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【摘要】跨文化交际能力是所有外语老师所普通关注的问题,但它在中国环境下又是比较困难得以实现,本文从回顾跨文化交际能力的主要定义和构成因素入手,探讨了一些在培养学生跨文化交际能力中比较实用、渐进的原则,希望对其它英语教师有所裨益
【关键词】 跨文化交际能力 语言教学 培养原则
On cultivating intercultural competence (IC)in English language Teaching (ELT)
Zhang Mei
The school of Foreign Languages and Cultures in Beifang Ethnic University, Yinchuan, Ningxia, 750021
【Abstract】IC is a central concern to all EFL teachers but it is difficult to achieve in the Chinese context.The paper gives an overview of the main definitions of IC and its components first and discusses the practical and progressive principles to cultivate learners' IC. Hopefully, it is helpful to other English teachers.
【Key words】IC; ELT; cultivating principles
1Introduction
The ultimate goal of ELT is not so much "native speaker competence" but rather an "intercultural communicative competence" (Byram, 1997; Guilherme, 2002). Thus, the focal point of the following part will be an overview of the main definitions of IC and its components, then a discussion on how to cultivate learners' IC in ELT will be given.
2 What is intercultural competence (IC)?
As a central concern of in IcLET, IC is more than learning about and contrasting cultures, rather, it involves the individual's ability to 'understand culture as a broad organizing and socially constructed concept' (Social Sciences Education Consortium, 1999, cited in Phillips, 2001). Thus, there are diverse definitions of it: it is 'the ability to communicate with people from diverse cultures in a mutually appropriate and effective manner' (Song, 2004); 'the ability to create for oneself a comfortable third place between one's first linguaculture and the target linguaculture'. (Kramsch, 1993); 'the degree to which an individual is able to 〔deal or〕 communicate effectively and appropriately with individuals who are culturally dissimilar' (Lustig & Koester, 2003).
Based on the above definitions, it is clear that IC entails an understanding of the differences in interactional norms between different speech communities and an ability to 'reconcile or mediate between different modes present' (Byram & Fleming, 1998) and through a creative process, the speakers of two cultures negotiate differences, develop their cultural awareness and finally find themselves a comfortable place in social groups (Crozet & Liddicoat, 1999; Corbett, 2003).
No doubt IC is a complex notion and according to Byram (1997, 2002), it contains 4 interdependent components such as attitudes, knowledge, skills and critical cultural awareness :
? Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one's own.
It means a willingness to suspend belief in one's own behaviors and to analyze them from the point of view of the other. Thus, it is the foundation of intercultural competence.
? Knowledge: another crucial factor of IC, including knowledge of social processes and knowledge of how social groups function, through which, it can be helpful to realize other people have multiple identities.
? Skills:as important as attitudes and knowledge, skills are composed of two parts: skills of interpreting and relating-ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents and events from one's own culture; skills of discovery and interaction- ability to acquire new knowledge of cultural practices and the ability to use knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of communication and interaction.
? Critical cultural awareness: acknowledge respect for human dignity, recognize the human right and become aware of one's own values and how these influence one's views of other people's values. It is not the purpose of teaching to try to change learners' values, but to make them explicit and conscious in any evaluative response to others.
Besides the above model Chen & Starosta (2003) proposed three different components of IC as intercultural sensitivity, intercultural awareness and intercultural adroitness:
? Intercultural sensitivity: (affective aspect), refers to the development of a readiness to understand and appreciate cultural differences in intercultural communication.
? Intercultural awareness (cognitive aspect), refers to the understanding of cultural conventions that affects thinking and behavior.
? Intercultural adroitness: (behavioral aspect) stresses those skills that are needed to act effectively in intercultural interactions.
All in all, IC is the key to successful intercultural communication but it is more like an outcome rather than a process. It is quite abstract and can't be observed directly, instead, it needs some integration of some components as indicators to reflect it. Although on the surface, there are two sets of components with different names to embody IC, in nature, they are corresponding to each other in terms of larger categories from affective, cognitive and behavioral perspectives.
3 How to cultivate learners' intercultural competence in ELT?
Since IC is not something that can be developed within one or two days, it is the EFL teachers' responsibility to cultivate learners' IC with relevant, practical and progressive principles:
First, in class, the teacher should pay attention to cultural input on the basis of a well-chosen textbook which is designed with an intercultural and critical perspective with different themes treated in. The key is to let learners compare the theme in their own culture and with examples from an unfamiliar context, which is typical cognitive training.
Second, the teacher should try to design a series of activities to enable learners to discuss and draw conclusions from their own experience of the target culture because experiential learning is quite effective in developing self-awareness as well as perceptions of other countries. eg. home visiting (design a setting that a Chinese will visit an American family to see what will happen). The methods of simulations and role-play may be the good affective and cognitive choices to activate students' schemata and background knowledge about target countries and cultures. Although the teacher will provide some factual information related to the life-styles and patterns in a target culture, but the focus is to encourage comparative analysis with learners' own culture.
