Intercultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching: A Chinese Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 768
Author(s):  
Yinghao Li

The paper discusses the status quo of the English culture teaching and learning in Chinese colleges. In the pedagogical level, most foreign language teachers have very vague idea of what the culture should be and what should be taught in terms of English culture. Lacking in the principled methodology in promoting students’ intercultural awareness, teachers either turn deaf to the new trend or frustrated by the communicative approach, somehow falling back to the more traditional but effective grammar-translation approach. The changing scenario of language teaching has constituted new challenges for the English educators in China. The paper proposes that more research should be channeled to the research of the paradigm of the English as an International Language (EIL) through intercultural awareness.

Author(s):  
Shaohua Shi

Currently, multimedia-assisted foreign language teaching is a topic of high interest in the field of foreign language teaching. The combination between multimedia and foreign language teaching enables the teaching activity to integrate functions, such as words, phrases, sounds, images, figures and animations which can arouse and stimulate the students’ enthusiasm and initiative as well as improve the teaching efficiency. However, the insufficient study of current foreign language teaching on both of the theories and practices of the multimedia-assisted foreign language teaching results in an unsatisfactory outcome of the multimedia-assisted teaching utilized by many foreign language teachers in middle school. Based on the knowledge and analysis of the status quo of the multimedia-assisted foreign language teaching and its design, this paper systematically discusses its contents of listening, speaking, reading and writing as well as its design, aiming at promoting teachers to spontaneously use the multimedia in the foreign language teaching, taking the maximum advantage of the multimedia-assisted teaching.


2018 ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Emilia Munteanu

A l’ère de la mondialisation, l’accès illimité à l’information modifie de plus en plus le rapport des jeunes gens mais surtout la vision des adultes du troisième âge à l’égard des barrières de l’apprentissage. De nos jours, de nombreuses institutions d’enseignement et des ONG proposent aux derniers une large panoplie d’activités dans le but de leur faire acquérir de nouvelles compétences et capacités linguistiques, culturelles, techniques, artistiques, etc. En tant que formateurs en FLE, nous avons cherché à briser les barrières qui séparent les générations et à favoriser la communication entre adultes au-delà des frontières géographiques, culturelles, linguistiques à travers un projet européen PLALE. Réunies autour du coordinateur italien de Pavie, cinq autres institutions partenaires se sont proposé de partager leur expérience dans l’enseignement-apprentissage des langues par le jeu théâtral. Pendant deux années, des professionnels et des apprentis de la langue provenant du système formel universitaire se sont servis de leurs compétences didactiques et de leur expérience liée à l’emploi du jeu théâtral pour transformer le contexte non formel de l’Ecole populaire d’arts et de métiers de Bacau en Roumanie en un laboratoire pour l’expérimentation de nouvelles techniques et méthodes d’acquisition par les adultes des connaissances en L2.  Le déroulement du projet et la création d’un spectacle théâtral joué à Bacau par les apprenants par les apprenants adultes des six partenaires nous ont permis de faire l’apprentissage d’une pédagogie vivante mais aussi de l’andragogie et de prendre conscience du rôle des relations intergénérationnelles pour assurer la santé de la société actuelle. Breaking barriers, or teaching and learning French by playing drama In the era of globalization, due to unlimited access to information, the relationship and the attitude among the young people have increasingly modified. In addition, the adult’s point of view regarding traditional limits of learning has also changed. Nowadays, more and more institutions of teaching and NGOs are proposing to them a variety of activities which offer them a possibility to develop not only their computer skills but also linguistic, artistic and cultural abilities. As foreign language teachers, we have tried to create a connection between generations, so as to ease the communication between adults which would not have been possible without the existence of a European project. Entitled PLALE or Playing for Learning, it integrates five partners from France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Romania coordinated by an Italian specialist from Pavia. The specialists’ purpose is to share their experience in the field of foreign language teaching and learning through drama. Key words: European project; pedagogy; andragogy; language teaching and learning; theatre performance; relations between generations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-193
Author(s):  
Lucía Pintado Gutiérrez

AbstractThis article explores the agency of the student in translation in language teaching and learning (or TILT). The purpose of the case study discussed here is to gain an overview of students’ perceptions of translation into the foreign language (FL) (also known as “inverse translation”) following a module on language and translation, and to analyse whether there is any correlation between students’ attitude to translation, its impact on their language learning through effort invested, and the improvement of language skills. The results of the case study reveal translation to be a potentially exciting skill that can be central to FL learning and the analysis gives indications of how and why language teachers may optimise the implementation of translation in the classroom. The outcome of the study suggests that further research is needed on the impact of translation in the language classroom focussing on both teachers’ expectations and students’ achievements.


