文化与高中英语教学—英语学士学位论文外文翻译

重庆文理学院学士学位论文文化与高中英语阅读教学论文作者： 指导教师：学科专业：英语（师范方向）研究方向：教学法提交论文日期：2007年 月 日 论文答辩日期：2007年 月 日 学位授予单位：重庆文理学院 中 国 · 重 庆2007 年 月BA Dissertation Chongqing University of Arts and ScienceCulture and English Reading Teaching in Senior Middle School Foreign Languages DepartmentChongqing University of Arts and ScienceApril 2007重庆文理学院2003级英语专业学士学位论文 Table of ContentsTable of Contents 中文摘要IAbstractII1 Introduction12. Definition of Culture13 Culture and English Reading Teaching in Senior Middle School23.1 Function of Culture in English Reading23.2 Current Situation of English Reading Teaching43.3 Suggestions on Culture Teaching53.3.1 Enriching Teachers Culture Knowldege53.3.2 Motivating Students Interest on Culture64. Conclusion8Bibliography10Acknowledgements11重庆文理学院2003级英语专业学士学位论文 中文摘要摘 要阅读能力对于学习一种语言是至关重要的，它是掌握一门语言的基本技能, 也是获取信息的工具。不断提高英语阅读能力也同样是在高中英语教学中实施素质教育的一部分。然而，在许多阅读材料中都包含着大量的文化知识。只有增强了学生的文化意识，他们才能把阅读材料理解的更加透彻，并把阅读变为一件乐事。这篇论文，基于相关研究，探讨了文化在高中英语阅读教学中重要性，也分析了其存在的问题. 针对这些问题，该论文提出了建议。关键词：文化、英语阅读、高中I重庆文理学院2003级英语专业学士学位论文 AbstractAbstractReading is an essential ability to learn a language. It is the basic skill of mastering a language as well as a tool to obtain information. Improving English reading ability gradually is also a part of carrying out quality education in English teaching in senior middle school. However, in many reading materials, there is much culture knowledge. Only students strengthening their culture awareness, they can understand the materials clearly, and make reading an enjoyable thing. This paper, based on some researches, discusses the problems of cultural teaching in senior middle school English reading and the importance of learning culture. According to the problems, this paper gives some suggestions. Key words: culture, English reading, senior middle schoolII重庆文理学院2003级英语专业学士学位论文Culture and English Reading Teaching in Senior Middle School1. IntroductionIt is well known that cultivating students reading ability is an important motive in senior middle school education and reading comprehension always an essential part in college entrance examination. However, many students feel that reading is the most difficult part in English learning. Some students who have mastered vocabulary and grammar well can not do well in reading comprehension. An important reason for this phenomenon is that they knew little knowledge about the culture of English countries and this makes the students misunderstood reading materials. So in English learning, people should master not only some vocabulary and grammar, but also understand the culture which reflected by the language to know the real meaning of the target language. Just as an American linguist said: “Language teaching is culture teaching.” This paper, based on the relationship of culture and reading, discusses the problem of culture teaching in senior middle school.2. Definition of CultureCulture is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior - an abstract "mental blueprint" or "mental code." It must be studied "indirectly" by studying behavior, customs, material culture (artifacts, tools, and technology), language, etc. Language is closely related to culture. Language expresses and embodies cultural reality. (qtd in Claire Kramsch,2000) Culture was first defined in print by E.B.Taylor (1871), who provided the first profound scientific understanding of the nature of the term. According to him, culture is “a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of society". Samovar and Porter (1988) define culture in much the similar way, “Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. 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.”For the purpose of Foreign Language Teaching, culture has been classified into various categorizations. Wuguohua (1989) and Zhangzhanyi (1990) divide culture into two parts: cultural knowledge and communicative culture. The former refers to both verbal and non-verbal cultural elements which do not have direct influence on successful communication. The latter refers to both verbal and non-verbal cultural elements. Which have direct influence on successful communication (i.e. which tend to cause miscommunication and deviation).3 Culture and English Reading Teaching in Senior Middle School3.1 Function of Culture in English Reading Nowadays, with the development of intercultural communication, more and more middle school students want to communicate with foreigners. So, they demand to know more about foreign people in order to communicate with them successfully. Information about their life style, their countries, the achievements of their civilization, their religion, their ways of thinking is quite necessary for students, who need to form a habit of reading extensively and automatically in order to broaden their knowledge. Whats more, New Senior English for China are rich in daily expressions, such as: make appointment, ordering food, express thanks, and so on. And this series of textbooks provide a lot of idioms and formulaic languages, which are quite helpful to the development of students' cultural awareness. “New Senior English for China“(2004) acquires English reading in senior middle school as following:1. Getting and dealing with the information from ordinary passages.2. Understanding the main ideas and the purpose of the authors.3. Understanding the passage through overcoming the unknown words.4. Inferring by the clue in the passage.5. Getting useful information from the internet resources.6. Reading and understanding the newspaper or magazines fit to senior middle school students.From above, we can see that strengthening culture teaching in senior middle school is obviously necessary. In recent years, the reading comprehension materials in senior middle school are always diversifying. They tend to include every aspects of the life: politics, economy, culture and life etc, Such as English countries of the history, geography, local customs, traditional customs, life style, cultural art, the behavior norm and concept of value. Especially it is a highlight in the entrance examination for college.The main purpose for English teaching is to improve the students reading abilities. In the process of reading teaching, training students culture awareness is