The cultural artifacts of intercultural communication.doc

the cultural artifacts of intercultural communicationcontents1. introduction52. effectively methods of training oral english52.1. mechanical training52.1.1. imitation52.1.2. reading-aloud and recitation62.2. exploitative training72.2.1. asking and answering questions72.2.2. dialogue and conversation92.2.3. talking about the picture92.2.4. story-retelling102.2.5. topic speech112.3. communicative training112.3.1. simulation and role-play122.3.2. discussion122.3.3. debate133. conclusion14bibliography15abstracttraditional as intercultural communication culture what counts as knowledge or norms is determined by the respective internal discourse practices.there is a hidden political or ideological agenda governing acceptance and institutionalisation. the global nature of many widely diverse modern problems and issues such as the environment, governance of the internet, poverty and international terrorism call for cooperation between nations. intercultural communication is no longer an option, but a necessity.this article develops a conceptual framework for understanding how intercultural communication, mediated by cultural artifacts (i.e., internet communication tools), creates compelling, problematic, and surprising conditions for additional language learning.key words: intercultural communication cultural artifacts grammar oral english language learning & technology teaching senior school students oral english effectively1. introductionfor some social classes and in highly privileged geographical regions, we have entered into a period ofrapid and efficient global communication practices mediating an array of interpersonal, discursive-material, and cultural activities. despite the robust connections between the increasing digitization ofeveryday communicative practice and issues such as globalization and homogenization, internet-mediatedintercultural educational activities remain demonstrably polymorphous. reasons for this are many.educational cultures and objectives vary across nation state boundaries (belz, 2002) as well as acrosseducational institutions within the us. moreover, within the same university but across courses or timeperiods, student populations shift, pedagogical goals are reassessed, and micro-interactional phenomenaillustrate their own accentuality (volosinov, 1973), even when the task, as it were, is supposed toremain consistent across participants and time (coughlan & duff, 1994). the focus of this article is yetanother dimension of human heterogeneity - the cultural embeddedness of internet communication toolsand the consequences of this embedding for communicative activity.2. effectively methods of training oral english2.1. mechanical training the first stage of training oral english is mechanical training. it is to imitate and repeat the sound material simply. in mechanical training, two methods may be adopted. they are imitation, reading aloud and recitation. 2.1.1. imitationpeople learn mother tongue from imitation. babies imitate mechanically all kinds of sounds they could hear. they continuously practice the pronunciation and imitate the words. learning english can also begin with imitation.he who was born a deaf must have been a mute. without the process of language imitation, learners could not speak english fluently. in this course learners must imitate what they hear from teachers, foreigners, tapes and radios, etc. while listening, learners should pay attention to pronunciation and intonation, and they must spend much time practicing again and again. of course this is a dull hard course. a concrete plan about how to train learners to imitate should be made. first, the effectively english knowledge should be presented carefully as the basic knowledge of phonetic symbol, including the position of tongue and the form of mouth, the basic knowledge of grammar, including the usage of parts of speech, and the composition of a sentence, etc., the basic sentence patterns including sth, sb, sp and so on. second, a lot of listening material should be offered to the learners. listening comes before speaking. the material comes from teachers, classmates, radios, tapes, music, tv programs, etc. learners should compare these different materials. after listening, the learners would have some special sense of perception or intuition. after the learners are very familiar with these basic english knowledge and patterns, they would have impulse of speaking. third, the learners should spend much time imitating after tapes, radios again and again. the pronunciation of english is quite different from that of chinese. when we speak in english, we find it very difficult to pronounce some sounds correctly because of the influence of chinese pronunciation. for instance, many chinese learners read “thank” as “sank”. in chinese there is no sound like / /. when we read it , we get used to pronouncing /s/ instead of / /. therefore, learners should practice more to speak english fluently. of course, learners imitate not only the sounds but also some useful sentence patterns. especially, they should imitate some daily english, such as greetings, introductions, leave-taking, requests, expressing and accepting thanks, compliments, congratulations, apologies, forgiving, suggestions, agreeing and disapproval, admitting, and denying, sympathy, encouragement, complains, persuasion, permission, promise, etc.how do teachers train learners to imitate patterns? a pattern refers to put pronunciation and grammar rules into sentence form, and practice again and again in order to form the language habit. for instance, a teacher first explains the meaning, and usage of a certain sentence. so he gives the sentence structure and a key word, and then he asks the students to imitate at once. imitating the teacher, students could practice more. foe example, to practice