How to carry on culture teaching in the English class

______外国语______学院__ __课程与教学论__ ____专业 姓名_宋薇___ ____ 学号__20110602002_____________ ………………………………（密）………………………………（封）………………………………（线）……………………………… 四川师范大学 科学硕士（教育硕士）研究生学期作业（论文）专用封面 作业（论文）题目：How to carry on culture teaching in the English class 所修课程名称：      外语教学论        修课程时间：  2011年  9 月至  2011 年  12 月 完成作业（论文）日期：  2011  年    12 月 任课教师打分：        任课教师评阅意见： 任课教师签名：                      年  月  日 Grade: __________ Name: __________ Number: __________ Marks: __________ How to carry on culture teaching in the English class Abstract: Base on the concept of Lately-revised “English Syllabus”, the overall language ability can be divided into 5 parts: learning strategies, affect and attitudes, language skills, language knowledge, and cultural awareness .This article analysis the importance of culture awareness in the English teaching. After giving some examples about culture differences, this paper introduce some ways to carry on culture teaching in the English class. Key Words: culture awareness ; culture teaching Introduction: Because of the influence of the structural linguistics teacher mainly adopt Audio-Visual Method and Grammar-Translation Method, which over-emphasize the language phenomenon but neglect the culture knowledge. The lately-revised “English Syllabus” states that Language is closely related to culture, so student’s sensitivity to tolerance of the cultural differences, as well as their ability to deal with these cultural differences should be developed in the English teaching. Thus, how to increase students’ cultural awareness becomes more and more important in English teaching, and it is quite important for teachers to carry on culture teaching appropriately in addition to the teaching of language knowledge. I. The Important Role Culture Plays in EL Teaching and Learning What is culture? One of the Chinese linguists, ZHANG Zhan-yi (1983), put the  cultural background knowledge in foreign language teaching into two kinds according  to its functions. They are knowledge culture and social intercourse culture. Knowledge culture refers to such cultural knowledge concerning a country’s politics, economy, education, religion, law and cultural art. Social intercourse culture refers to those linguistic and non-linguistic factors which affect the accurate expression of information causing prejudice or misunderstanding when two persons with different cultural background communicate with each other. In recent years, with the globalization of the world economy and the steady increasing international exchange, our country has been in desperate need of the people familiar with foreign cultures and capable of communicating accurately and appropriately in the international situations.  It puts forward new requirements for English language teaching in Chinese colleges. Thus the current English pedagogies need shifting from traditional teaching methods to intercultural communicative competence. A language embodies rich connotations of its culture. In language teaching and learning, culture refers to such items of the target language speaking country as history and geography, local conditions and customs, traditional conventions, life styles, literature and art, behavior regulations, value concepts, etc. Contacting and understanding the cultures of English-speaking countries is greatly helpful to students’ understanding and using English, to deepening their awareness and understanding of their native culture and to cultivating their international awareness. In his/her English teaching, a teacher should gradually expand the teaching contents and ranges of the target cultures according to different levels of students’ age and their cognitive ability to help them raise their cultural sensibility and their cross-cultural communicative competence. II. Theories about culture teaching. 2.1 Pragmatic Failure The concept of pragmatic failure was first proposed by Jenny Thomas (1983) to define    the inability to understand what is meant by what is aid. He points out that pragmatic failure is not the general performance errors in using words or making sentences,but  those mistakes which fail to fulfil communication because of infelicitous style,  incompatible expressions and improper habit. Qian (1997) explains that although the  speaker uses sentences which are grammatically correct, they unconsciously violate the norms of interpersonal relationships and social norms in speech, or take no notice of time, hearer and context. For example,‘Where are you going? is cordial greeting form among the Chinese, but if used to show friendliness to native English speakers; it is likely to  regarded as anintrusion of privacy. Wolfson (1983, 62) points out, Ininteracting with  foreigners, native speakers tend to be rather tolerant of errors in pronunciation or syntax.  In contrast, violations of ules of speaking are often interpreted as bad manners since the  native speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity.’ 2.2 Hymes'"communicative comprtence" and"speech event" It hypothesizes that different sorts of speech event (private conversation ,public lectures,political speeches,and so on)have different rules of language use.All of the following have been suggested as components of a speech event at one time or another by ethnographers and others (Hymes1987). 