从文化迁移的角度探讨中国初中英语口语教学.doc

陕 西 中 医 药 大 学本 科 毕 业 论 文Undergraduate Thesisof Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine题目:从文化迁移的角度探讨中国初中英语口语教学Title:A Study of Oral English Teaching in Chinese Junior Middle Schools from the Perspective of Cultural Transfer 姓 名： 郭庆燕 学 号： 110081202231 专 业： 英 语 班 级： 2010 级 2 班 院 系： 外 语 学 院 完成日期： 2015年 6月 12 日 指导老师： 薛俊梅 AcknowledgmentsI would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis. My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to Professor，Xue Junmei, my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form. Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis. Guo Qingyan Abstract The world is developing by leaps and bounds in the 21st centuries, and with the depth and breadth of Sino-western communication, it draws great attention to study oral English from the cultural transfer perspective. Learning a language is mainly learning its culture. So when the learners learn a language, they should master the real cultural connotations. Language is used to communicate with others, especially oral English, which is more important in daily life. However, nine-year compulsory education in China, oral English teaching exists many problems in junior middle schools, especially ignores the culture teaching during oral English teaching, which leads the low teaching efficiency. In China, the stages of English teaching can be divided into three stages: primary schools, junior middle schools sand senior middle schools. The stage of junior middle schools is a transitional stage for students oral English learning in nine-year compulsory education. So the teachers should pay more attention to culture teaching during oral English teaching. This thesis mainly studies oral English teaching in Chinese junior middle schools through presenting importance of cultural factors in oral English teaching, the factors restricting students oral communication and some effective strategies for improving the level of oral English teaching in Chinese junior middle schools from the perspective of cultural transfer.Key words: oral English teaching；cultural transfer；teaching strategies；teaching methods; Chinese junior middle schools摘要21世纪的世界飞速发展，随着中西交流的日益频繁和深广，从文化的角度来学习英语及其翻译倍受人们的关注。学好一门语言首先了解它的文化，只有在此基础上，我们才可以更好的掌握语言的内涵。但在我国的九年义务教育中，初中英语口语教学却存在很多问题，其中最为严重的问题就是在教学过程中忽略了文化教学，从而导致我国英语口语教学效率低下。在我国，英语口语教学大致可以分为三个阶段：小学、初中和高中。初中是学生英语口语习得的一个重要的过渡阶段。因此在教学中，教师应该给予文化教学足够的重视。本文试图从文化迁移的角度通过对我国初中英语口语教学中存在的问题，制约学生口语交际的因素以及有效的口语教学策略的分析,旨在为有效提高初中阶段的英语口语教学提出良好建议。关键字:英语口语教学;文化转移;教学策略;教学方法;中国初中IIContentsAcknowledgmentsIIAbstractIIIChapter one Introduction1 1.1 Research Background1 1.2 Objective and Significance of the Thesis1 1.3 Organization of the Thesis2Chapter Two Literature Review4 2.1 Culture and Cultural Transfer4 2.1.1 Culture and Language4 2.1.2 Cultural Transfer and its Classification5 2.2 Strategies of Oral English Teaching7 2.3 Classification of Strategies of Oral English Teaching7Chapter Three Discussion10 3.1 Reflections of Cultural Differences in Language10 3.2 Influence of Cultural Differences on Communicative Modes of Language10 3.3 Importance of Cultural Factors in Oral English Teaching11 3.4 Cultural Transfer in Students Oral English14 3.4.1 Mother Tongues Thinking Modes14 3.4.2 The Cultural Transfer of Native Cultural Traditions and Speech Habits15 3.5 Restrictive Factors of Students Oral Communications15 3.5.1 Psychological Burdens of Students 16 3.5.2 Inter-language Process Between English and Chinese16 3.5.3 Intrinsic Differences Between English and Chinese Cultures16 3.5.4 Poor oral English Teaching Environments17 3.6 Effective Strategies of Oral English Teaching17 3.6.1 Clearing Oral English Teaching Goals17 3.6.2 Improving the Students Participation in Oral English Teaching18 3.6.3 Improving Students Abilities of Autonomous Learning18 3.6.4 Attaching Great Importance to Teachers Feedbacks19 3.6.5 Encouraging Evaluations Timely19 3.6.6 Introducing the Cultural Backgrounds of Learning Materials20Chapter Four Conclusion21 4.1 Suggestions for Oral English Teaching of Chinese Junior Middle schools21 4.1.1 Changing the Traditional Teaching Perceptions21 4.1.2 Emphasizing the Importance of Foreign Cultural Awareness22 4.2 Limitations of the Research 22BibliographyVIIIVChapter one Introduction1.1 Research Background As an international language, English becomes more and more important. Chinese junior middle schools students realize the significance of English as a tool in their studying aboard and in their future work, so they devote themselves to practice oral English. However, they are always affected by the similarities and differences between the two cultures during learning a second language. This phenomenon is called cultural transfer. Positive cultural transfer fosters foreign language learning. Negative culture transfer is a barrier for English teachers and Chinese junior middle schools students during foreign language teaching and learning. The students, even the teachers, dont realize the importance of the culture and ignore influence of cultural transfer during teaching and studying. For example, idioms like every bullet has its billet and sit on the fence, the students may not understand them, even dont know each word. So language teaching is a teaching about culture. However, in our country, the stages of English teaching can be divided into three stages: primary schools, junior middle schools and senior middle schools. The stage of junior middle schools is a transitional stage for students oral English learning in nine-year compulsory education. So the teachers must highlight the oral English teaching of Chinese junior middle schools. In order to improve the level of oral English teaching in Chinese junior middle schools, the teachers must highlight culture teaching during the oral English teaching to decrease and even eliminate cultural transfer phenomenon, meanwhile emphasize grammar and vocabulary. 