文化导入在高中英语教学的应用

1、 Cultural lead-in in the Teaching of High School English 高中英语教学中的文化导入 摘要在跨文化交际背景之下，语言学习的终极目标是培养学生的跨文化交际能力，将文化导入运用于教学中对于实现外语教学的最终目的有着一定的理论和实践意义。因此，文化导入在英语教学中占据着重要的地位。通过文化导入与英语教学的结合，可以提高学生的英语用词准确性和提高学生的跨文化意识，最终提高跨文化交际能力。因此，英语教师应当为学生营造一个文化环境，把文化导入渗透到词汇、语法、听、读、说、写教学中。任何一种语言与其文化是不可分的,语言教学是语言教学和文化教学的统一反映。

2、教学中,我们应摒弃只重语言教学,而忽视文化教学的倾向,注重其文化因素,培养学生文化意识,要求他们在学习各种技能的同时，了解英美文化，以培养学生的跨文化意识和交际能力，达到教学的最终目的。本文先是介绍了文化导入理论的概念、意义以及高中英语教学中文化导入的现状，当然文化导入也同其他理论一样，有其相应的内容及导入原则。在引证实例阐述文化导入与英语教学方面的融合情况后总结出文化导入在高中英语教学的重要性和必要性。同时本文也号召所有英语教师能在应试教育的现状下多多教授学生词语、句子以及篇章背后所包含的文化内涵，使文化导入在高中英语教学中真真正正落到实处。关键词：英语教学 文化差异 文化导入 Abstra

3、ctUnder the circumstance of cross cultural communication, the final goal of learning language is to cultivate the cross cultural communicative ability of the students. It is very essential to lead in the culture in the English teaching in high school which has the theoretical and practical significa

4、nce of realizing the final aim of English teaching. Therefore, cultural lead-in takes an important role of the English teaching in high school. By the means of combining the culture and teaching together, it is very useful to improve the cross cultural communicative ability by using the accurate voc

5、abulary and cross cultural awareness. Thus, the teachers are supposed to create the cultural context to lead-in the cultural connotation into the vocabulary, grammar and language skills during the teaching process. There is no one kind of language existing without its own culture, so the language te

6、aching is the massive reaction of language teaching and culture teaching. During the teaching, we have to get rid of paying attentions to language teaching only, we must value the importance of cultural lead-in and the cultural factors. Only in this way can we cultivate all kinds of learning skills

7、of the students, and then the student could understand the western cultures. With the help of all these things, the final aim of cultivating the cross cultural communicative awareness and ability can be really accomplished. The thesis introduces the concept and significance of the cultural lead-in a

8、t first, and then it also points out the current situation of cultural lead-in in high school English teaching. Of course, the cultural lead-in has its certain contents and principles just as the other theories. It shows the significance and necessity of cultural lead-in in English teaching by the m

9、eans of applying the examples. At the same time, it also makes efforts to call for the teachers to teach more cultural connotations which are hidden behind the vocabulary, the sentence and the text under the situation of exam-oriented education. Only in this way can make the cultural lead-in in high

10、 school English teaching really falls into place.Key words: English teaching cultural difference cultural lead-in Cultural lead-in in the Teaching of High School English 1. IntroductionIn the year of 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Education had announced the Curriculum Standard of English which was c

11、learly and definitely pointed out that the general goal of the English learning was to cultivate the integrating skills of using English language in high school. At the same time, the cultural awareness was also included the five course objectives in accordance with the Curriculum Standard of Englis

12、h (2003). Obviously, the significance of the cultural awareness is as important as the language knowledge and the language skills. The content of it is to cultivate the ability of combining the cultural knowledge, the awareness and the cross cultural communication. The comprehensive ability of langu

13、age application develops on the basis of the language skills, language knowledge, affective attitude, learning strategy and cultural awareness. While among these significant parts, the cultural awareness takes the roles of precondition and the guarantee in the aspect of using or applying English lan

14、guage appropriately. Just because of this, it is very urgent for the language teaching to combine with the cultural information. Therefore, it is the time to lead in the culture into the English teaching which suited to the occasion for all the teachers and students. The theory of cultural lead-in w

15、as put forward by Schumann in the late 1970s which was one of the most powerful theories in that time. Cultural lead-in means that under the different cultural backgrounds, the individual has to adjust the knowledge, attitude and behavior to try to accord with another culture, that is to say, she or

16、 he has to behave appropriately in different cultures. During the teaching, if the students can not understand the hidden meaning within the vocabularies, such as the literature and art, mode of thinking, manners and customs and concept of value and so on, it will make enormous psychological and soc

17、ial distance, that is to say, the student will only know the literal meaning of the words or vocabularies. Whats more, when these kinds of vocabularies are used in the actual verbal communication, it will definitely make the student not use the accurately. Anyhow, the loss of cultural lead-in must a

