英語專業(yè)畢業(yè)論文2

1、an analysis of teaching english reading in middle schools: from the perspective of intercultural communicationi. introductionwith the booming global economy, english plays a more and more important role in international trade. the number of students and social groups that are interested in learning

2、english has sharply increased in recent years. hao (2007) stated that with the increase of cross-cultural communication and to go with the present society, the final purpose of english teaching should be defined as developing the students cross-cultural communicative ability. this is the capability

3、of perpetrating communication with people from different places with different cultural backgrounds. therefore, english teaching also is a type of activity of cross-cultural communication teaching. in the english teaching system of middle schools, reading teaching plays a significant role. furthermo

4、re, english reading input also is the major source for a chinese esl student. as nuttall (2002) contends, language improvement is a natural by-product of reading (p.30). the role of reading, therefore, exerts great influence on the english reading teaching. however, for a long time, when teaching en

5、glish reading in middle schools, teachers always emphasize the language teaching and overlook its cultural background knowledge. as a result, english reading teaching can not meet the requirements of the present cross-cultural communication for cultural knowledge is an important element of cross-cul

6、tural communication. han (2007) stated in many situations, it is often found that although the students have mastered certain english vocabulary and grammar, they still can not comprehend the authentic meaning of text or encounter reading obstacles. the reason for this case is the absence of cultura

7、l knowledge. hence, teaching language is to teach culture (kramsch, 1993:177). according to wu (2003), english reading ability can be called a kind of comprehensive communication ability. if people want to understand a text, grasp the main idea of text, and use the information from text to predict,

8、judge and reason, cultural knowledge must be possessed apart from certain english language knowledge. widdowson (cited in cheng, 2007) stated that reading also is a kind of interaction between the writers and readers. to some extent, if there is not an understanding of the target language culture, p

9、eople may find it difficult to get effective comprehension. hence, the teachers should try their best to impart social cultural background information to students in the process of english reading teaching. the study of leading cultural background knowledge into english reading can effectively impro

10、ve the students reading ability and reading level; it also plays an important role in improving the ability of cross-cultural communication. beyond that, under the implications of cross-cultural communication and the cognition of english as an international language, many educators gradually recogni

11、ze that language learning is not only to learn the language knowledge and skills, but also to acquire the relative cultural knowledge.the purpose of this paper is to analyze the current situation of english reading teaching of middle schools in china, and point out the reasons for the limitation of

12、current situation and then explain the relationship between cross-communication and english reading teaching. next, the author analyzes the importance of leading cultural background knowledge in english reading teaching through a specific case. also, the study may attract educational scholars to con

13、sider the present situation and to put forward some guiding suggestions so as to help those teachers, who only focus on language knowledge and skills, realize that knowledge and cultural knowledge are equally important. in the end, to a great extent, these implications for teachers and students can

14、exert great influence on the educational revolution in our country.ii.literature reviewas a quite important part of the english teaching system of middle schools, english reading teaching has attracted many scholars attention. especially, in recent years, scholars have done a lot of researches from

15、different perspectives according to the current situation of english reading teaching in china. with the study of cross-cultural communication, many scholars extend cross-cultural communication to the foreign language teaching, such as, hu wenzhong, zhang hongling, etc. other scholars integrate cult

16、ural background knowledge with english reading teaching of middle schools. although many scholars in china pay more attention to english reading teaching in the middle school, there are still some scholars in china who have studied and analyzed cross-cultural communication and english teaching from

17、various angles. according to some related studies, it is not difficult to find that some of them introduce the relationship between cross-cultural communication and english teaching in middle schools generally, and some of them analyze english reading teaching from the perspective of the relationshi

18、p between cultural knowledge and english reading teaching, such as, pang ying, xiao ji, chao dingjiang, etc. only a few scholars have studied cultural knowledge and english reading teaching of middle schools from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. its a pity that most of them have only

19、 analyzed english reading teaching in terms of the cultural background knowledge, or just given a brief introduction. therefore, this paper will analyze the relationship between cultural background knowledge and english reading teaching of middle schools from a new angle of cross-cultural communicat

20、ion. iii. the present situation of english reading teaching from the perspective of cross-cultural communicationthe relationship between english reading teaching and cross-cultural communication is a popular topic all the time in china and attracts much attention from several fields.3.1. present sit