the present tense of verbs, the verb should be added up “s” or “es”, or other irregular changes. the teacher says: play, plays; he plays basketball every day. then the teacher gives a series of verbs and phrases, such as, walk, walk to school; go, go to school; watch, watch tv. the students could make sentences: he walks to school every day. he goes to school every day. he watches tv every day. in the second round, the teacher makes sentences. for example, tom plays basketball every day. then the teacher lists different names, bill, tim, etc. the students could make sentences with these words: bill plays basketball every day. tim plays basketball every day. in the third round, the teacher asks students to replace the adverbial. the teacher says: tom plays basketball every day. then the teacher lists some phrases: every morning, every afternoon, every other day, etc. the students could make the following sentences with the same pattern: tom plays basketball every other day. these exercises can concentrate students attention on the class.2.1.2. reading-aloud and recitation“language sensitivity, is to pay attention to the phenomenon of language which is worthy of attention.”4 according to the theory of language double structures5, the understanding of language transforms from surface layer to inner layer. the more the steps which transform from surface layer to inner layer are, the more difficult the understanding of language is. on the contrary, the less the steps are, the easier the understanding is.once the students are familiar with a sentence, the steps could be simplified, and students could understand it easily. it is called sense of language. sense of language is to percept a lot of language material, go through a series of complicate psychological activities, form a kind of specific, automatic perception ability of language material.how to obtain sense of language? one of the most important ways is to read aloud and recite. reading-aloud and recitation is a natural process of absorbing language. during this course, the students should pronounce correctly, be familiar with the meaning of the words and understand the passage. while reading aloud or reciting, they should pay attention to pronunciation, intonation, grammar, meaning, rhythm, stress, mood, etc., and improve from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, and gradually remember by heart. once they meet the same sentence pattern, content or topic in the future, they would organize the language at once and speak quickly with the help of sense of language stored in brain. therefore, during the course of teaching, teachers should distribute some wonderful paragraphs or passages and ask students to read aloud or recite in class. it can increase not only the confidence but also sense of language of the students.there are various forms of reading-aloud or recitation. the students could read aloud or recite together or in groups or by individual in class. in different situation teachers should adopt different forms.mechanical training is a dull, uninteresting course, but it is very important for the beginners. it would last a long time. if the teacher neglects this stage, the students would find it more difficult to speak english in future.2.2. exploitative trainingthe second stage of training oral english is exploitative training. in this stage, the students are asked to reappear some english sentence patterns and expressions according to regular sentence patterns within the scope of accuracy. it is controlling oral english practice under the guidance of teachers. it usually carries on according to the language materials that have been learnt. but the students have to change according to the different language situation. this stage could help students achieve the basic ability of oral english. the teacher could use the following methods in order to foster the ability of speaking of the students.2.2.1. asking and answering questionsthe method of oral asking and answering questions is one of the oldest methods in english teaching. up to now, it still has great vitality. in our daily life, asking and answering are the most frequently-used way of exchanging information. teachers can adopt this method to explain different contents, such as explaining the grammar of singular form and plural form of nouns, verb tense, etc. teachers can adopt the method of asking and answering questions to achieve the teaching aim. sometimes some interesting topics such as family, hobby, sports games, climate, etc., could be the contents of free talk. during the english teaching activities, by asking and answering questions. teachers and students or students and students can ask and answer questions alternatively. some questions may be about the text in class. their answers could be found out in the text. some questions are about interesting daily life. whether this method will succeed or not depends on the skills asking questions. then how do teachers ask questions?at the beginning, the teacher should ask students to grasp the usage of yes-no question and wh-question. for instance, in the text the monkey and the crocodile7, the topic sentence is “the little monkey was playing in a tall tree by the river one day”. we can ask and answer questions as following:t: was the little monkey playing in a tall tree by the river one day?s: yes, he was.t: was the little monkey playing in the river?s: no, he wasnt.t: where was the little monkey playing?s: he was playing in a tall tree by the river.t: who was playing in a tall tree by the river?s: the little monkey.for another example, the sentence in the text is: “the mother crocodile was looking for food near the bank.”t: was the mother crocodile looking for food near the bank?s: yes, she was.t: was the mother crocodile playing in the river?s: no, she wasnt.t: what was the mother crocodile doing near the bank?s: she was