2017届福建省光泽第一中学高中英语教师论文：《A Study on Culture Teaching in Senior English Class》_高考复习指南

2017届福建省光泽第一中学高中英语教师论文：《A Study on Culture Teaching in Senior English Class》

　　3.2.1 Culture Aside

　　Culture asides are items of cultural information offered by the teacher as they present themselves in the course of language work. They are important because they help create a cultural context for language items and help learners to create a network of mental associations similar to those, which the items evoke in native speakers (Stern,1999:224).

　　Culture aside is one of the most widely used techniques in culture teaching. Because it is convenient to conduct in middle school English classes and at the same time it can provide the information directly. Though culture aside can be connected with language teaching closely, it is hard to cause emotional empathy of students. So teachers have to pay much attention to the skills of their teaching. They must add the right information at the right place in the right time.

　　For example, when teaching the subjunctive mood used to show politeness in English, the teacher can at the same time talk about the Politeness Principle in Western cultures. In this way, cultural knowledge is closely linked with language study on the one hand; the students can obtain much useful information about cultural differences between English and Chinese on the other hand.

　　3.2.2 Culture Capsules and Culture Clusters

　　Culture capsules and culture clusters are a group of the most influential and the best-established devices for the culture teaching. According to Taylor and Sorenson (1961,cited in Stern 1999), Culture capsules refer to a few lines of words of introduction or explanation to the specific parts of cultural differences between the native language and the target one. A culture capsule consists of a paragraph or an explanation of one minimal difference between a foreigner and a target custom, along with several illustrative photos or relevant realities. Topics for culture capsules range from specific tangible conversations, customs or nonverbal behaviors of daily life to deeply hidden abstract thought patterns or values. The treatment of a capsule was not to take up more than ten minutes of a lesson period.