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李　陽

Abstract:Understanding and alleviating the influence of culture in a language-learning environment is not simply which a case of ensuring effective communication, it is also imperative to ensure that the students are actually able to learn the language according to their own culturally specific learning methods. Effective communication between student and teacher may not produce the desired results if the learner is unable to incorporate this new knowledge into their existing understanding of the world. This paper is mainly about the element of culture in the process of language teaching. In the meanwhile, the author will present the ideas and examples on its implications for the roles of English teachers.

Key words: culture;language teaching;English teachers

The great importance and significance of the cultural influence in foreign language teaching has been recognised as a result of political globalisation, the globalisation of the English language in particular consequently, the increasing occurrence of foreign language tutoring. Because of this, many linguists, cultural anthropologists and language teaching experts have studied this topic in recent years, and they produced a valuable body of research that explores many implications of culture for teaching second languages.

In many cases, putting into practise this invaluable cultural awareness is a case of adapting teaching methods and learning resources to suit the cultural worldviews and understanding of the students in the class. Of course, this is the simplest when the students are with the same national culture or one language. Apart from that, the students learning methods can also be altered to suit the studentslevel of education and formal learning experience.

一、The importance of culture in language teaching

Culture can be expressed by language features such as greetings and refusals, more complex systems of syntax and tense, and every other feature in between. Understandings of class, gender, and formality of setting are expressed in these ways, and the psychological needs of the native speakers are acknowledged and managed by simple turns of phrase and complex sentence constructions.

An understanding of these cultural needs and impacts are imperative for language teaching has three broad reasons. Firstly, for as reflected in the target language understanding of culture that allows the teacher to describe these mechanisms to students who will not be familiar with them; secondly, an understanding of the studentsculture enables him/her to predict the studentsproblems and make plans to alleviating them; and finally, the students themselves will be unable to retain the language and use it fluently with a limited understanding of the reasons the language existing as it does.

For example, if the native English speakers will teach English in China, it is helpful for them to know that adding more English culture into English teaching is intal. In most parts of China, the students learn English in Chinese atmosphere and they have lack of opportunities to communicate with the native English speakers. Therefore, it is necessary for the English teachers to adapt their methods to suit our situation, they need to teach more English cultures and improve the studentscommunicating skills in a practical way in order to give them a vivid picture of UK or other Anglophone countries.

Many foreign language teachers currently find it difficult to provide teaching methods and learning resources that it is the best suit for the cultural background(s) of their students, because of having limited teaching materials at their disposal. Take the majority of Western language textbooks for example, were prepared without proper concerns for the specific needs of non-Western students. Many of the reading material tends to focus on celebrities who are either unknown in the East, or who would be inappropriate topics for discussion (for reasons of political or religious mores).

For example, the British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been jailed for 15 days after insulting Islam's Prophet by allowing her pupils in Sudan to name a teddy bear Muhammad. This is because Sudan is a place where religion is never mocked or satirised, and it is unthinkable that a toy or pet could be given a religious name.

In reality, many second language teachers and students seem to lose their sights of the fact as a result the knowledge of grammatical system of a language [grammatical competence] often has to be complemented by an understanding of culture-specific meanings [communicative, or rather cultural competence]. (Byram, Morgan, et al., 1994:4)

Failure to provide this complementary study leads to a lack of comprehension on the studentspart, or in some cases, worse, and the studentsfailure to recognise that they have failed to understand the true meanings of the concepts discussed. If Malinowski argues, language maintains its meaning only within the context of the culture that produced it, a lack of knowledge of this culture will certainly lead to a lack of linguistic or semantic understanding.

二、The Implications for the Teacher in Language Teaching

Clearly, language cannot be separated from the meanings that it conveys, as these meanings are culturally specific, it is essential that the teaching practice reflects and overcomes these gaps in meaning and comprehension.