necessary. Many students can read out the passages and also know every word among the reading materials, but they cant understand the meaning of the passage clearly，especially the passages about culture such as institution, religion, custom. “We can read the passages easily, but we cant understand all the meanings”. Some students often complaine like that. The students can get high marks if they are familiar the culture knowledge of the English countries.Under this situation, more and more cultural background knowledge are present in the reading materials of students textbooks. It is nowadays a commonplace in language learning to recognize the importance of culture teaching and to say that language and cultural are intertwined.Reading is a form of communication between the reader and the writer. The process of reading is an interaction between the reader and the writer like a dialogue between them. It is another form of change for idea, thought, or the ideas into written symbols. The writer passes his thoughts to readers in the passages, and the readers read. We read because we want to get the information that the writer has expressed, we want to know the meanings clearly. But sometimes we know the words in the passages, but we cant get the real purpose the writer write to .Thats because we know the language, but we ignore the influence of culture in the language. Culture not only decide how the people communicate, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted. In fact, our entire communicative behaviors are dependent largely on the culture in which we have been raised. Culture, consequently, is the foundation of communication. When cultures differ, communicative practices may also differ. Samovar and Porter point out, “In modern society different people communicate in different ways, as do people in different societies around the world; and the way people communicate is the way they live. It is their culture. Who talks with whom? How? These are questions of communication and culture Communication and culture are inseparable.” (1995: 44-45). The relationship between culture and reading is the key factor for the understanding of intercultural communication. Once people from different cultures meet, their communicative practices differ from those of people have the same culture, which leads to communicative problems. "Communication is a risky business" (Brown, 1990). Due to different cultural backgrounds, people at time hold quite different viewpoints towards the same message. EFL reading is a kind of intercultural communication, because the writerthe message sender and the readerthe message receiver belong to different cultures. It requires the reader to have some understandings about the target culture. Otherwise, he cannot get the whole message, the correct message or the complication that the writer expresses, sometimes perhaps the reader draws a conclusion that is completely different from the writer expects because of different culture background.3.2 Current Situation of English Reading TeachingNowadays, the discussion on the relationship between language and culture as well as that between the input of language and culture has become a popular topic in the area of foreign language teaching and learning. The culture teaching and learning has been paid more and more attention to. From the following aspects, we can know the current situation of culture teaching in senior middle schools. Many teachers would claim these days that they do introduce sociocultural contexts for the language they teach although most handle the area more by telling than having students develop their awareness and control of this material through practice. What teachers much more rarely do as this contextual work proceeds，however，is to identify pieces of core ideology which emerge from such explorations and help their students link them with the factual information they already have about beliefs，so that they are gradually perceived as a coherent set of cultural practicesAs noted，this cannot be a rigid body，and acknowledgement of it does not equate with approving of its constituent beliefs and valuesThe culture teaching is only regarded as a supportive method to improve the students' linguistic competence. People often pay more attention to grammatical and vocabulary teaching, maybe they are more helpful to the students in the exams. Also, this is why they ignore the culture teaching in senior middle schools.Then, nowadays, the limitation of teachers knowledge in cross-culture is also a problem. Some teachers have the habits of teaching the students knowledge only from the textbooks. They only give a brief introduction about different culture when it is necessary. One of the reasons is that the teachers only know a little knowledge in culture. Some teachers dont learn by themselves after graduate college. Also, they dont want to waste their time in teaching but other things.In language pedagogy, students interest is always regarded as one of the most important factors to be considered. Actually, many students show great interest in reading articles about life, customs or entertainment of foreign people. It tells us that students hold a very positive attitude towards culture learning and teaching. As an English beginner, they are eager to know more about the surrounding world, especially a foreign culture. But they dont have so many books or materials about culture. Moreover, not all the students like this, some Chinese students dont like other countries culture, maybe some habits or traditions. They arent interested in learning different culture.Also, Chinese senior middle school students dont have any spare time for them to learn other knowledge, they have many homework and they have to recite the texts and notes. In a word, they are too busy to learn culture knowledge. Many middle schools lack the basic teaching facilities and this phenomenon is very serious in the future. Some middle schools, which are in the poor area, only have textbooks, not mention the computers. They seldom have to learn culture in another ways.3.3 Suggestions on Culture Teaching 3.3.1 Enriching Teachers Culture Knowldege With the development of globalization, cross-communication in the world is more frequent than