First, awareness of cross-cultural communication
Some scholars say in their research on language and culture: "Culture is not the fifth skill that can be selected in language learning, which ranks behind the teaching of listening, speaking, reading and writing." From the first day of learning a foreign language, culture permeates the whole learning process of learners. If they don't pay attention, they will feel uneasy and their defects in communication skills will be exposed. Challenge their ability to understand the world around them. Therefore, when cultivating students' communicative competence, we should pay full attention to the influence of cultural factors. Improving students' communicative competence is closely related to cultivating their cultural awareness. The ultimate goal of English education is to cultivate students' ability to use English for cross-cultural communication, that is, to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds without obstacles. Therefore, cultivating students' awareness of cross-cultural communication is the ultimate goal of English teaching today.
Second, how to cultivate students' awareness of cross-cultural communication in English courses
In English courses, students should not only understand the culture of western countries, but also cultivate their cultural awareness; Let them deepen their understanding of English in the process of learning culture. In the teaching process, we should carry out different levels of cultural education according to different teaching stages, and analyze the cultural factors contained in the knowledge points that may cause misunderstandings in the communication process to ensure that language teaching and cultural teaching can be carried out at the same time. Specific can be carried out from the following aspects.
1. Cultural Guidance in the Process of Knowledge Transfer
To cultivate students' awareness of cross-cultural communication, it is necessary to improve students' understanding of the cultural differences between China and the West. Usually, the cultural differences between languages are mainly manifested in the meaning, language rules and language structure. Therefore, when teaching students vocabulary, language and discourse, we should remind students of the cultural differences involved in it in time. For example, due to the cultural differences between different ethnic groups in folk customs and religions, words often have completely different interpretations. For example, some commonly used social pragmatic rules will vary greatly because of different social cultures.
2. Cultural guidance in classroom practice teaching activities
Learning a language can only be more effective in a real environment. Therefore, English courses cannot be separated from vivid classroom teaching scenes. While creating vivid, real and vivid scenes, we should also remind students of social and cultural differences.
3. Cultural guidance in the process of students' autonomous learning
Organize autonomous learning activities, such as demonstrations and group discussions. In the process of learning, teachers should pay attention to guiding students to pay attention to social and cultural factors and cultivate students' initiative to feel cross-cultural awareness in the process of learning.
4. Make full use of network and multimedia resources
Nowadays, with the popularization of Internet technology, online teaching has become an important means of English teaching. Internet is rich in a large number of rapidly updated social and cultural information, which can make up for the shortage of teaching materials lacking cultural information, make students contact with the latest social and cultural information, and improve their understanding of social and cultural differences and changes.
5. Improve teachers' teaching methods
At present, in China's foreign language teaching system, most of them are teacher-centered and only teach in the classroom. Teachers only pay attention to the explanation of words, texts, sentence patterns and grammar, but ignore the cultivation of students' language ability. It is necessary to digest and absorb modern language teaching theories and emphasize the cultivation of students' language application ability and communicative competence. Therefore, teachers need to keep pace with the times and change their ideas and teaching methods in order to achieve the expected teaching goals.
① Improve the existing teaching methods. For a long time, English teaching has been biased towards imparting language knowledge while ignoring the cultivation of students' intercultural communicative competence. We must change our state, actively improve our teaching methods and make full use of modern teaching methods to arouse students' enthusiasm. At the same time, when improving teaching methods, new content should be reasonably and closely integrated into students' language knowledge and language communication practice.
② Pay attention to the cultivation of students' nonverbal communicative competence. In communication, nonverbal communication is also an important part. Under certain circumstances, nonverbal behavior is used to exchange information, but sometimes it can convey more powerful meaning than language. Some specific nonverbal behaviors often have different specific meanings in different cultural environments. For example, in some occasions, in China and English-speaking countries, whether you smile or laugh, you usually show friendliness and happiness? It's pleasant, but sometimes, the laughter of China people will arouse the antipathy of westerners.
(3) Guide students to widely contact with western cultural materials. Due to the limitation of English teaching hours in schools, it is not enough to cultivate students' intercultural communication ability only by teachers' teaching. Teachers should encourage students to read a lot of western literary works, magazines and other books in their spare time, so that students can improve their cultural literacy, absorb western culture, broaden their international horizons and improve their cross-cultural communication ability.
Three. conclusion
Language is not only the carrier of culture, but also the portrayal of culture and an important part of culture. In the process of interpersonal communication, it is not only a simple language communication, but also a deep cultural communication, that is, "cross-cultural communication". In practical communication activities, it is very important to use language properly to avoid communication failure caused by cultural differences. In short, in the process of English teaching, let students know that it is not enough to learn only one language, but also to familiarize them with the cultural differences between the East and the West. Culture permeates all aspects of language and communication, so language learning should be immersed in culture.