Culture-oriented English teaching in P.R. China
I. Introduction:
With the world economic and social development and globalization in the 21st century, it is an obvious circumstance which the number of overseas students in different countries has been snowballing. Facing the increasing severe talent market, more and more students in China do choose to have further education in foreign countries mainly in English-speaking countries to meet the standards of their personal internships. Notwithstanding the experience is a pleasant and rewarding as well as difficult and challenging process, a large number of students have met cultural shock problems in their life in English-speaking countries.
Previously, Chinese university English teachers generally emphasized on demonstrating linguistic features in English language teaching, and Chinese students could hardly adapt to foreign cultures, and did come up with many problems mainly cultural problems in their academic career or daily activities. Nevertheless, the importance of developing students＇cultural proficiency has been realized recently and some progressions practicable have been made. This is only a good beginning, and what’s more is that culture awareness is more necessary than culture and language themselves. The general trend of culture-oriented English language teaching is analyzed through the English language education history of the last 65 years in P. R. China. II Language and culture It is well known that language is the carrier of culture. Language is commonly regarded as the keystone and primary tool of a culture that helps a culture to convey its beliefs, values, and norms. Language creates a means of communication that an individual may communicate with others, either to the members with the same cultural background or members with different cultures, and also provides people a way of thinking. Language is only a part of a culture, and culture is the whole picture. Therefore culture shapes, coordinates and influences language. It is just like the literature in Culture and language by Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing published in 1989 by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press that Language and culture are intimately related to each other, and they also interact with each other. It is also just like the literature in Intercultural Language Education by Huang Yiping published in 1998 by Sichuan Normal University Press that language expresses, embodies, and symbolizes cultural reality, meanwhile, culture is the foundation of language, and embodies language meaning. Thus, some social scientists claim that culture would not exist without language．Still more, language teaching and learning is also culture teaching and learning, culture teaching and learning does mean language teaching and learning. It may be safely said that it is the close relations of culture and language that does determine the inseparability of culture teaching and English language teaching. III. Culture-oriented English teaching in P.R. China P. R. China enjoys the highest number of English learners in the world and a history of more than 65 years of English teaching experience nowadays since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. Nevertheless, "for a long time, the traditional linguistics has stated that the goal of language study is just for the language itself”, Hu Wenzhong says so in Intercultural Communication by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press in 1997. Under the viewpoint, many English teachers affected by this principle had habituated the locked teaching model focusing on the language grammar and translation. Therefore this traditional English teaching has made it difficult for students to adapt to foreign cultures obviously. Due to this so-called grammar-translation teaching method, there is an endless loop and hard trap for teachers to give up the previous teaching mode and at the same time to create a new one—concentrating on the language communication, which makes them disregard the culture teaching and the accumulation of cultural knowledge. Correspondingly, teachers and students both cannot maintain …show more content…
With the influence of the diversified international teaching methods from abroad and the entry of more international language teaching conferences into China, English teachers have gradually come up with the proper teaching method for students and have made some encouraging developments and achievements. Systematized English teaching approaches to increase students’ cultural awareness, cultural factors, and cultural knowledge both in class and outside class have been well
I. Introduction:
With the world economic and social development and globalization in the 21st century, it is an obvious circumstance which the number of overseas students in different countries has been snowballing. Facing the increasing severe talent market, more and more students in China do choose to have further education in foreign countries mainly in English-speaking countries to meet the standards of their personal internships. Notwithstanding the experience is a pleasant and rewarding as well as difficult and challenging process, a large number of students have met cultural shock problems in their life in English-speaking countries.
Previously, Chinese university English teachers generally emphasized on demonstrating linguistic features in English language teaching, and Chinese students could hardly adapt to foreign cultures, and did come up with many problems mainly cultural problems in their academic career or daily activities. Nevertheless, the importance of developing students＇cultural proficiency has been realized recently and some progressions practicable have been made. This is only a good beginning, and what’s more is that culture awareness is more necessary than culture and language themselves. The general trend of culture-oriented English language teaching is analyzed through the English language education history of the last 65 years in P. R. China. II Language and culture It is well known that language is the carrier of culture. Language is commonly regarded as the keystone and primary tool of a culture that helps a culture to convey its beliefs, values, and norms. Language creates a means of communication that an individual may communicate with others, either to the members with the same cultural background or members with different cultures, and also provides people a way of thinking. Language is only a part of a culture, and culture is the whole picture. Therefore culture shapes, coordinates and influences language. It is just like the literature in Culture and language by Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing published in 1989 by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press that Language and culture are intimately related to each other, and they also interact with each other. It is also just like the literature in Intercultural Language Education by Huang Yiping published in 1998 by Sichuan Normal University Press that language expresses, embodies, and symbolizes cultural reality, meanwhile, culture is the foundation of language, and embodies language meaning. Thus, some social scientists claim that culture would not exist without language．Still more, language teaching and learning is also culture teaching and learning, culture teaching and learning does mean language teaching and learning. It may be safely said that it is the close relations of culture and language that does determine the inseparability of culture teaching and English language teaching. III. Culture-oriented English teaching in P.R. China P. R. China enjoys the highest number of English learners in the world and a history of more than 65 years of English teaching experience nowadays since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. Nevertheless, "for a long time, the traditional linguistics has stated that the goal of language study is just for the language itself”, Hu Wenzhong says so in Intercultural Communication by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press in 1997. Under the viewpoint, many English teachers affected by this principle had habituated the locked teaching model focusing on the language grammar and translation. Therefore this traditional English teaching has made it difficult for students to adapt to foreign cultures obviously. Due to this so-called grammar-translation teaching method, there is an endless loop and hard trap for teachers to give up the previous teaching mode and at the same time to create a new one—concentrating on the language communication, which makes them disregard the culture teaching and the accumulation of cultural knowledge. Correspondingly, teachers and students both cannot maintain …show more content…
With the influence of the diversified international teaching methods from abroad and the entry of more international language teaching conferences into China, English teachers have gradually come up with the proper teaching method for students and have made some encouraging developments and achievements. Systematized English teaching approaches to increase students’ cultural awareness, cultural factors, and cultural knowledge both in class and outside class have been well