1.2 Objective and Significance of the Thesis In spite of the growing of researches on cultural transfer, there is an area unattended. That is, how to deal with cultural transfer in oral English teaching in Chinese junior middle schools and how to further improve oral English learning have been a hot issue.Language is a carrier of culture. Culture is the connotations of language. Language reflects the thinking patterns of a nation, psychological characteristics and social customs, historical transition as well as other important cultural symbols. Without language, the human cannot describe any kind of culture. Of course, language itself is also one of the important parts of culture. When learning the second language, the learners cannot ignore the relationship between culture and language. Oral English is the most important part in English teaching of junior middle schools. So the learners have to learn English culture well when they are learning oral English. Lado (1957) said that the teacher who has made a comparison of the foreign language with the native language of the students will know better what the real problems are and can provide for teaching them.1 And it shows the necessity of cultural input during foreign language teaching.There are three benefits for cultural teaching at least. First, the English teachers can introduce some different cultural phenomenons to the students. It is good for the students to understand cultural differences and enlarging their language horizon. The students can know how to avoid cultural transfer during the learning of a second language. Second, the learning of language basic abilities alone is boring and the learners practice them passively. If the teachers give them a chance to learn these abilities with the learning of culture, the foreign language learning will become more attractive and more exhilarating. Their efficiency of learning the language will also be improved. Third, the foreign language teaching can not only train the language basic abilities of the students, but also enhance the application of their language ability, So the role and status of foreign language teaching will be upgraded. The present thesis aims at studying the cultural transfer in oral English learning for Chinese junior middle schools students, having a general view on the manifestations of transfer as well as providing some enlightenment for the teachers to help students overcome negative transfer and make full use of positive transfer.1.3 Organization of the Thesis The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is the introduction, which informs background, objective and significance as well as organization of the thesis. Chapter two is literature review, representing definition of culture and culture transfer, oral English teaching strategies and skills in junior middle schools, classification of oral English teaching strategies, as well as previous study of cultural transfer in oral English teaching of Chinese junior middle schools done by other scholars both home and abroad. Chapter three is the core of the thesis, which describes cultural differences reflecting in Language, cultural differences impacting on the communicative mode of language, the importance of cultural factors in oral English teaching of junior middle schools and represents the main elements that restrict the students oral English learning and the effective strategies for improving the level of oral English teaching as well as offers suggestions for improving oral English teaching in junior middle schools of the text conducted by writer. The last Chapter summarizes the findings and limitations of the research, discusses the significance of the study and provides some suggestions for oral English teaching of junior middle schools.Chapter Two Literature Review2.1 Culture and Cultural Transfer2.1.1 Culture and Language The scholars think that culture is for the economy, politics and all mental activities and products of human. Others have different ideas. In fact, about the cultural definition, there is no unified one. So the study on cultural definition is quite necessary. At present, e. b. Taylor, the father of the anthropology of British anthropologists, made a significant impact on the cultural definition. He firstly gave a classic definition of culture in 1871. He said: the culture or civilization, in its broad sense of ethnology, is a compound, including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and which are as a member of society all other capabilities and habits acquired by.2 Obviously, he defined culture as the floorboard of the social development in the process of human creation, including the material techniques, social norms and the spiritual concepts. From then on, Taylors definition about culture is regarded as the origin of cultural definitions. So far, there are many kinds of cultural definitions. Culture itself is an interesting, academic argumentative phenomenon. Cultural definition has a variety of disciplines for different cultural definitions. As a matter of fact, about cultural distinction, it is generally believed that culture is divided into two kinds: big culture and small culture. In its broad sense, culture refers to the foundation