Third, as a behavioral training, grammatical exercises can also reinforce the cultural comparison. eg. Chinese may have some problems when they learn past tense. The students always forget to put -ed at the end of a regular verb and the major reason is in Chinese, there is no verb change from present tense to past tense. So the grammatical sometimes can also help remind students of cultural diversity.
Forth, as a partly affective training, extracurricular activities such as English club, English speaking competition, appreciation of English songs, radios, movies and so on are all good practice for students to enhance their interest in the target culture.
Fifth, the use of sources of authentic texts, such as, audio recordings and a variety of written documents and visuals such as maps, photographs, diagrams and cartoons can provide both cognitive and behavioral training which can promote students' understanding, discussing and writing in the target language.
Last, the native English speaking teachers can promote affective, cognitive and behavioral training by providing face-to-face interaction as lectures, sharing the real personal life stories and exchanging opinions of values and beliefs.
4 Conclusion
In summary, IC is a central concern to all EFL teachers but it is difficult to achieve in the Chinese context because most of the students have limited chances to contact foreigners and experience communication in a target cultural situation. In order to be competent to cultivate learners' IC, the EFL teachers are to provide information about social aspects of the target culture; generate curiosity and interest in the target culture; establish a classroom atmosphere that encourages the exploration of otherness and use the cultural content as a source of language activities (Vez Jeremías & González Pi?eiro, 2004)
References:
[1] Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence [M]. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
[2] Byram, M., Gribkova, B. & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural. dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teacher [M]s. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
[3] Chen,G.M.,& Starosta,W.J. (2003).A review of the concept of intercultural awareness, in L.A. Samovar and
R.E.Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader[M]. Belmont,CA:Wadsworth.
[4] Guilherme, M. (2002). Critical Citizens for an intercultural world. Foreign language education as cultural politics[M]. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
[5] Phillips, E. (2001). IC? I see! Developing learners' intercultural competence. Retrieved August 12, 2009, from:http://www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/lote07.html
[6] Song, L. (2004). Gateway to intercultural communication[M]. Ha Erbing: Ha erbing industrial university press.
[7] Vez Jeremías, J. M. & González Pi?eiro, M. 2004. "Intercultural competence and the European dimension." In Madrid, D. & McLaren, N. TEFL in Primary Education[J].Granada: Granada University Press, pp. 342-382.
【关键词】 跨文化交际能力 语言教学 培养原则
On cultivating intercultural competence (IC)in English language Teaching (ELT)
Zhang Mei
The school of Foreign Languages and Cultures in Beifang Ethnic University, Yinchuan, Ningxia, 750021
【Abstract】IC is a central concern to all EFL teachers but it is difficult to achieve in the Chinese context.The paper gives an overview of the main definitions of IC and its components first and discusses the practical and progressive principles to cultivate learners' IC. Hopefully, it is helpful to other English teachers.
【Key words】IC; ELT; cultivating principles
1Introduction
The ultimate goal of ELT is not so much "native speaker competence" but rather an "intercultural communicative competence" (Byram, 1997; Guilherme, 2002). Thus, the focal point of the following part will be an overview of the main definitions of IC and its components, then a discussion on how to cultivate learners' IC in ELT will be given.
2 What is intercultural competence (IC)?
As a central concern of in IcLET, IC is more than learning about and contrasting cultures, rather, it involves the individual's ability to 'understand culture as a broad organizing and socially constructed concept' (Social Sciences Education Consortium, 1999, cited in Phillips, 2001). Thus, there are diverse definitions of it: it is 'the ability to communicate with people from diverse cultures in a mutually appropriate and effective manner' (Song, 2004); 'the ability to create for oneself a comfortable third place between one's first linguaculture and the target linguaculture'. (Kramsch, 1993); 'the degree to which an individual is able to 〔deal or〕 communicate effectively and appropriately with individuals who are culturally dissimilar' (Lustig & Koester, 2003).
Based on the above definitions, it is clear that IC entails an understanding of the differences in interactional norms between different speech communities and an ability to 'reconcile or mediate between different modes present' (Byram & Fleming, 1998) and through a creative process, the speakers of two cultures negotiate differences, develop their cultural awareness and finally find themselves a comfortable place in social groups (Crozet & Liddicoat, 1999; Corbett, 2003).
No doubt IC is a complex notion and according to Byram (1997, 2002), it contains 4 interdependent components such as attitudes, knowledge, skills and critical cultural awareness :
? Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one's own.
It means a willingness to suspend belief in one's own behaviors and to analyze them from the point of view of the other. Thus, it is the foundation of intercultural competence.
