论文部分内容阅读
摘 要：英語阅读教学水平在提高英语教学质量上起到了关键作用。在阅读教学中，为了提高教学水平，外语教师应当丰富自己的教学方法，提升教学能力已获得较好的教学效果。本文涉及为什么要在阅读教学中强化文化教学的原因，什么内容应当被融入到课堂中去以及如何在阅读加入文化背景教学。重点是在不同的阅读阶段，采用不同的文化教学方法。
关键词：文化 图示 阅读理解 背景知识
Abstract：Teaching of reading comprehension in TEFL plays a critical role that determines the quality of the English teaching. In order to improve the condition of English teaching, foreign language teachers must promote their teaching techniques, advance their teaching competence and achieve the positive effect on reading teaching process. The thesis is concerned with why we should strengthen the culture teaching in English reading progress, what content we should incorporate into the foreign language classroom and how we should integrate culture background in reading procedure. The emphsis shoulde be put on taking different culture teaching techniques in different reading stages.
Key words: culture; schema; reading comprehension; background knowledge
Schema theory
Cook states, "the mind, stimulated by key words or phrases in the text or by the context, activates a knowledge schema" (Cook, 1997, 69). This covers the knowledge of the world, from everyday knowledge to very specialized knowledge, knowledge of language structures, and knowledge of texts and forms they take in terms of genre, and organization.
Research on culture teaching
In real social activities, misunderstanding often results from lack of culture background. Consciously or unconsciously, they transfer their native-language preference to the target language performance.
What does it mean by culture? Hoebel and Frost (Samovar, 2000), who see culture in nearly all-human activities, define culture as an “ integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance.” They give an over-all description of culture:
Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques uses to make the artifacts (Samovar, 2000).
Culture differences between native language and target language
In USA the meaning of following sentence is well known: “When you’re down, you are not necessarily out.” But in China many English learners become confused because of deficiency of background knowledge. It was a technical term used in the boxing. In the match, if a boxer is knocked down on the ground, the referee will count time immediately. The boxer will lose if he cannot stand again during ten seconds. Most of boxers will not wait for the referee to count ten but stand again at once to go on with the match. The surface meaning of the sentence is considered that even if you are knocked down, it does not mean that you have lost in the contest. The deep meaning is that even though you meet the failure, you still own opportunity to achieve the success. This sentence shows us the westerners' optimist attitudes towards life.
China is situated far away from those countries in which English is the first language. In many respects, the Chinese culture is quite different from that of the western countries.
Enhancing the reading comprehension by culture teaching
Just as Wang Zuoliang (王佐良,1985) said that if a person can’t understand social culture, he cannot really master the language. Some readers have owned numbers of vocabulary, but they cannot really understand the content of the article. Some experts consider that reading is an interactive process between reader and author. So learning target language culture is thought to be very important to stimulate this process. Especially when a reader enters into a higher stage, the barrier does not exist in language itself. Instead it lies in learning target language culture. If a second language reader is short of related culture knowledge and use home language culture to compensate the missing information, he cannot find out the relationship in the context and fail to comprehend the passage correctly.
Incorporating cultural topics into communicative activities in EFL classroom
Three Stages Model in Schema Theory in Reading Process
The procedure of reading comprehension includes three stages: Pre-reading, While-reading and Post-reading. Different culture teaching methods should be incorporated into different stages in the reading procedures.
Table.1 The reading procedure and culture teaching techniques
Pre-reading: Instruction Culture teaching techniques
Activating the interests Media visual methods
Background introduction Culture quiz
Inducement of the topic Cultural semantic map
Questions related to the article Culture match
While-reading: Development Culture teaching techniques
General idea Culture aside
Information in detail Culture capsule
Diagram and chart Group discussion
Structure of the passage Culture flow chart
Arrangement of the events
Reply to the questions Culture assimilator
Inferring the connotation of the words Culture comparison and contrast
Post-reading: Checking up Culture teaching techniques
Evaluation Critical incidents
Spoken or written exercises Real interview
Combining the information Cross-culture role play
Pre-reading activities: Preparation
Reading strategies are emphasized on culture knowledge and information. In order to arouse the students’ interest the teachers are required to finish two main tasks: First, they are supposed to provide students with enough culture knowledge to help them construct corresponding schemata. Second, when students have possessed some previous cultural knowledge, the teacher should take some steps to activate their schemata. Pre-reading activities are some classroom activities related to the text before reading, including culture quiz, culture match, creating a culture semantic map, cross-culture role-play, initial discussion and so on.
