English culture and teaching

Abstract：It’s every teacher’s responsibility to improve students’ language skills. English is the important carrier of culture for speakingenglish countries. So English teaching should be a combination of language and culture. English teaching should be pay attention to cultural knowledge of English. In this paper， we will discuss the relationship between English cultural background knowledge and English teaching， and propose how to use English cultural background knowledge in English teaching .

Key words：culture；English；teaching

0Introduction

Language is an important part of the culture， the language can’t exist without the culture background. So it is impossible to learn language very well without understanding the culture of the country. Only when the relationship between language and culture is handled well and the cultural difference is sufficiently understood ，which will improve students’language quality indeed. In the foreign language teaching， culture means the history ， contacting with and understanding the culture of English spoken countries are beneficial to the comprehension and usage of English. When the students level improve， teachers should extend the fields of the foreign culture that students contact with， so it can help enlarge their horizon. It is good for students to study English very well.

1Language and culture

It is good for teachingEnglish well to know the relationship between language and culture . When we want to know the relations between language and culture. First of all， we should know what culture is. Some teachers regard culture as a compound unity. They think that culture include knowledge， art， law， morality， style and any ability or custom which are obtained by people as social member. And some people think that culture consists of all shaped products of human society， they think that culture consists of all the shaped products of human society. It means that we can say cities organizations and schools are culture. So， we can draw a conclusion. A language in a society is a part of that society’s culture.［1］

Language play a very important role in culture. Language can’t be taken away from culture.When learning a foreign language，people should make out the culture of the nation who speak the language. If the unification between languageteaching and social culture knowledge teaching is neglected， the understanding and grasping of the language will greatly be affected and pragmatic failures will appear in communication. We can not teach a language without teaching a culture. And the purpose of this study is to discuss some problems on present cultural teaching in China. ［2］

2The importance of cultural teaching

Language and culture can not be separated. Therefore ， people should strengthen cultural teaching during the course of teaching English. The college English Teaching Programme definitely requires that the aims for Englishteaching is to consolidate and enrich the students knowledge， to develop the basic ability of listening， speaking， reading， and writing and to train the students to use English in communication in both spoken and written forms.［3］ There is no language without any background knowledge. Different countries have different background knowledge. Even the same words may have different meanings in different countries. Many students complain that they spend much time in listening， but little achievement has been acquired. In order to improve their listening competence， some students specially buy tape recorders for listening and spend quite a few hours every day on it， but when they meet some new materials， they still fail to understand. What’re the reasons? On the one hand， maybe some students’ English is very poor and they haven’t grasped enough vocabularies， clear grammar or correct pronunciation， or maybe the material is rather difficult， etc. On the other hand， an important reason is that they are unfamiliar with cultural background of the USA and England.［4］

As people are diverse， customs are diverse. So the differences often arise in using of language because of the differences in customs. For example， when someone praises your English is very good， American and Chinese applies to compliments are different.［5］It is clear that cultural background is necessary in language teaching. Teachers should help students solve the difficulties in language as well as in culture.［6］Thus， it must improve our quality of teaching further. If people wants to understand an article， they should try to get the main idea and try to calculates， judge and infer according to the information given by the article. So they should master some background knowledge besides English language knowledge.

3The principals， methods， contents and measures of cultural education

English language knowledge is improved by the stage， and the cognition level need to be developed gradually， therefore， the integration of cultural contents should be gradual， from simple to complex.Make students get a comprehensive understanding of the target language country’s politics， economy and cultural background knowledge. Overall， startup stage emphasizes on culture of communication and higher stage focuses on culture of knowledge.

Appropriate principle requires that we select the contents of teaching and the number is proper. It requires teachers prepare some cultural contents related to the language contents， function items and general topics in daily communication. These should be available at the basic stage. But these terms should not be just translated word by word；pragmatic and cultural connotations should be understood. In addition， at early stage indoctrination courses should not be too much， affecting teaching of basic knowledge. ［7］

4The content of cultural teaching

Cultural factors that interfere communication include social forms， social knowledge， view of value (the relations between man and nature， religious beliefs， moral concepts， views of life， world view and so on)，features of thinking (the different between Chinese and the western countries in the features of thinking. )

5The implementation of cultural teaching

Teachers of English should explain or replenish the words， expressions and the texts， which contain cultural meaning. Teachers should also introduce relative cultural knowledge and background knowledge in the form of language or nonlanguage.［8］

Literary works are a mirror reflecting a nation’s culture， and they can vividly and concretely reflect the nation’s habits and characteristics， states of mind， customs， and social relationship and so on. The communicative ability is not only the simple additions of the ability of language and culture， but the result of plenty of practice.［9］Learners should master the social culture knowledge in time through communication. If not， they canhardly make any improvement in social ability and even the communicative ability. Therefore， when teachers take measures to make their class better， they should actively make the best use of the second classroom. They should encourage the students to take part in plenty of extracurricular activities， such as listening to English broadcast， watching English firms， reading English newspapers and magazines， taking part in English contests， acting out English plays， learning to sing English songs and so on.［10］

6Conclusion

In face of the English teachingin 21 century， the core of the education is “to train the students to become generalists， who have solid foundation， wide range of knowledge， broad train of thought， strong social adaptive ability， emergencemanaging ability， selfdetermination ability and good quality in body and mind，” Therefore， language teaching， cultural teaching， and moral teaching should be involved in the English teaching. Since the English classes aim to expand their knowledge， teachers should lay emphasis on enlarging their cultural views， strengthening the sensitivity and adaptability about cultural differences and improving their crosscultural communicative ability. Meanwhile， English teachers should continuously enlarge their own range of knowledge， improve their own understanding of social culture， vastly absorb the latest cultural information of the Englishspeaking countries and merge these information with the teaching practice.

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