跨文化交际

How to cultivate the students’awareness of culture

Key words: cultural awareness，trans-cultural communication，culture differences

The purpose of elementary English learning is to help the students know more about the differences between Chinese and western cultures, broaden their vision, cultivate their patriotism and therefore lay a solid foundation for their life-long study and development. Learning a foreign language means not only mastering its codes of grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure, but also have a better understanding of the culture background of different nations and respect and tolerate others’ cultures and customs. Language is a vehicle for culture. Any language reflects its related social cultures, and it is culture that bestows rich content on language. In this sense, language and culture interact with each other in reality. In our practical English teaching, teachers should strengthen the culture-related input and let the culture differences sink in the students’ mind. Only in this way can the students read and communicate without obstacles. Here are a few tips we should follow in reality.

First, teachers should introduce much knowledge about cultural background to students. They can be festivals and celebrations, music, famous cities, history, famous writers and their works, idioms, body language, the western values and their way of life. This is because the students are often exposed to these cultural phenomena in their reading. If they know nothing about the culture, they couldn’t get along well. These are common sense in foreign language learning. For example, the Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a famous story before the Roman Conquest. If they didn’t know this, they might be laughed at by others for their ignorance.

Second, teacher should advise the students to pay attention to the taboo in communication. Don’t be inquisitive about the foreigners’ salary, age, religion, political beliefs, and marital status. It’s provoking to ask these personal questions. However, if you want to start a conversation with a foreigner, don’t start with “what are you doing.” Instead, you can begin with “nice weather, isn’t it?” These small talks can help you communicate with a foreigner.

Third, teachers can make a contrast about the western and Chinese cultures to help the students better understand the cultural differences. On one hand, there are many similar expressions between languages. For example, all roads lead to Rome. I bet every student can understand its meaning. Then we can introduce “Rome is not built in one day” to students and ask them to guess its meaning. Another example in point is how to reply thanks. In English language, there are many phrases, such as, “not at all”, “you are welcome”, and “don’t mention it”. Compared with Chinese expressions, they still exist some similarity. On the other hand, when the western festivals fall in different months of the year, we can ask the students to compare their activities related, for example, the

Mid-autumn Day and Thanks Giving Day, The Christmas and The Chinese New Year. Through comparison, students can know more about the western world and their own brilliant culture as well and this will smooth ways for their reading.

Fourth, teachers should employ more approaches and means to help the students absorb and experience the western culture.

●The school library may provide several kinds of magazines and picture books of the English-speaking countries for students to consult.●Teachers can organize the students to see the English movies of the original edition once a week. Being influenced by what they see and hear, the students can form a deep impression on how English is used in actual life.●Learning is for the sake of application. To organize English corner or evening parties is another means to expose the students to the English-speaking environment.●The school authority can invite the foreigner teachers to help the students improve their oral English. Through communication with foreigners, the students can taste what is real English and learn more about the western country and its people.

Summary: in the English teaching process, besides the basic knowledge input, the teachers should guide the students to discover the culture information hidden in the text at all times and all places and thus strengthen the students’ understanding towards text and broaden their cultural vision. The trans-cultural communication is important. It’s urgent to cultivate the students’ culture awareness. Only in this way can the students enjoy the pleasure of English and use it freely in actual life.

首先，利用现行教材进行文化背景知识的了解。我们现在学过很多关于中西方文化的知识，比如中外文化交流史，西方文化概论，外国文学史等等，这些教材都非常注重英语文化背景知识和社会习俗的渗透，这就为我们了解中外文化知识提供了丰富的文化信息资料。

如何培养学生跨文化意识和提高学生跨文化交际的能力

近年来,随着改革步伐的加快，特别是信息及网络业的飞速发展,人与人之间甚至足不出户便涉及到跨文化的交际。然而,由于不同的文化背景及缺乏必要的文化变项知识,交际障碍甚至交际失败的情况时有发生。人们开始重新审视以往的外语教学模式:将语言学的研究重点