Take Creating a culture semantic map for example, the teacher begins the process by introducing the major theme, a major concept, or culture knowledge from the article by writing it in the middle of the blackboard. The teacher should be prepared to ask probing questions designed to elicit information from the students. The nature of these probing questions can lead students to mention terms/ideas that will be included in or inferred from the article to be read. As students contribute ideas, the teacher can create a semantic map, grouping students’ ideas in general semantic categories that reflect the organization or content of the article to be read.
While-reading activities: Understanding
In this stage, the students’ individual reading is considered the most important activities. The teacher should lead the reader to pay attention to some crucial information in details and in this way the teacher can test the reader’s predictable competence and analytical competence. While reading the passage, the primary purpose is to facilitate the actual understanding of the selected passage. These activities encourage students to be active and reflective readers (Wallace 1992). Furthermore, while-reading activities can provide more academically oriented students with practice in activities that are commonly practiced by skilled readers for academic purposes. While at times it is appropriate to ask students to simply read the selected passage, at other times it is beneficial to provide students with opportunities to utilize different while-reading strategies. The while-reading activities can be adapted for different reading tasks. That is, whether students are reading the article in its entirety, or just skimming the article, or reading it for specific details, these during-reading tasks can be modified to complement the assigned task.
One of the tasks of teachers to impart culture knowledge is to help the students to construct their own culture schema. The understanding includes two layers: the understanding of the introduced materials; and the understanding of life style, behavior manner and value concept in the target culture. At the same time the culture connotation of the organizing structure of a text should be paid attention to, which can train the students to think according to the culture pattern of the target language.
This technique is vital for raising the learners' awareness of difference between his/her home culture and target culture. Furthermore, cultural dissimilarities can be found between similar languages.
Take Culture aside for example, this technique is used for providing cultural background knowledge. As a kind of auxiliary method, it refers to teacher’s introduction and explanation to culture knowledge concerned with content in the textbook. It’s a flexible way to stimulate the student’s interest. Reading comprehension is a process that involves the linguistic knowledge, background knowledge and other knowledge related. According to reading materials, background knowledge and logic inference, a reader guesses and infers the intention of the author.
Post-reading activities: Applying
Post-reading is an advanced stage in which the teacher usually encourages the reader to link their own experience, knowledge, interest and point of view with the article they have read. Post-reading exercises are traditionally the only set of exercises accompanying a reading passage, giving students the option to review, synthesize, summarize, and react to what they have read. Just as it is useful to prepare students for what they read through pre-reading activities, students need to follow up on what they have read through post-reading exercises. From instruction in pre-reading to spreading out in while-reading and higher comprehension in post-reading, the readers have to go through the procedures of prediction, analysis, judgment and synthesis so as to promote their sense to read, that is to say, to achieve the culture knowledge or use the culture knowledge they have owned to comprehend the general intention of the author as well as the details in the interactive reading actions.
Cross-culture role-plays
This technique is used for describing types of misunderstanding that can occur between people of different cultures. The teacher chooses some students to act out some cultural situations. These situations are usually misused and cause communicative barrier. This kind of teaching activity encourages students to fit themselves for the role in target culture. It makes culture difference more active and obvious to be remembered by students.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the teacher must pay more attention to the culture teaching as well as the language teaching. The culture teaching must be designed before the whole reading procedure and be controlled with in the reasonable time. The teacher should take some methods to introduce the culture knowledge and attract the attention of students. Definite aim of the reading can help students grasp the general idea and facilitate the next reading.
Bibliography
[1] Cook, V. J. 1997.“What Should Language Teaching Be About?” ELT Journal.Vol.37,No.3:229-34
[2] Samovar, Intercultural Communication, 外語教学与研究出版社， 北京 2000
[3] Tomalin, B. & Stempleski, S. 1993. Cultural Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] Wallace, C. (1992) Reading. Oxford: OUP.
