Cultural Awareness [5]
论文作者:Anne-Brit Fenner论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2007-01-12编辑:点击率:21398
论文字数:4294论文编号:org200701122229251685语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:Cultural Awareness
ing of 'New Criticism' in the foreign language classroom put too much emphasis on literary analysis of text, and tended to be dominated by the teacher's 'correct' interpretation. Since then literary theory has concentrated increasingly on the reader's creative role in the reading process. When reading is regarded as a communicative dialogue with the text, new opportunities open up in the encounter between two cultures, as reflected in the literary text.
Learning a language entails undergoing a process of being socialized into a culture, and learning a foreign language means being socialized into that particular foreign culture. One can argue that this socialization process can and will, to a certain extent, be selective, but it is difficult to argue that what I have previously termed 'culture of the people' is the only culture we want our learners to be socialized into and to develop an awareness of. We also have a responsibility to give our students a chance to enhance their cultural capital and to give them access to the literary canon and thus the 'symbolic power' we as teachers and textbook authors possess and exercise (Bourdieu 1994). T believe this access to be necessary if we want our learners to develop into critical human beings. School education in general and language learning in particular can provide this opportunity for 'personal growth' or 'Bildung'.
Reading an authentic literary text in the foreign language can be seen as a personal encounter with the foreign culture. If the process of reading and interpreting a text is seen as an attempt to produce meaning from the multiplicity and polyphony of that particular text, the learner enters into a dialogue with the text and the foreign culture in a productive subject-
subject relationship. The reading process is individual and authentic and there is not only scope for the individual learner's interpretation and understanding, but also a need for it. Without the reader, the text is just a series of written signs on paper; it is the individual reader with his or her pre-knowledge and 'personal constructs' (Kelly 1963) who brings meaning to the text. He or she becomes a participant in a creative process of establishing knowledge of a culture as well as developing culture as a dynamic force.
Socio-cultural Competence (savoir-faire)
Usually socio-cultural competence is seen as a set of skills which the foreign language learner has to be acquainted with in order to cope in the target culture. As argued previously, it has been one of the two main components in the teaching of culture, increasing greatly in importance with the development of a communicative approach to language teaching. Through dialogues and other speech-patterns textbooks have given the foreign language learner models for what to say and how to act in various hypothetical social situations in the target culture. Sample dialogues have often been followed by role-play and information gap tasks. Such tasks can be important for developing socio-cultural skills, but they tend to become ritualistic and meaningless to the learner. Also one can question the belief that learners will automatically be able to transfer skills developed in the classroom to the real situation. Because neither skills nor knowledge can be transferred automatically, socio-cultural competence has to be developed through a more comprehensive understanding of interaction with the foreign culture.
What happens in the foreign language
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。