looking for food.t: where was the mother crocodile looking for food?s: near the bank.t: who was looking for food near the bank?s: the mother crocodile.second, the teacher shall prepare different questions for different students. it can stimulate the students enthusiasm for oral english. for instance, in the text piano concert8, we can ask questions as following:1) memory questions. about these questions, the answers are in the text. students can answer as long as they can remember.e.g. what was the young woman in the small german town going to do?2) comprehensive questions. the answers come from the text, but students cant answer if they do not understand the text completely.e.g. how do the young woman feel when she learned that liszt was in the town? 3) applied questions. the students shall make full use of the knowledge in the text and new language knowledge in order to answer the question correctly.e.g. what is a concert? is it a meeting?4) creative questions. these questions demand thinking independently and developing creation.e.g. what would have happened if liszt was not in the town?5) appraisable questions. the students shall show their own views and express different ideas.e.g. do you think liszt do the right thing? why do you think so?with this method the students learn how to ask and answer questions.2.2.2. dialogue and conversationas we all know, dialogue and conversation are effective methods to improve the communicative competence. they are the most realistic oral communicative activity. the purpose of dialogue and conversation is to exchange information. therefore, the students shall not pay much attention to grammar and structure. a speaker can get the feedback from listeners at once. and the speaker can know the effect of his words, then change his style and strategy of talking according to the feedback of the listeners. during the dialogue and conversation, students can practice all kinds of oral communicative strategy obtain spontaneous language ability.motivation that human beings use language for comes from demands of human activities. therefore, the teacher shall create all kinds of situations to open their mouths to speak in english. in 1920s british linguist h.e. palmer advanced the theory of the situation method. he thought that dialogue and conversation in english teaching are very important. each dialogue shall have a specific situation, such as at the cafeteria, in the library, at the post office, asking the way, etc.dialogue may be carried out between teachers and students. at this time, teacher shall be active. making dialogue is to set a model. for instance, in a new lesson, after the teacher explains the new words and the background of the text, he may ask an excellent student to make a dialogue with him as a model. then the whole class can make dialogues after the model. this method is not only good for improving students oral english but also good for understanding the text.dialogue and conversations among students can be divided into two kinds: prepared and unprepared. prepared dialogue and conversations are good for increasing the students confidence. unprepared dialogues and conversations are good for improving oral communicative competence. although students may make some mistakes, the teacher shall encourage and help students instead of criticizing. whats more, most students shall have chance to participate.the use of language can not depart from specific situations. teachers shall train the ability of students in different situations in order that students can communicate accurately in english in different realistic situation.2.2.3. talking about the picturetalking about the picture is one of the best ways in oral english teaching. it s advantage is that students can imagine, describe and comment what the picture talks about in english. we may use pictures, photos and cartoons to motivate students to talk freely. the students may describe what they see in the picture, including persons, animals, plants and other things. whats more, students may appraise the contents in the picture, express their own ideas or imagine what is not in the picture but related to the picture. this method can improve effectively students thinking ability.choosing suitable pictures and photos will influence the result of teaching. obviously, good pictures and photos for teaching are important. after seeing them, students not only have story desire to speak at once but also know how to speak. some pictures and photos look beautiful, but students can not understand what the pictures and photos indicate. therefore, these pictures and photos are not suitable for oral english teaching. of course, sometimes students can not describe or comment the pictures completely, then the teacher shall enlighten and help them.with the development of science and technology, pictures and photos for oral english teaching become movable. they usually appear on the screen with sound effects. it can stimulate students enthusiasm and improve the students expression.2.2.4. story-retellingstory-retelling is a communicative activity which is different from recitation. recitation demands what we say should coincide with the original. but when we retell a story, what we say does not need to coincide with the original in characters. we retell the story in our own words.there are many different forms of story retelling. 1) retelling the story of the text or some passages in the text. the students shall understand the text completely. they may have different retelling forms according to the different demands. sometimes they may change the point of view of the story. sometimes they may retell the whole story. sometimes they may retell the main ideal of the story. sometime they need to retell some details of the story.2) talking about the story, about the speakers own experience or interesting story. speakers and listeners are