21、uation of english reading teachingmany foreign linguists find that reading is an important link of language learning and also is an important way for people to obtain knowledge and information through some relative research. cheng (2007) believed that the main task of english teaching is to develop

22、the students reading ability. unfortunately, many students reading ability still can not reach the required level. in other words, they are only able to understand the surface meaning of the text and can not see the deeper meaning. however, english as a foreign language is widely taught in middle sc

23、hools, but few teachers realize the relationship between english reading teaching and cross-cultural communication. when teaching english reading, the teachers are devoted to teaching language knowledge skills instead of some communicative skills. in fact, english reading teaching has a close connec

24、tion with cross-cultural communication. as for english reading teaching in middle schools, the present situation of english reading teaching is still far from satisfactory as many teachers have a confused understanding for the purpose of english reading teaching of middle schools, and also for the r

25、elationship between language and culture. in addition, many teachers who teach english reading even neglect the cultural differences in classes and understand the meaning of texts in a chinese way of thinking. 3.2. reasons for present situation of english readingas regards the reasons for present si

26、tuation of english reading from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, li (2007) pointed out that there are two reasons: the first reason is that some teachers in the middle school believe that transferring language knowledge to students should be regarded as the main purpose of english te

27、aching. the second is that some teachers insist that cultural knowledge teaching can not be accomplished as the content in the middle school is so simple. this kind of vague cognition has exerted great negative influence on daily communicative ability in middle schools. in addition, the methods of t

28、raditional english reading teaching have been established for a long time and the influence can not be eliminated in a short time. the traditional english reading teaching seems to mainly concern sentences, vocabulary, and grammar for traditional reading teaching is often regarded as a course for la

29、nguage knowledge. that is, english reading teaching focuses on imparting language knowledge rather than cultivating the cross-cultural communication awareness. consequently, most english teachers put emphasis on the language itself only, such as, vocabulary and grammars, without paying attention to

30、the cultural knowledge of the text. the result of ignoring the cultural knowledge is that although the students have enough english language knowledge to know the meaning of each word and understand each grammar structure, they still can not comprehend the authentic meaning of the text. in recent ye

31、ars, although, english reading teaching of middle schools has greatly improved in middle schools, and both teachers and students have made great efforts, the result is still unsatisfactory owing to many factors.3.3. requirement of english reading teaching in terms of cross-cultural communicationengl

32、ish reading teaching should be based on the aim of cross-cultural communication from two aspects.the first aspect is to know the requirement of relationship between language and culture. our language is our culture yu (cited in liu, 2004), so, the relationship between language and culture is insepar

33、able. language is an important base of culture and also is the reflection of culture. in addition, a language is a mirror of a nations cultural characteristics. it not only includes native history and cultural background, but also contains the national view of life and the way of thinking. without f

34、ull understanding of relative cultural knowledge, it is impossible to learn the language easily. therefore, the teachers must teach english reading with cultural knowledge from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. the second angle is to understand the need of current society. at the begi

35、nning of the 21st century, people who can communicate with others from different cultures are required by modern society. according to this, the author thinks that the main objective of english teaching is to achieve cross-cultural communication and communication with the people who have different c

36、ultural backgrounds. zhang (2007) thinks, the ability of cross-cultural communication is one aim of foreign language learning. cultural knowledge is an essential element of english reading teaching in middle schools and cross-cultural communication. therefore, learning cultural knowledge is very nec

37、essary. it follows that learning a kind of language must involve learning its culture. iv. cross-cultural communication and english reading teachingimproving learners intercultural communicative competence has been acknowledged to be the major goal of current english language teaching in china. what

38、 intercultural communicative competence is and how to achieve by our english learners have become issues of major concern. 4.1 cross-cultural communication briefly speaking, zhang (2007) contends that cross-cultural communication refers to the communication between the native- speakers and non-nativ

39、e speakers. hu (1989) said there are two different kinds of understanding for cross-cultural communication. in a narrow sense, cross-cultural communication refers to various cultural factors and related problems involved in mass communication. in a broad sense, it refers to various aspects of cultur

40、e involved in all kinds of communication among people with different backgrounds. from the explanation of intercultural communication, it is not difficult to find that the cultural backgrounds are an essential element to achieve successful cross-cultural communication. from here, it is easy to get a

