Cultural Background Knowledge and English Teaching(3)

主要讲文化背景对英语学习的影响,值得我们学习这一方面的知识

cial days. But students are often unable to understand them without teacher‘s explanation.

Below are two jokes often talked about by Americans:

1. A: Where are you from?

B: I‘ll ask her. (Alaska)

A: Why do you ask her?

2. A: Where are you from?

B: How are you. (Hawaii)

A may think B has given an irrelevant answer. But if A knew something about geographical knowledge of the USA, and the names of two states of the USA—Alaska and Hawaii, he would not regard ―Alaska‖ as ―I‘ll ask her‖, or ―Hawaii‖ as ―How are you‖.

In view of this, the introduction of cultural background is necessary in the teaching of English listening.

Likewise, speaking is not merely concerned with pronunciation and intonation. Students can only improve their oral English and reach the aim of communication by means of enormous reading, mastering rich language material and acquaintance of western culture. Therefore, in oral training, teachers should lay stress on factuality of language and adopt some material approaching to daily life, such as daily dialogues with tape, magazines, newspapers and report etc., because the material is from real life, and it helps students to be well acquainted with standard pronunciation and intonation, to speak English appropriate to the occasion, to understand western way of life and customs etc. Otherwise, misunderstanding and displeasure are inevitably aroused. Let‘s look at some examples.

Many fixed English ways of expression cannot be changed randomly. For example, the answer to ―How do you do?‖ is ―How do you do?‖ When asking price, people usually say, ―How much, please?‖ instead of: ―How much do you charge me? Or ―How much do I owe you‖; When paying bill, ―Waiter, bill please.‖ Instead of ―Excuse me, sir. We‘re finished eating. How much is it, please?‖ When asking the other one‘s name on the telephone, ―Who‘s speaking, please?‖ or ―Who is it, please?‖ instead of ―Who are you?‖ ―Where are you?‖ ―What‘s your surname?‖ or ―What is your unit?‖

In English, there are so many euphemisms that sometimes it‘s hard to know the other one‘s actual mood. So we should pay attention to our answer. For example, when one ask: ―How do you like the film?‖ and the other answer: ―I think it‘s very interesting‖, it shows he doesn‘t like it very much instead of the literal meaning ―very interesting‖. When one asks: ―What do you think of my new coat?‖ and the other answers: ―I think the pocket is very nice‖, it also shows his dislike. In America and England, usually people don‘t say unpleasant words to one‘s face, they always say pleasant words to the full or evade direct answering, saying ―I don‘t know.‖ For example, when one asks, ―Do you like our teacher‖, you may answer: ―Well, I don‘t know him very well.‖ Sometimes out of his politeness, when meeting unfamiliar people, he may conceal his true feelings. For example, A asked B: ―How are you?‖ Although B had got a bad cold

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