It must also be emphasised that it is no more desirable than it is possible to extract language from culture, because to learn the language fluently, the students must gain some understanding of these culturally specific meanings. However, in the interests of imparting these culturally specific meanings, and the language teacher must be willing and able to alter their teaching methods in ways that are conductive to their studentslearning.

A language teacher serves as a bridge to connect the students with the target language. The teachersperceptions of culture and instructional behaviour largely influence the studentslearning. Additionally, the teachers knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about the nature of culture and cultural diversity may profoundly impact on his/her instructional and methodological choices.

In many cases, material can be adapted or modified, but occasionally it may be necessary to provide entirely new learning materials. One English textbook named “Dell English”complied by the Dell English learning school in China is such an example. In the textbook, they use the “Nothing seek Nothing find”to instead proverb “No pains No gain”,which has a bad influence on the English learners. This textbook is forbidden to use after the investigation by National education office and they are asked to use the new textbook exported from abroad instead.

Adapting to the needs of the studentscultural background(s) is not simply a question of teaching materials. There are also many important questions about the teaching methods themselves.

A Western foreign language teacher may choose to counteract these problems by modifying their standard student to be centred approach, and/or drawing their studentsattention to the existence of these methods. An English lesson is clearly not right time for an in-depth discussion for development of the Western education system, but it may be possible (and illuminating) for the teacher to simply point out this aspect of English culture. Potential modifications may be the use of single-person desks, as opposed to the group desk arrangement or placing of studentschairs in a circle that is usually found in Western classrooms. Teachers may choose to refrain from focusing on ‘group work, as is done in Western schools, and instead of choosing individual students to respond to specific questions during the lesson.

All teachers (including, but not limited to, second language teachers) are made more effective at their work by an ability to insightfully reflect on their own methods and the needs of their students. Effective teachers have a constant process of reflection in their own methods and the effects of his/her choices upon students, and therefore are able to adjust and tweak their methods to ensure the consistent provision of the environment(s) are most conducive to learning. The foreign language teacher, therefore, should offer the instructional approaches and strategies that address a variety of learning styles and needs.

三、Conclusion

It is the sole duty of the foreign language teacher to impart clearly, concisely and effectively the ability to speak, write and comprehend a foreign language. This apparently straightforward task is complicated by the fact that language and culture are fundamentally interrelated, with this (foreign) culture providing the meanings, classifications and categories of the language that is to be learned. Learning a language can cast light on certain aspects of the host culture, but many aspects of the language are potentially unintelligible without an understanding of the culture that produced them.

Foreign language teaching would also benefit from the provision of new teaching materials (including textbooks) that reflect the recognition of cultural specificity, and make it easier for students to access the foreign concepts of the target language.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of this language barrier that cannot be overcome so easily. Cultural differences that the teacher is not aware of. For example, this is one example of this typical problem that seems to require some aspect of ‘cultural awareness trainingfor effective foreign language teaching.

To a large extent, this can perhaps be managed through the building of a shared body of knowledge of the particular fixed needs of certain groups of learners. The absence of a ‘pphoneme in the Arabic language, for example, is a fixed state of affairs, and something that is likely to be a concern for most Arabic beginner and intermediate learners of European languages. Equally, there are numerous linguistic items and grammatical constructs in the English language that have no equivalent in any other living languages. In simple terms: to learn what makes ones own language special may be the key requirement for most effectively introducing it to foreign students.

參考文獻:

[1] Brooks,N.Language and Language Le- arning[M]. New York: Harcourt Brace,1964.

[2] Byram,M. Teaching and Assessing Inter- cultural Communicative Competence[M].Multilingual Matters: Clevedon1997.

[3] Byram,M.&Morgan,M.Teaching-and- Learning Language-and-Culture[M]. Multilingual Matters:Clevedon,1994.

[4] Chastain,K. Developing Second Language Skills:Theory to Practice[M]. Chicago:Rand McNally,1976/1988.

(作者單位:遼寧醫學院外語部)