce person” and “shy or treacherous person”.10
b. Grammar
In English, there are many grammars Chinese does not have or does not use it frequently. English uses grammatical forms to indicate sex, number, person, tense and voice, while in Chinese vocabulary and word order are used. For example, in English people use a lot of passive voice sentence, but people use little in Chinese. It attributes to the different ways of speaking. So when we teach students the passive voice, we should tell students about this and let them try to think and speak in English way.
c. Other differences (which have discussed in part II)
We should put all these things in the course of our teaching at the proper time. For example, when we teach the drill “How old are you?” We should tell students that it is usually used to ask a child’s age but not an adult, especially, a lady. In American’s mind, old is equal to useless, not beautiful. They think “Age before beauty”, “Age is a heavy burden”, “Old age is itself a disease”11 So nobody wants to be old. So we should remind students to use this drill carefully.
ii. Culture Students Are Interested in
Young people are very active. They show great interests to the things around them. The present middle school English books include many things in our life. Many reading materials are things that students are interested in. For example, in Book 1A of senior English for China, the travel, computer, sports and country music are chosen to be the teaching material. These things are students interested in. So it’s a good chance to introduce the related culture. For example, when we teach the passage Country music12, we can ask students “How much do you know about country music?” After the students give their answers, we can add more things they don’t know and let them know more culture background of American country music. By this way students can have a better understanding. Because they are interested in such things, they can take part in the teaching actively not passively.
iii Where It Is Necessary And Will Be Helpful For Teaching
It is very necessary to introduce the culture where it is needed to introduce. It will help students to understand text better. For example, in the Exercises book there is a paragraph: “However, not women in Arab countries are not allowed to join the Olympic Games."13 We should tell them that people in Arab countries believe in Muslim. Women are not allowed to show their faces in front of strangers, they even wear a veil on their faces when they go out. It’s hard to imagine they go to join in the Olympic Games.
B. How to Teach?
i Advice on Text Book
Many reading materials in the present English book are written by Chinese. Although the writing is very good, I think they are not so good as written by native speakers. Studying the things written by native speakers, students can learn the foreign language better. In the beginners’ book, we can add some explanation to greetings, person, handshaking, showing thanks, invitation and asking for leave, so that the students can use these drills better. To the senior students we can add more culture knowledge in their reading book, we should not only teach tem how to use English but also how the English people think and do.
ii. Using the Multi-medium
If possible we can use the modern equipment to introduce the English culture. We can show them English films, videos or glides. For example, when we teach them family tree, to compare the differences between Chinese family and American family, we can show two glides of which one is about Chinese and the other is about American (to see the following map).
An American Family Tree A Chinese Family Tree
Grandfather grandmother grandpa grandma 爷爷 奶奶 外公 外婆
Uncle aunt father mother aunt uncle 伯伯 姑姑 爸爸 妈妈 姨 舅