before. Since China joined WTO, more and more western culture appared in our society. Especially the young people, their thoughts, ideals are influenced by the different culture. In this situation, teachers have the duty to lead them to a right way, in case they do something wrong. For example, ”look out” in English speaking countries means be careful, but in somebodys opinion, it means put the head out of the window or the house. In America, “Freeze!”in oral English means “keep ones feet or dont do anything” ,but many Chinese students dont understand. If the teachers can tell the students more about the western culture ,they will be told which they can accept and what they should avoid to do like the foreigners, it not only leads the students to a right way to learn different cultures, but also improve their interest of learning English. Then, the teachers goal is to create an environment of independent, problem-solving readers who choose what to read and who practice strategies for efficient reading. (Sandra, 2002) .Teaching culture in English reading class not just advance the communication abilities of the students, but strengthen their sense of English that leads to high marks in the reading comprehension in the college entrance examination. In order to master a language, teachers should master some basic skills and knowledge about the target language; meanwhile, teachers have to cultivate the sense of it. It isnt enough if teachers just learn the phonetics, lexis; teachers have to learn a lot of culture knowledge. For example, 1. “After seven straight victories the volleyball team met its Waterloo.” “Waterloo” is a new word to the students, but the teacher should first tell the story of War of Waterloo, which is a famous event in history. After the students know the story, they could know what “met its Waterloo” means.2. “Australia is living on sheep while US is living on wheels.”Though sheep and wheel is a popular word, but here arent the basic meanings. Combining with the geography knowledge, Australians live on sheep, but in US people go to work by cars because the distance between homes and work places. Americans cant live without cars, so we can think they live on wheels.3.“After working with him for three months I found he was no better than Shylock.”Shylock is the person in “The Merchant of Venice”, and he is a usurer. So, here it uses this word to describe blackmailer. On the other hand, no one is perfect and nobody knows everything. Because the teacher is the leader in class, the teacher should be responsible and active. When they find what they dont know clearly or what they should learn by themselves, they should be active and learn in earnest. Especially in culture teaching class, it requires the teachers know a lot of cross-culture knowledge, such as the geography, customs, and their social habits. It is also their duty to improve their major skills and culture qualities, which help them to cultivate the students culture awareness. Only the teachers know more about culture can the students gain more culture knowledge and cultivate their culture awareness. So that students can improve the English reading abilities. Also, in some newspaper or magazines, some phrases have different meanings as follows:1. Dress designer David and Elizabeth Emanue, holed up in the Mayfair workshops like a couple of atomic scientists.Here the phrase “hole up ”means “hide”.2. As the reality sunk in he quickly sketched out his plans for the U.N.post. Here the phrase “sink in “mean ”to be fully realized”.3. How did you pan out on that test? Here the phrase “pan out ” means “succeed”. Many English reading materials are from newspaper or magazine on this topic. The more you know about the different fields knowledge, the clearer you understand the passage. 3.3.2 Motivating Students Interest on Culture Teachers should always bear in mind that interest is the best teacher, and to protect and activate students interest and curiosity is one of the main tasks of teaching. Just as what advocated in the English Curriculum Standard, the ultimate goal of English culture teaching at the preliminary stage is to enable students to have a rough understanding of foreign cultures and their difference from ours, and introduce to them culture close to their daily life so as to stimulate their interest in learning English As the motivation and interest are the cause of study to students, teachers must apply the right teaching approaches in class and organize some activities in class. Maybe the students can gain more knowledge from the activities; also these activities can link to the textbooks. For instance, in Senior Students Book 5, the Module 4 is Carnival. Teachers can organize an activity in order to introduce the main festivals in western countries. The teacher applies songs, pictures and games to let the students guess the festivals. Then the winner can get some awards. Students can prepare before the activity. In the process, the students remember the origins, times of the festivals, and the ways of celebrating, and so on. After class, “English corner” or “English Salon” can be held regularly in order to let more and more students have the chances to enjoy the English-speaking atmosphere. And they like to practice their oral English; through this way they can gain culture knowledge by themselves. Whats more, students should not only focus on textbook, and teachers can encourage students to learn culture and language by means of newspapers and magazines. As a matter of fact, the most valuable advantage of using the newspaper and magazine in foreign language classes lies in its function of reflecting the foreign people in their own cultural setting and of providing insights into various, contemporary interests of the foreign people. Students can perceive the real life of British and American people through reading newspaper. For example, in some newspaper or magazines, some phrases have different meanings as follows:1. Dress designer David and Elizabeth Emanue, holed up in the Mayfair workshops like a couple of atomic scientists.Here the phrase “hole up ”means “hide”.2. As the reality sunk in he quickly sketched out his plans for the U.N.post. Here the phrase “sink in “mean ”to be fully realiz