[5]王佐良， 1985，翻译与文化繁荣。《翻译通讯》，第十期。
作者简介：
陈子扬，天津商务职业学院（原天津对外经济贸易职业学院）经贸外语系任英语讲师，国际商务师，毕业于天津师范大学，经济学学士，英语专业教育硕士。
关键词：文化 图示 阅读理解 背景知识
Abstract：Teaching of reading comprehension in TEFL plays a critical role that determines the quality of the English teaching. In order to improve the condition of English teaching, foreign language teachers must promote their teaching techniques, advance their teaching competence and achieve the positive effect on reading teaching process. The thesis is concerned with why we should strengthen the culture teaching in English reading progress, what content we should incorporate into the foreign language classroom and how we should integrate culture background in reading procedure. The emphsis shoulde be put on taking different culture teaching techniques in different reading stages.
Key words: culture; schema; reading comprehension; background knowledge
Schema theory
Cook states, "the mind, stimulated by key words or phrases in the text or by the context, activates a knowledge schema" (Cook, 1997, 69). This covers the knowledge of the world, from everyday knowledge to very specialized knowledge, knowledge of language structures, and knowledge of texts and forms they take in terms of genre, and organization.
Research on culture teaching
In real social activities, misunderstanding often results from lack of culture background. Consciously or unconsciously, they transfer their native-language preference to the target language performance.
What does it mean by culture? Hoebel and Frost (Samovar, 2000), who see culture in nearly all-human activities, define culture as an “ integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance.” They give an over-all description of culture:
Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques uses to make the artifacts (Samovar, 2000).
Culture differences between native language and target language
In USA the meaning of following sentence is well known: “When you’re down, you are not necessarily out.” But in China many English learners become confused because of deficiency of background knowledge. It was a technical term used in the boxing. In the match, if a boxer is knocked down on the ground, the referee will count time immediately. The boxer will lose if he cannot stand again during ten seconds. Most of boxers will not wait for the referee to count ten but stand again at once to go on with the match. The surface meaning of the sentence is considered that even if you are knocked down, it does not mean that you have lost in the contest. The deep meaning is that even though you meet the failure, you still own opportunity to achieve the success. This sentence shows us the westerners' optimist attitudes towards life.
China is situated far away from those countries in which English is the first language. In many respects, the Chinese culture is quite different from that of the western countries.
Enhancing the reading comprehension by culture teaching
Just as Wang Zuoliang (王佐良,1985) said that if a person can’t understand social culture, he cannot really master the language. Some readers have owned numbers of vocabulary, but they cannot really understand the content of the article. Some experts consider that reading is an interactive process between reader and author. So learning target language culture is thought to be very important to stimulate this process. Especially when a reader enters into a higher stage, the barrier does not exist in language itself. Instead it lies in learning target language culture. If a second language reader is short of related culture knowledge and use home language culture to compensate the missing information, he cannot find out the relationship in the context and fail to comprehend the passage correctly.
Incorporating cultural topics into communicative activities in EFL classroom
Three Stages Model in Schema Theory in Reading Process
The procedure of reading comprehension includes three stages: Pre-reading, While-reading and Post-reading. Different culture teaching methods should be incorporated into different stages in the reading procedures.
Table.1 The reading procedure and culture teaching techniques
Pre-reading: Instruction Culture teaching techniques
Activating the interests Media visual methods
Background introduction Culture quiz
Inducement of the topic Cultural semantic map
Questions related to the article Culture match
While-reading: Development Culture teaching techniques
General idea Culture aside
Information in detail Culture capsule
Diagram and chart Group discussion
Structure of the passage Culture flow chart
Arrangement of the events
Reply to the questions Culture assimilator
Inferring the connotation of the words Culture comparison and contrast
Post-reading: Checking up Culture teaching techniques
Evaluation Critical incidents
Spoken or written exercises Real interview
Combining the information Cross-culture role play
Pre-reading activities: Preparation
Reading strategies are emphasized on culture knowledge and information. In order to arouse the students’ interest the teachers are required to finish two main tasks: First, they are supposed to provide students with enough culture knowledge to help them construct corresponding schemata. Second, when students have possessed some previous cultural knowledge, the teacher should take some steps to activate their schemata. Pre-reading activities are some classroom activities related to the text before reading, including culture quiz, culture match, creating a culture semantic map, cross-culture role-play, initial discussion and so on.