18、ffect the cultivation of students transnational cultural communication ability, and also it will be an big obstacle to normal cultural interaction just because they do not know the hidden meaning under the culture. That is the reason why this thesis aims at using cultural lead-in in the teaching hig

19、h school English to shrink the distance of psychology and society in the target culture, only in this way, the student are able to achieve great learning outcome.For this thesis, it divides into five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction. It introduces the concept of cultural lead-in and its sig

20、nificance. At the same time, it also describes the relationship between English teaching and culture. Chapter two introduces the current situation of cultural lead-in in high school teaching. In this part, we have introduce the content in three aspects: the current situation of cultural lead-in in v

21、ocabulary teaching, the current situation of cultural lead-in in Reading teaching and the current situation of cultural lead-in in listening teaching. Chapter three expounds the content and the principles of cultural lead-in. The content of cultural lead-in is divided into three parts: the first par

22、t is the cultural lead-in in the vocabulary aspect, the second part is the cultural lead-in in the behavior aspect and the last one is the cultural lead-in in the truth aspect. Meanwhile , the principles of the cultural lead-in are shown as below: the principle of communication, the principle of cul

23、tural background, the principle of moderation, the principle of practicability, the principle of comparison and the principle of step by step. Chapter four proves the application of cultural lead-in in high school English teaching with three aspects. In this part, the first aspect is the combination

24、 of culture and vocabulary teaching, the second aspect is the combination of culture and grammar teaching and the last aspect is the combination of culture and linguistic skill teaching. Chapter five is the conclusion. In this part, it describes the significance and necessity of the cultural lead-in

25、 in high school English teaching. At the same time, it also calls for all the English teachers can lead in the cultural connotations into the English teaching even under the background of exam-oriented education. Only in this way can make the cultural lead-in really exist and make contributes to Eng

26、lish teaching in high school.2. The Current Situation of Cultural Lead-in in High School Teaching Lead-in the cultural information is a new trial for the English teaching in high school. For decades of years, the English teaching is a kind of exam-oriented education which only focuses on the score.

27、A lot of students can make the clicker questions right but can not use the correct vocabularies in the practical conversation. That is because of the lack of cultural information. Therefore, how to apply cultural lead-in to English teaching is worth being studied.2.1 The Current Situation of Cultura

28、l Lead-in in Vocabulary TeachingAs is known to all, vocabulary is the foundation of the English teaching. As for vocabularies, they seem like the brick of the building, and there is no building without the construction of bricks. Therefore, vocabulary teaching in high school English is much importan

29、t than others, but it is also too boring for the students to learn. The Curriculum Standard of English made it clear that the requirement at high school is to learn to use around 4500 vocabularies and a certain amount of regular collocations and idioms. Unfortunately, under the stress of exam-orient

30、ed education, a lot of teacher just follow the rules to spell the key vocabularies at first and then make the phrases or the regular collocations, at last to show the sentences with these vocabularies or regular collocations within them. After that, teachers will ask students to make sentences with

31、these key words but without further explanation of the cultural meanings which are hidden behind the key words. Therefore, these key words are only the key words in the textbooks of high school but not the real key words under its own cultural background. The general goal of the English learning whi

32、ch aims at cultivating the integrating skills of using English language in high school of the Curriculum Standard of English is moving far away from us. We take the vocabulary “tip” as an example. As known to all, one meaning of tip in Chinese is “小费”. If the teacher only teach the students how to r

33、ead and spell it, the students will only know the simple meaning of tip. However, the vocabulary “tip”is very unique in western countries with its cultural connotation. Not leave a tip is very rude if someone serves you in western countries, but we do not have this kind of concept for tip. If ignore

34、 the cultural awareness and cultural lead-in, our young generation will attend to one thing and lose another. 2.2 The Current Situation of Cultural Lead-in in Reading TeachingReading is a kind of comprehensive use of English vocabulary and grammar. Reading teaching is always attracted the attentions

35、 of the teachers and students, just because of the exam-oriented education. The reading part takes a larger proportion among the language skills, but it is not in the right way of teaching. The reason why the cultural lead-in is not used in the reading teaching process is just because of the outmode

36、d teaching concept and methods. The teachers do not pay attentions to leading in the cultural background and cultural awareness so that the students can not totally understand the real meaning of the sentences. As the teachers always explain the meaning of some difficult words but without leading in

37、 any cultural information which related to the context, the students would know the literal meaning of the words. When read the whole sentence, the students will get confused why all these vocabularies they know, but the meaning of the sentence is not so clear. This kind of condition is caused by th

38、e loss the lead-in of cultural information. Now let us analyze the example below: -Ms. Green is a quite white woman. She was looking rather green the other day. She has been feeling blue lately. When I saw her, she was in a brown mood. I wish she will be in the pink again as soon as possible.It will

39、 make everyone confused if we translate this paragraph by means of following the literal meaning. There are many vocabularies which stand for the color. Once the translator knows the real cultural connotations of the different colors, he or she is able to get the original meaning of the section. 译文：