41、n application that it is very useful for english teachers to teach reading and to take the cross-cultural communication into consideration with the characteristic of english reading teaching of middle schools, because this can remind the students of learning the culture of english-speaking countries

42、 consciously.4.2. relationship between cross-cultural communication and english reading teaching people from different countries and different nationalities have different cultural backgrounds. this makes the communicative ways and customs different. if people dont get an understanding of the cultur

43、al backgrounds from others, they will fail to realize the cross-cultural communication successfully. in other words, when conducting the cross-cultural communication, if both sides in communication are not under the same cultural situation, puzzlement or misunderstanding will easily arise and then m

44、ake the communication fail. actually, the real tie that makes people go together is their culturetheir common thinking and standard ji (cited in benedict, 1935:16). apparently, the key to successful cross-cultural communication is to understand others cultural backgrounds. only in this way, can the

45、cultural shock be avoided effectively. however, deng and liu (1995) pointed out that language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. some social scientists consider it the keystone of culture. language is simply the tool conveying the message which is important to them, whereas

46、in language classrooms the message is the tool conveying the language (nuttall, 2002:30). language is the principal means for us to conduct our social lives. it is the symbolic system of human communication. when it is used in the contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple an

47、d complex ways. language expresses, embodies and symbolizes cultural reality (kramsch, 1993: 9). from here, learning language must understand its culture. english, which is a tool to transfer cultural information, plays an important role in understanding the meaning of the text. so, cultural knowled

48、ge is indispensible for english reading teaching of middle schools. many textbooks in middle schools contain many cross-cultural communication factors. that provides the condition for cross-cultural teaching. furthermore, some textbooks are compiled by domestic experts and foreign experts from brita

49、in, america, australia, and canada. the chinese students want to master every text completely. and they have to learn relative cultural background knowledge of text. from the above analysis, the cultural elements have extended to all-sides of english. culture teaching is the important content of eng

50、lish teaching. learning language must know its culture and learning culture must understand language. therefore, teachers not only teach students pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary to make them grasp language knowledge and skills. at the same time, that makes students acquire english-speaking co

51、untries culture and recognizes the differences between eastern and western culture. so, students knowledge of constructure is broadened and meanwhile, cultural insight of students must be broadened to improve their ability of intercultural communication. as for teachers, the most important thing is

52、to enhance their social cultural competence.winston bembeck (cited in cheng, 2007), an expert of american foreign language teaching, ever pointed out that the teaching method which only imparts language rather than transfer culture is worthless. pre-reading activities which mean the tasks or activit

53、ies students do before they read the text in detail (wang 2006:185), are called the leading-in. for this part, the major task is to introduce cultural knowledge having something to do with the topic and to let students have a general understanding the content of the text. incorporating some cultural

54、 background knowledge into english reading can stimulate students interest in english learning. however, in general, english reading teaching in the middle school takes no account of learning cultural background knowledge. as a matter of fact, english reading teaching shouldnt only focus on developi

55、ng students reading skills (wang, 2006:204), but pay attention to cultural knowledge, which is very helpful for students to understand the text which involves in culture from english speaking countries.4.4. principles of english reading teaching from the perspective of cross-cultural communicationli

56、 (2007) considers that when english reading teaching mixes cross-cultural communication together in middle schools, there are some principles the teachers have to obey to develop students awareness of cross-cultural communication.practical principle: the content of cultural knowledge the teachers em

57、ploys in leading in has to be closely related to the connotation of the language which students learn, and also may have something to do with the main aspect of their daily communication. the integration of language communication teaching with cultural knowledge teaching makes students believe that

58、the relationship between language and culture is not so abstract that they can understand. students will then keep the interest for language learning. for example, the teachers teach students some different expressions about eastern culture to western culture. as for usage of the address, chinese pe

59、ople put their family name first and put their given name last. the author thinks that this has something to with chinese peoples respect for their ancestors from ancient times to the present, thus putting the ancestors family name first. english people put the surname first, so maybe they pay more attention to the individualism.stage principle: when leading in the cultural knowledge, the teachers have to obey the principle of gradual improvement. the content of cultural teaching is determined by the