Culture Teaching In foreign Language Instruction to China Obstacles and Remedies中国英语教学中的文化教学问题与对策.doc

Culture Teaching In foreign Language Instruction to China: Obstacles and Remedies中国英语教学中的文化教学：问题与对策 【内容提要】70年代末，80年代初，由于国家对外改革开放的需要，一些外语教师走出国门深造、进修、访问，同时进入中国的外国人也逐年增多。在跨文化交际中，英语教师意识到如果对外国文化不了解，跨文化交际中就会出现矛盾与问题。因此，在英语教学中如何进行文化教学的问题就提出来了。近20年来，有关英语文化教学的研究成果颇多，但中国英语教学中语言教学与文化教学相结合的问题至今尚未得到圆满的解决。文化教学经常是“雷声大，雨点小”。本文主要探讨英语文化教学中存在的问题及其对策。文章首先通过回顾新中国成立以来英语教学中文化教学的情况，并对138位中学英语教师进行问卷调查，了解他们对英语教学中文化教学的看法，力图发现英语教学中文化教学的问题，通过分析这些问题，提出几点改进英语教学中文化教学的方法。【关键词】:英语教学，文化教学，问题，对策AbstractIn the late 1970's and early 1980's one group after another of foreign language teachers in China, to meet the demands of reforming and opening to the outside world, went abroad for visits or further studies, and at the same time more and more foreigners came to China. Teachers of English came to realize in intercultural communication that ignorance of foreign cultures often resulted in communication breakdowns and conflicts. Therefore, the subject of culture teaching in English teaching began to be studied. In the last 20 years there have been lots of studies made on the subject. However, the integration of English teaching and culture teaching can hardly be regarded as satisfactory with much talk and little effect. The present paper briefly reviews culture teaching in English teaching since 1949, investigates 138 middle school teachers to elicit their responses to culture teaching with a view to discovering problems in culture teaching and, through analyzing these problems, suggests some remedies.Key words: English teaching, culture teaching, obstacles remedies正文（139）Culture Teaching In Foreign Language Instruction in China: Obstacles and Remedies Introduction0. 1The Importance of Culture Teaching Since China adopted its open door policy to the outside world in 1978, international communication has been constantly on the increase. Huge numbers of students have gone overseas to learn about advanced science and technology or business management while more and more people from other countries have been pouring into China for business, sightseeing, etc. Thus, great changes have taken place in the language environment in China and in people's language awareness. The social function of language has become well recognized. Socialization among people of different regions with different languages has increased within the country for reasons of economic co-operation, academic exchanges, travel and the like. Co-operation betweenChina and foreign countries in various fields has become a common part of social practice. English as a tool of communication has been playing a pivotal role in carrying out international exchange and cooperation.While more and more people are needed who are specialized in various fields and have great communicative competence in English, the communicative competence of most Chinese is not very encouraging. A large number of people with a firm knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary found that they often got stuck and were unable to carry out their communicative intent in their cross-cultural communication. This is quite perplexing if we look at the high social status of English in China with English teaching occupying a prominent place in Chinese school curricula. It starts in primary school as a compulsory subject and is continued up to the last year of the senior high school. Most people learn English for six years through junior high school to senior high school. Six years sounds long enough for students to be quite influent in oral English. However, even college students have unsatisfactory oral communicative competence despite more years of learning English at the tertiary level. A case in point is that even if they have passed the College English Test Band 4 and Band 6, many graduates are still "mute" in speaking or cannot speak English appropriately and effectively. It is no wonder that members of English teaching circles in China often hear the complaint, "High grade, low ability." This phenomenon has brought home to Chinese educators, especially to foreign language teachers all over the country, the realization that one cannot communicate effectively with foreigners without the knowledge of their culture. That is because different cultures have different norms, values and schema. Dunnett, Dubin&Lezberg (1986: 149) have made the following observation: 1) Language cannot be translated word for word. All languages have idiomatic expressions, which carry connotations that are above and beyond the meanings of the separate words themselves.2) The tone of a speaker's voice carries meaning. All languages have different tune' or patterns of intonation. Similarly, the degree of loudness/softness used by speakers is a characteristic of the language itself.3) Each language or culture employs gestures, body movements that convey meanings. Gesture and body movements are not necessarily the same for all languages.4) We also understand that different grammatical elements for describing all languages use different parts of the physical world.5) All cultures have taboo topics. Part of knowing a language is knowing what one can and can not say to whom on what occasions. 6) In personal relationships, the term for addressing people varies considerably among languages. Even in informal American culture, there are commonly agreed-upon rules indicating when people are addressed by their first name and when they are called by titles such as Mrs., Mr., and Dr.All these differences increase a lot of difficulties for foreign language learners and cause conflicts among different cultural groups in intercultural communication. Cultural communication and the concomitant target cultural references in terms of verbal and non-verbal forms to language choices have become a very important topic for study in foreign language teaching. In other words, how to teach the target culture in English language teaching has become a major concern in education. 0.2 The Present Situation in Culture Teaching More than two decades passed, and greater attention has been paid to culture teaching in foreign language education. An increasing number of professions in language teaching and research have recognized the importance and necessity of integrating language and culture in foreign language classrooms. Today many universities open courses or lectures to introduce target cultures. Books and articles about its theory and practice concerning how to teach culture in foreign language teaching have been published. This progress includes introductions to foreign cultures such as integrative researchers on language and culture (Gu et al., 1990 etc.), comparative studies on foreign cultures and Chinese culture (Deng&Li u, 1989; Zhang, 1996; Zheng, 1994), culture in foreign language education (Chen et al., 1991; Wang, 1990; Hu, 1992), culture in foreign language translation (Liu, 1989; Jia, 1989) and intercultural communication (Hu, 1990; Wang, 1991;Jia, 1992). A package of sophisticated theories have been developed and attempted to integrate language and culture in foreign language classes, but they have not been very successful. The practical foreign language teaching at both school and university levels in China still follows, to