1. To be able (and to what degree)to know the agreement of language form and grammatical rules(grammaticality / possibility).That is whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible; 2. To be able (and to what degree)to know how to use and response to different types of speech acts(fessibility).That is to say whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available; 3. To understand  (and to what degree) an acceptable language form is appropriate in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated (appropriateness) .That is to say whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate(adequate,happy,successful)in relation to acontext in which it is used and evaluated; 4. To be able (and to what degree) to know the frequent use of language forms(performance).That is to say whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done,actually performed,and what is doing entails. (Hymes  1972 :281) Sociolinguistic Dell Hymes developed the following model to promote the analysis of discourse as a series of speech events and speech acts within a cultural context. It uses the first letter of terms for speech components;the categories are so productive and powerful in analysis that you can use this model to analyze many different kinds of discourse: Participants:speaker/hearer,sender/receiver,etc. Social relationships,or "role sets" Setting:in physical time and space Scene:psychological or cultural setting Form:linguistic description of the message Topic:what the message is about Speech acts or verbal acts Purpose:goal or intention Key:serious or mocking,etc Genre:casual speech,poem,form letter,etc. Channel:oral or written Code:language or variety of a language Norms of interaction:loudness of voice ,physical distance,etc. Norms of interpretation:how norms of interpreted At Mr Yin's class,he required us to us Dell Hymes' SPEACKING Model to analysis the neclace . He said that a teacher should know how to analyze many different kinds of discourse based on the Dell Hymes' SPEACKING Model. For a time it seemed that language teaching could be much more closely oriented to learner's needs or aims by analyzing the speech events up into speech acts or language functions,and then teaching the linguistic forms that were appropriate to realize the function within a given speech event.Indeed,many course were built around this idea,especially in the field of language teaching for specific purposes .A spate of books and course materials appeared labeled "Making Introductions","Having an Argument","Polite Requests","Asking Directions",and so on.In fact many fresh techniques,such as role play,simulations,and exercises taken from drama classes,were introduced into the second language classroom,in an effort to cope with language functions. 2.3Bernstein'"restricted" and "elaborated" codes. For more than 25 years, Bernstein has been developing a theory of language use based on the dichotomy of "restricted" and "elaborated" codes. Speakers of an elaborated code will choose from a wider range of syntactic possibilities to convey a message than speakers of a restricted code . They will also make more lexical distinctions and put more of their intent into words. A restricted code relies on “gestures, intonations, and verbal metaphor” to express many meanings that could be verbalized，it is likely that upper class families and peers usually uses a restricted elaborated code, rather than an restricted one which immigrants and lower-class uses. It means that a person's language ability depends on the person's code preference ,and the code preference depends on the environment he lives in. III. Examples of Pragmatic Failure In the English teaching practice, culture differences mainly reflected in the following aspect: As we all known different nations have their unique cultural background, this background lies in every aspect of the society they live in. 3.1.Appellation For example, we Chinese often call people like “Teacher Wang” “,Nurse Zhang”, however, these saying may sound inconceivable. In a formal setting, westerners address men as "Mister" (Mr), married women as "Misses" ("Mrs."), and unmarried women as "Miss" ( "Ms."). These days many women prefer to be addressed using the abbreviations "Ms." , pronounced "miz". In China, the surname comes first and then the given name. While westerners names are written and spoken with the given name first and the family name last. Chinese use “title +surname” to address their superior or elders rather than call them surnames, while the superior or elders call the addressers their names. Otherwise, the addresser may be considered as ill mannered, ill educated or rude. In west, although they are different in age and status, they can call the other directly, namely, their names, even first names .They demonstrate the sense of intimacy and the conception of” Everyone is created equal”