Take Creating a culture semantic map for example, the teacher begins the process by introducing the major theme, a major concept, or culture knowledge from the article by writing it in the middle of the blackboard. The teacher should be prepared to ask probing questions designed to elicit information from the students. The nature of these probing questions can lead students to mention terms/ideas that will be included in or inferred from the article to be read. As students contribute ideas, the teacher can create a semantic map, grouping students’ ideas in general semantic categories that reflect the organization or content of the article to be read.
While-reading activities: Understanding
In this stage, the students’ individual reading is considered the most important activities. The teacher should lead the reader to pay attention to some crucial information in details and in this way the teacher can test the reader’s predictable competence and analytical competence. While reading the passage, the primary purpose is to facilitate the actual understanding of the selected passage. These activities encourage students to be active and reflective readers (Wallace 1992). Furthermore, while-reading activities can provide more academically oriented students with practice in activities that are commonly practiced by skilled readers for academic purposes. While at times it is appropriate to ask students to simply read the selected passage, at other times it is beneficial to provide students with opportunities to utilize different while-reading strategies. The while-reading activities can be adapted for different reading tasks. That is, whether students are reading the article in its entirety, or just skimming the article, or reading it for specific details, these during-reading tasks can be modified to complement the assigned task.
One of the tasks of teachers to impart culture knowledge is to help the students to construct their own culture schema. The understanding includes two layers: the understanding of the introduced materials; and the understanding of life style, behavior manner and value concept in the target culture. At the same time the culture connotation of the organizing structure of a text should be paid attention to, which can train the students to think according to the culture pattern of the target language.
This technique is vital for raising the learners' awareness of difference between his/her home culture and target culture. Furthermore, cultural dissimilarities can be found between similar languages.
Take Culture aside for example, this technique is used for providing cultural background knowledge. As a kind of auxiliary method, it refers to teacher’s introduction and explanation to culture knowledge concerned with content in the textbook. It’s a flexible way to stimulate the student’s interest. Reading comprehension is a process that involves the linguistic knowledge, background knowledge and other knowledge related. According to reading materials, background knowledge and logic inference, a reader guesses and infers the intention of the author.
Post-reading activities: Applying
Post-reading is an advanced stage in which the teacher usually encourages the reader to link their own experience, knowledge, interest and point of view with the article they have read. Post-reading exercises are traditionally the only set of exercises accompanying a reading passage, giving students the option to review, synthesize, summarize, and react to what they have read. Just as it is useful to prepare students for what they read through pre-reading activities, students need to follow up on what they have read through post-reading exercises. From instruction in pre-reading to spreading out in while-reading and higher comprehension in post-reading, the readers have to go through the procedures of prediction, analysis, judgment and synthesis so as to promote their sense to read, that is to say, to achieve the culture knowledge or use the culture knowledge they have owned to comprehend the general intention of the author as well as the details in the interactive reading actions.
Cross-culture role-plays
This technique is used for describing types of misunderstanding that can occur between people of different cultures. The teacher chooses some students to act out some cultural situations. These situations are usually misused and cause communicative barrier. This kind of teaching activity encourages students to fit themselves for the role in target culture. It makes culture difference more active and obvious to be remembered by students.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the teacher must pay more attention to the culture teaching as well as the language teaching. The culture teaching must be designed before the whole reading procedure and be controlled with in the reasonable time. The teacher should take some methods to introduce the culture knowledge and attract the attention of students. Definite aim of the reading can help students grasp the general idea and facilitate the next reading.
Bibliography
[1] Cook, V. J. 1997.“What Should Language Teaching Be About?” ELT Journal.Vol.37,No.3:229-34
[2] Samovar, Intercultural Communication, 外語教学与研究出版社， 北京 2000
[3] Tomalin, B. & Stempleski, S. 1993. Cultural Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] Wallace, C. (1992) Reading. Oxford: OUP.
[5]王佐良， 1985，翻译与文化繁荣。《翻译通讯》，第十期。
作者简介：
陈子扬，天津商务职业学院（原天津对外经济贸易职业学院）经贸外语系任英语讲师，国际商务师，毕业于天津师范大学，经济学学士，英语专业教育硕士。