? Knowledge: another crucial factor of IC, including knowledge of social processes and knowledge of how social groups function, through which, it can be helpful to realize other people have multiple identities.
? Skills:as important as attitudes and knowledge, skills are composed of two parts: skills of interpreting and relating-ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents and events from one's own culture; skills of discovery and interaction- ability to acquire new knowledge of cultural practices and the ability to use knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of communication and interaction.
? Critical cultural awareness: acknowledge respect for human dignity, recognize the human right and become aware of one's own values and how these influence one's views of other people's values. It is not the purpose of teaching to try to change learners' values, but to make them explicit and conscious in any evaluative response to others.
Besides the above model Chen & Starosta (2003) proposed three different components of IC as intercultural sensitivity, intercultural awareness and intercultural adroitness:
? Intercultural sensitivity: (affective aspect), refers to the development of a readiness to understand and appreciate cultural differences in intercultural communication.
? Intercultural awareness (cognitive aspect), refers to the understanding of cultural conventions that affects thinking and behavior.
? Intercultural adroitness: (behavioral aspect) stresses those skills that are needed to act effectively in intercultural interactions.
All in all, IC is the key to successful intercultural communication but it is more like an outcome rather than a process. It is quite abstract and can't be observed directly, instead, it needs some integration of some components as indicators to reflect it. Although on the surface, there are two sets of components with different names to embody IC, in nature, they are corresponding to each other in terms of larger categories from affective, cognitive and behavioral perspectives.
3 How to cultivate learners' intercultural competence in ELT?
Since IC is not something that can be developed within one or two days, it is the EFL teachers' responsibility to cultivate learners' IC with relevant, practical and progressive principles:
First, in class, the teacher should pay attention to cultural input on the basis of a well-chosen textbook which is designed with an intercultural and critical perspective with different themes treated in. The key is to let learners compare the theme in their own culture and with examples from an unfamiliar context, which is typical cognitive training.
Second, the teacher should try to design a series of activities to enable learners to discuss and draw conclusions from their own experience of the target culture because experiential learning is quite effective in developing self-awareness as well as perceptions of other countries. eg. home visiting (design a setting that a Chinese will visit an American family to see what will happen). The methods of simulations and role-play may be the good affective and cognitive choices to activate students' schemata and background knowledge about target countries and cultures. Although the teacher will provide some factual information related to the life-styles and patterns in a target culture, but the focus is to encourage comparative analysis with learners' own culture.
Third, as a behavioral training, grammatical exercises can also reinforce the cultural comparison. eg. Chinese may have some problems when they learn past tense. The students always forget to put -ed at the end of a regular verb and the major reason is in Chinese, there is no verb change from present tense to past tense. So the grammatical sometimes can also help remind students of cultural diversity.
Forth, as a partly affective training, extracurricular activities such as English club, English speaking competition, appreciation of English songs, radios, movies and so on are all good practice for students to enhance their interest in the target culture.
Fifth, the use of sources of authentic texts, such as, audio recordings and a variety of written documents and visuals such as maps, photographs, diagrams and cartoons can provide both cognitive and behavioral training which can promote students' understanding, discussing and writing in the target language.
Last, the native English speaking teachers can promote affective, cognitive and behavioral training by providing face-to-face interaction as lectures, sharing the real personal life stories and exchanging opinions of values and beliefs.
4 Conclusion
In summary, IC is a central concern to all EFL teachers but it is difficult to achieve in the Chinese context because most of the students have limited chances to contact foreigners and experience communication in a target cultural situation. In order to be competent to cultivate learners' IC, the EFL teachers are to provide information about social aspects of the target culture; generate curiosity and interest in the target culture; establish a classroom atmosphere that encourages the exploration of otherness and use the cultural content as a source of language activities (Vez Jeremías & González Pi?eiro, 2004)
References:
[1] Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence [M]. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
[2] Byram, M., Gribkova, B. & Starkey, H. (2002). Developing the intercultural. dimension in language teaching: A practical introduction for teacher [M]s. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
[3] Chen,G.M.,& Starosta,W.J. (2003).A review of the concept of intercultural awareness, in L.A. Samovar and
R.E.Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader[M]. Belmont,CA:Wadsworth.
[4] Guilherme, M. (2002). Critical Citizens for an intercultural world. Foreign language education as cultural politics[M]. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
[5] Phillips, E. (2001). IC? I see! Developing learners' intercultural competence. Retrieved August 12, 2009, from:http://www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/lote07.html
[6] Song, L. (2004). Gateway to intercultural communication[M]. Ha Erbing: Ha erbing industrial university press.
[7] Vez Jeremías, J. M. & González Pi?eiro, M. 2004. "Intercultural competence and the European dimension." In Madrid, D. & McLaren, N. TEFL in Primary Education[J].Granada: Granada University Press, pp. 342-382.