| Language is part of culture and it plays a key role in culture. It isbelieved by some sociologists that language is the comer stone of culture——Nolanguage is without culture. On the other hand, language is influenced by culture; itreflects culture. To put it another way, language reflects the characteristics of a nation; itcontains not only the historical and cultural background of this nation, but also mirrorsits worldview, way of life and manner of thinking. Language and culture influence andinteract each other. To understand language, one must know its culture; simultaneously,to understand culture, one must have a good knowledge of the language. Language andculture are inseparable. To be bilingual, one must be bicultural. Therefore, languagelearning cannot be separated from culture learning.In a good environment of language communication, by means of systematictraining, the students can subconsciously absorb and acquire the language as well as itsculture so as to strengthen their cultural awareness of the English-speaking countriesand understand the differences between different cultures.It has been proved again and again that culture-oriented education in Englishlanguage teaching is beneficial to students in their understanding British and Americancultures as well as further improving their comprehension and mastery of the Englishlanguage.As an individual human being, we have to communicate with each other all thetime. With the development of modern telecommunication, the interchange betweenpeoples and nations is getting more and more frequent. The earth has become a smallvillage in terms of communication.Cultural differences lead to different ways of social intercourse, to different values,standards, taboos, etc. In cross-cultural social intercourse, misunderstanding oftenoccurs, which causes serious obstacles. To overcome these obstacles is vital forsuccessful communication. And foreign language teachers play a key role in this respect.However, for a very long time, we foreign language teachers have only paid attention tomemorizing the symbols of the language and grammatical rules in foreign language teaching, which makes many Chinese students unable to communicate in proper Englishalthough they have studied it for many years.Foreign languages are now showing more and more importance as an importanttool in communication. More and more people are now coming to know that languagecan't exist without its culture and foreign language teaching is not only to train thestudents to master the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary but more importantly, it isto help them understand the culture, to enhance cultural awareness, and. to gain theability of communicating in different cultural backgrounds. Only in this way can theycommunicate in the given foreign language effectively and appropriately.Language and culture interact, influencing and shaping each other. For learners of aforeign language it is not enough to learn simply the speech sounds, words andgrammatical structures of the language. Similarly, it is far from being enough andefficient for teachers of English to teach students only the speech sounds, vocabularyand grammar rules without touching and teaching the unique culture behind thelanguage. More often than not, it is the colorful culture, rather than the concretelanguage itself, which attracts, affects and amuses students today, who have a variety ofinterests and hobbies and show new traits and trends in accepting new things. Facedwith new situations and increasing challenges, teachers of English need to know theimportance of culture teaching to keep their students interested and their classesinteresting and lively. Without an adequate knowledge of the culture in which alearner's target language is spoken, his/her learning of the language is never complete.The same goes with an English teacher who neglects the teaching of culture behind thelanguage he/she is teaching. So culture-oriented teaching is an indispensable part ofEnglish teaching and plays an important role in developing the students' mentality andpersonality.Even though culture-oriented teaching is paid enough attention to in the nationalteaching syllabus, the situation in classroom teaching is not satisfactory. The aim of thisthesis is to provide some principles in teaching English culture and also present someexamples and supporting samples of culture-oriented teaching with the purpose ofstrengthening students' cultural awareness in English teaching and to test the effect of anew teaching approach, which takes the choice of materials and the interest of studentsinto consideration. |