2021 ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Petra Besedová ◽  
Karolína Soukupová ◽  
Kristýna Štočková

IMPORTANCE OF THE DIDACTICS OF NON-LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING Learning does not mean anything but learning with all your senses and feelings. The young generation lives nowadays in a complex media world to which foreign language didactics also has to respond. Educators and teachers should use numerous materials that do not only develop language skills, but also conveycultural approaches. The teaching of non-linguistic disciplines plays a key role in foreign language teaching, and foreign language teaching is currently very modern in its cultural context. The paper attempts to outline the existence of the so-called didactics of non-linguistic disciplines in foreign language teaching in the Czech Republic. On the basis of a questionnaire survey among foreign language teachers, the extent to which foreign language teachers are confronted with the content of didactics of non-language subjects was examined. The authors were also interested whether there are differences between teachers of different foreign languages (English, German, Russian, French), and which preferences teachers of these foreign languages manifest when choosing their teaching material. We believe that the content of the didactics of non-linguistic disciplines is an essential part of foreign language teaching and can greatly enrich this field.


2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian MacKenzie

Linguists have recently suggested that a large proportion of linguistic performance in naturally acquired languages is enabled by the internalization of a huge number of institutionalized utterances, or lexical phrases, or fixed and semi-fixed expressions. This research parallels the discovery, earlier this century, of the oral-formulaic nature of Homeric poetry. Furthermore, although written literature (as opposed to oral epic poetry) is generally assumed to be anything but formulaic, it can be shown that it too necessarily contains a lot of institutionalized expressions, or at least transformations of them, and that our own repertoire of memorized phrases almost certainly comes from literary as well as oral sources. Foreign language teachers clearly need to give serious consideration to the prevalence of lexical phrases, in both speech and writing. Literature can be used in the foreign language classroom as (among many other things) a source of institutionalized phrases.


Author(s):  
Oleksandra Borzenko

The article reveals the features of professional improvement of foreign language communicative competence of foreign language teachers in the European Union, which is the result of the development of European integration, globalization and information processes. Emphasis is placed on the importance of professional development of teachers and the need for changes related to the development of new goals in teaching foreign languages with the new up-to-date innovative teaching aids. It is determined that foreign language teachers of European countries are constantly looking for and actively apply in practice innovative methods, modern information technologies, as well as distance learning in language teaching. It is noted that an essential feature of modern innovation processes in the field of education and upbringing is their technologicalization – strict compliance with the content and sequence of stages of the implementation of innovations. Among all new technical aids for foreign language teaching, the computer is an essential component of the educational process, which has one of the most significant influences on the course of teaching. New up-to-date approaches to the formation of foreign language communicative competence in the foreign language teaching put forward new requirements for the professionalism of the teacher, his/her qualifications. It is determined that the improvement of foreign language competence of the foreign language teacher is influenced by the properties of his/her personality, general and professional competence, which is provided by a combination of knowledge of didactics, linguistics, methods of teaching foreign languages, cultural studies and creativity, professional mobility, continuous self-development. Foreign language teachers of the European Union improve their professionalism through various forms of education. The views of scientists on the research problem are characterized. Conclusions and prospects for the use of further development of the study are made.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (Special) ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
BEL A. NEDDAR

The theoretical framework that informs this paper is systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1994, Mathiessen, 1995 and Halliday and Mathiessen, 2004). This paper is not meant to be a guide for foreign language teachers on how to teach with a list of prescriptive tips to be adequately followed, but meant to highlight the importance of language teaching as a social functional activity. It stresses the need for a particular type of literacy that helps learners reflect on the ideational content of the educational input, questions beliefs and settled practices of their societies, and dwells on the educational requirement for any country to join the socio-economic revolutionary processes of Globalisation.


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