a greatest extent, its traditional way of focusing on language in the classroom and greatly ignoring its social and cultural context, which resulted in possible communication breakdowns with English-speaking people. The following example is just one of such breakdowns:Mr. Richardson, after enjoying conversation with Mr. Wang, says: "We really should get together to have lunch some time." To This Mr. along says: "1 would enjoy that." A few weeks later, Mr. along began to feel that Mr. Richardson was rasher insincere because he had not followed up his invitation to lunch with a special time and place. The difference in discourse patterns expected by many Asian speakers of English and native speakers of English respectively is the source of the problem between Mr. along and Mr. Richardson. The pattern of displacing important points until near the end of a conversation, which is oven found in East Asian discourse, has led Mr. along to think that this mention of lunch at the end of the conversation is very important to Mr. Richardson. Whether it is important to Mr. along or not, he believes that Mr. Richardson is seriously making an invitation to lunch. Mr. Richardson, on the other hand, has mentioned lunch together sometime at the end of his conversation just because it is of little significance. It is not a specific invitation, but just a conventional way of parting with good feelings toward the other. The difference in cultural pattern results in confusion between the two participants in maintaining social relations. This example shows that linguistic knowledge is not enough for successful communication with people from different cultures. People should try to avoid carrying their own cultural norms when they talk with different cultural groups in order to achieve better communication. Otherwise, frustration and conflicts would occur. This also echoes Byram's (1997:25) philosophy of intercultural communication and understanding,“but this communication has to be understood as more than the exchange of information and sending message.Even the exchange of information is dependent upon understanding how what one says or writes will be perceived and interpreted in another cultural context; it depends on the ability to decentre and take up the perspective of the listener or reader." Accordingly, Kramsch (lyy3:1) regards the knowledge of culture as the fifth skill to language learners in addition to listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. She insists that culture must be taught in each language class, saying "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 mane sense of the world around them."0.3 The Purpose of the Present Study As is revealed above, articles and collections of papers and conferences on cultural teaching have been produced in China since the 1980s, and a number of studies and tests in the area have also been made (Wang Zhan-Ya, 1990; LeiQing, 1998 and Yang Yu-Chen et al. 1997, among others) in an attempt to find out how Chinese teachers' and students' sociocultural competence is related to their linguistic competence. Although the findings of these studies are quite revealing in showing that Chinese teachers' and students' cultural competence is far behind their linguistic competence, they mostly fall short of accounting for the causes and suggesting remedies. Therefore, the present paper will review the history of teaching foreign languages from 1949 to the present and make a survey to investigate the obstacles in the way of culture teaching in foreign language teaching in China with a view to offering possible ways to improve culture teaching. 0.4 The Scope of the Present PaperApart from this Introduction, this paper consists of the following four chapters and a conclusion: Chapter One, The Studies of Culture Teaching in English teaching in China, sets out to define culture, explore the relationship between language and culture, and make a brief review of culture teaching in foreign language teaching from 1949 to the present.Chapter Two, Fieldwork Investigating Problem of Culture Teaching, uses some questionnaires in survey of the obstacles in the way of culture teaching in foreign language instruction. Chapter Three, Obstacles in The Way of Culture Teaching, analyzes the main obstacles in culture teaching in foreign language instruction. Chapter Four, Improving Culture Teaching, aims to offer possible ways to improve culture teaching. In conclusion, a summary of the major points in the present paper will be highlighted and necessity for further research will be discussed.0.5 Basic Approaches Adopted for the Paper Since the present paper takes upon itself to locate the obstacles of teaching target culture in ELT and how to teach target culture in ELT, we will have to collect, classify and analyze as many references as available. Accordingly, the major approach adopted for the paper will be inductive. Chapter one The Studies of Culture "Coaching in English "teaching in China1 .1 Defining Culture Different scholars from different fields perceive culture differently. Even within the same field of foreign language teaching, culture has been approached from a number of perspectives in relation to language teaching. It is no wonder that Eli Hinkle (2UU 1:1) said: "It may not be an exaggeration to say that there are nearly as many det7nitions of culture as there are fields of inquiry into human societies, groups, systems, behavior, and activities" Etimologically, the word "culture" originates from German Kulture, which means to bring soil under cultivation, and later is associated with the fostering of people's body and spirit, especially the cultivation of art, moral ability and talent. The first anthropological definition of culture was offered by the British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor, who looks at "culture" as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief; art, morals, law, customs and other habits acquired by man as a member of a society." (cf. Wang Zhenya, 2UUU:12) Later, the American anthropologist Frans Boas points out that each society has a unique culture that is different from other societies.It is generally accepted nowadays that "culture" can be interpreted in its broad sense and narrow sense. However, scholars are divided in opinion as to what is broad and what is narrow. For example, anthropologists define "culture" as the total life way of a people as distinguished from the art, literature, history, geography, education, science, drama, music of a people. They consider the latter group as narrow and theirs as broad. However, other scholars regard the "anthropological culture" as "small c culture" or culture in its narrow sense. This being the case, we had better concentrate on the concrete contents of culture instead of distinguishing the labels of "broad" and "narrow". According to Chastain (1976: 388), "culture" that "focuses on the major products and contributions of a society in general or of outstanding individuals in that society. may not contribute significantly to students' ability to function linguistically and socially in the contemporary culture nor to their intercultural understanding." For Chastain (ibid.), "definition of culture as the way people live is the one most commonly and most