of material and spiritual wealth that have created and accumulated by human beings in the course of social development, which includes three layers altogether. The surface level refers to all the essential material things for the living of human beings, namely the material culture, including food, drink, costume, building. It marks a certain social period of the developmental level of material and spiritual civilization, peoples values and behavior norms, specific organizational structure and way of life. The deep level refers to the spiritual culture, which includes social values, religious beliefs, mode of thought and so on. It is the core of culture. The intermediate level is the conventional culture, which refers to all kinds of organizations, institutions, behavior customs, and life styles that are formed through humans social life. In its narrow sense, culture refers to the social ideology (the politics, laws, knowledge, belief, art, etc.) and various social systems and corresponding organization structures (government, party, club, court and schools, etc.). It has great influence on the other two cultural levels, and it is the core of the whole culture.3 Language is not only a kind of cultural phenomenon, but also the most important communication tool for thinking and communicating. Language has its stability and nationality. Language is the medium that people communicate with each other, it inevitably influence on the politics, economy, society, science as well as technology, even the culture itself. Language, as a communication tool, does not exist independently, but exists with the culture. Language and culture rely on each other and influence each other. Language is an important carrier of culture. In turn, culture has a restrictive effect on language. So when learning a foreign language, the learners must first understand the nations culture, only in this way can we really understand and master the language well. Therefore, it is necessary to thoroughly understand the relationship between language and culture.2.1.2 Cultural Transfer and its Classification To know the phenomenon of cultural transfer and its influence, the learners must know the real connotations of cultural transfer first. The concept of cultural transfer comes from the earliest language acquisition, and it is often confused with interference. In fact, this confusion arises from the first language knowledge in different understandings of the second language acquisition. Based on the theory of behaviorism, linguists think that language acquisition is a kind of habit and learning a foreign language is to use target language to replace the first language in the form, so the knowledge of first language is regarded as an interference of second language acquisition. However, with the development of psycho-linguistics, there is a new understanding about the relationship between first language knowledge and second language acquisition. Psychological linguists Anderson believed that language learning is a process, including comprehension process and production process. Comprehension process includes three steps: perception, parsing and utilization. Utilization is the key, because the usage is stored in long-term memory of knowledge just like the activation of the first language knowledge, and then combined with the new information to help learners understand the target language. Production process also includes three steps: construction, transformation and execution. Transformation is the use of the language rules, for example, the first language rules will transform the intent of construction by the form of information.This step is essential and crucial. Thus, in the whole process of language learning, the first language knowledge is not always the interference. Odin (1989) offers the definition of transfer as a basis for his own thoughtful treatment: Transfer is the influence from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other languages that have been previously acquired.4 This effect may be positive, also may be negative. If the first language and target language obey the same rules of language, then the influence is positive, which is called positive transfer of culture. If the two languages have great differences, which is called negative transfer. From the above, the so-called transformation is the mutual influence between the two things. In terms of language, positive transfer is more beneficial to study target language than the negative transfer, because according to Chomsky, all human specific languages adhere to the same universal grammar. 5 According to behaviorists, the process of learning a language is the formation of a kind of habit, thus the biggest obstacle of second language acquisition comes from previous knowledge, because language learners have formed certain kinds of habits when they learn a second language. They would naturally put the skills learned in the L1 to the L2. In the case of similarities between the L1 and L2, which would facilitate the L2 acquisition, while in the case of differences, which blocks learn L2 acquisition.6 From the above, Transfer is the influence from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other languages that have been previously acquired, which can be divided into two kinds: one kind is positive culture transfer with positive influence on second language acquisition, another kind is negative culture transfer which is a barrier of second language acquisition.2.2 Strategies of Oral English Teaching The language system of English teaching includes sixth parts: vocabul