How to Bring Target Culture into Foreign Language Teaching

    Last term, I went to a middle school to be a student teacher. I taught senior students. I have tried my best to bring target culture to my class.

    I still remember now, I taught my students an article about newspapers which I prepared for a long time. I collected a lot of materials, including newspapers in Chinese and in English, such as China Daily and 21st century, etc. In the class, before I explained the composition to my students, I showed them the newspapers which they were interested in first. After reading the newspapers, I asked them a question "Composing in Chinese and in English, which is easier? Why?" My students discussed the question intensely. Then some students said that composing in Chinese is easier than in English, but others thought composing in English is much easier. The reasons given by them were multifarious. After that I told them the right answer. Composing in Chinese is much easier than in English. Because the sizes of Chinese characters are the same, but the sizes of English words are different. Though it is a small difference between Chinese and English, it involved these two different cultures. Now the students can realize that the cultures in the world are different, and if a person wants to learn foreign language well, he must comprehend the target culture well. So he can communicate with the native speakers fluently.

    Because I know my students are still children, I used objects which they are interested in. They are interested in objects. They want to find out the answers by themselves.  If I just told them the right answer directly, they would bored and would forget it quickly.

    This is my personal opinion. In the area of cross-cultural education, there are many different theories on teaching target culture in class. Next I will show you several ways of target culture teaching.

II.  Ways of bringing target culture into English teaching

    1.  Teaching the students how to recognize cultural images and symbols.                                                                              

    First, the teachers should familiarize the students with popular images and symbols in the target culture. They should help their students to identify and compare the images and symbols in British and American culture, and then to contrast these with the images and symbols in their own country.

    For example, when talking about the Spring Festival, the teacher could tell the students the history of Spring Festival in China or let then discuss about what kind of activities are held during Spring Festival. And then the sentence: “Spring Festival is the most important festival in China.” Should be made and written on the blackboard. After that, the teacher may ask the students: What about American/British Festivals? Then the students may answer: “Christmas is the most important festival in America/Britain .” Obviously, the answer is right. At this time, teachers could make a comparison between Spring Festival and Christmas, including time, the main activities, origin, etc.

    Second, culture matches. When preparing for the class, teachers could prepare some materials about culture matches. For example, a list of pairs of corresponding American/British words:

    baseball / soccer       President / Prime Minister

    NewYork / London     Franklin D. Roosevelt / Winston Churchill

    The teacher can write them in small cards and then give these cards to the students. Let them discuss freely and find their matches quickly. After that, ask them to provide some background information about these words. If there are some difficulties, the teacher should help them with the materials which were well prepared before class.

    Third, in order to increase the awareness of the cultural images and references used in pop songs and music videos, teachers can show their students some typical English songs in class. These songs should have cultural references. For example, the song may tell a story which is short and easy to be understand. The teacher should also prepare enough copies of task sheets to give one to each student. On the task sheets, the teacher can list a series of questions about the song, such as:

    What is the main theme of the song?

    What cultural values are reflected in the song?

    In your opinion, what kinds of people have these values?

    When all the things are well prepared, the teacher can begin this class. Firstly, ask the students to choose one word to describe the song after playing the song in the classroom. Then ask the students to work in pairs to tell the reason they choose those words. At last, ask them to explain to their classmates why they choose the words. Secondly, play the song line by line and ask the students to repeat the sentences they have heard. When the students have some difficulties in understanding the song, the teacher should help them and write the whole song on the blackboard. Thirdly, divide the class into groups, let them discuss about this song beginning with the sentence: This song is about... . They can use the questions listed on the task sheet. At this time, a spokesperson should be chosen to make some records about their discussion. Finally, each group's spokesperson would record about their discussion and make a brief speech to the rest of the class.

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