40、格林女士是一位既忠实又可靠的人。那天她脸色不太好，而且最近都是闷闷不乐的。当我见到她的时候，她显得有些忧心忡忡。我希望她能早一点振作起来。After reading the translation, you will find out that the target language is totally different from the source language, but the translated meaning which hidden behind the source language is very correct. Obviously, it shows the ne

41、cessity of cultural lead-in in English reading. 2.3 The Current Situation of Cultural Lead-in in Listening TeachingThe current situation of listening is still used the outmoded way with stressing on the vocabulary, grammar and the so called listening skills, but the teachers ignore the importance of

42、 introducing and teaching the related western cultural background. A lot of students meet the situation that they can understand every single vocabulary when listening to the material,but few of them can understand the accurate meaning of it even they have accumulated enough vocabularies. This is th

43、e common situation which the students meet in high school listening teaching process at this time. If there are no cultural lead-in during the teaching, no one can learn more things from this kind of teaching. For listening, the first key point is to know the related cultural background, and then yo

44、u can guess what they will talk about under the background. The real listening is to combine the cultural background with the topic and get the meaning of the conversation but not the literal meaning of every single vocabulary. Here is an example of making phone call:A- Good evening！This is Four Sea

45、son Hotel. What can I do for you?B- Hello! This is Thomas Gill. Can I book a room?Making a phone call is a kind of daily normal behavior, we always use “I” and “you” in Chinese while in English they use“this” and “that” instead of “I” and “you”. If the students do not know the cultural background kn

46、owledge, they will get confused after listening to this conversation. It is possible for the students to understand every single word of the conversation, but they can not understand the situation or the real meaning of it. It is very difficult for the students to understand the meaning if they lack

47、 this kind of cultural awareness and background knowledge, so the importance of cultural lead-in is easily shown to all.In a word, all these conditions are the current situations of the English teaching in high school. Just because of the exam-oriented education, the teachers do not pay more attenti

48、ons to the significance of the cultural lead-in in English teaching in high school but to use the outmoded and useless methods to do the teaching. What a pity for all the teachers, so does the students. In order to get rid of these bad conditions, a lot of educators and advanced English teachers try

49、 their best to do some changing in teaching methods. They devote themselves into the career of education reform with coming up with the useful principles for English learning.3. The Contents and the Principles of Cultural Lead-in 3.1 The Contents of Cultural Lead-in The connotations of national cult

50、ure are very profound. The culture is the overall reaction of national knowledge and behavior under its background. It will develop day by day with the continuous innovation and development. A famous linguist Sapir(1922) had pointed out that the culture is one kind of complex entirety which contains

51、 the knowledge, religion, morality, legislation, customs and the habit and behavior what one person acquires as the member of living in the society. Taking the English teaching in high school as an example, here are the three key aspects of content in cultural lead-in. 3.1.1 The Cultural Lead-in of

52、the VocabulariesThe vocabularies are the basic component of the language. The different languages reflect the different national cultures and living environment. That is the reason why we think that the culture can influence the language by means of using vocabularies. Thus, it is necessary to take

53、the vocabularies which are from different cultures into consideration in the process of English teaching in high school. During the teaching process, it is very important to make comparison with the cultural connotations in different national cultures, in order to express the different cultural conn

54、otations by using the correct vocabularies. For example, the vocabularies “white”and “green” which are the terms of color. In western, the color white stands for the innocence, perfection, the good, purity, honesty,cleanliness and so on. Therefore, the western wedding routine is to dress the white,

55、especially in the Christian religious tradition that is generally includes a ceremony during the marriage begins by a reception. On the contrary, in China, the word “white” is not so popular. The word “white” usually used in the bad conditions. It stands for the wasted efforts, free of charge, and s

56、ometimes it is associated with the death, unhappiness. “一穷二白” which means that the persons are poor and blank. “不明不白” means the things or the events are slightly understood. “白事” is the funeral arrangement with all the people tied with a strip of white cloth. The word “green” in China is a good word

57、 which stands for brimming over with vigor and vitality, and the symbolic meanings of it are the hope, the good environment, the shortcut way and so on. For example, the phrase“绿色通道”stands for the shortcut way with the simple procedure and safe channel which means a way to save time to do with the t

58、hings. The word“绿意盎然” is to describe the scenery which is full of green. It uncovers that all the things are getting green. The spring is coming, and the life is restart. All the things in this kind of color are all flourishing. However, the connotation of “green” in western countries is totally dif

59、ferent. In English, green is a word to stand for the person who are not fully developed or mature, that is to say the person is not ripe. The green is always used to describe a person who knows nothing. For example: “as green as grass”, it is to say that somebody is too naive to know nothing. The word “green” used in this phrase is to imply that the person who is the intended victim of a swindler. The phrase of “green around the gills” is to expr