How to cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading teaching

Language and culture are inseparable, and the influence of culture on language learners is subtle. A China person, under the influence of China culture, has a relatively fixed way of thinking and language expression, which will also restrict his English learning. Therefore, college teachers should pay attention to cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading teaching.

First, the principles of cultivating cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading teaching

Due to the diversity of culture, strengthening the cultivation of students' cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading teaching requires teachers to master the knowledge of cross-cultural communication, on the other hand, teachers are required to have a correct attitude and evaluation position towards the target language culture, and at the same time, teachers should play a leading role in teaching. Specifically, the following principles must be followed:

1 related primitives

English newspapers and periodicals are very extensive and informative, reflecting all aspects of British and American countries and their cultures, and are the most ideal materials for students' cross-cultural teaching. Faced with such materials, teachers should choose typical and representative news as teaching materials among the massive news, and pay attention to its relevance to the target language culture. In the teaching of English newspaper reading, if teachers can't use news related to the target language culture as teaching materials and simply tell students about western culture or life customs directly, it will destroy the coherence of classroom teaching and make the teaching content seem irrelevant; On the other hand, it will also make teachers' teaching about culture seem empty and boring. Therefore, attaching importance to relevance has become the most critical aspect of cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading class.

2 guiding principles

In teaching, the contradiction between teachers' leading role and students' dominant position has always been discussed by teachers, and guidance is an important symbol for teachers to play a leading role in teaching. Especially in the teaching of English newspapers and periodicals, in order to cultivate students' awareness of cross-cultural communication, teachers often encourage students to pay attention to the cultural background of related events or texts in textbooks. However, the cultural background is very extensive and complex, from people's world outlook, way of thinking and value orientation to people's customs and habits. Therefore, in such a rich field, it is impossible for teachers to cover everything in teaching, and it is even more impossible for students to independently establish contact between relevant materials in newspapers and periodicals and their cultural background. At this time, teachers should give full play to their guiding role. Students can be guided by questioning, discussion or heuristic methods, so that they can gradually form the habit of creative and critical thinking, so that they can choose relevant information independently and extend it to relevant cultural backgrounds, which can improve students' English critical thinking ability in a certain cultural background.

3 principles of communication

As a kind of news media in English-speaking countries, the characteristics of English newspapers and periodicals determine that reading teaching is not only to expand students' vocabulary and improve their reading ability, but more importantly, to enable students to learn to communicate successfully with others in English while receiving a lot of political, economic, social and cultural information from English-speaking countries. Therefore, in the teaching of English newspaper reading, cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness should focus on guiding students to understand the differences between various cultural phenomena. In this process, students can learn about the culture of English-speaking countries and compare it with their own mother tongue culture, which can also deepen their knowledge and understanding of their own culture. Therefore, teachers should adopt flexible methods in teaching to improve students' sensitivity to cultural phenomena, and should consciously cultivate students' cultural awareness, so that they can actively and consciously absorb English culture until they integrate into the new cultural environment, thus coping flexibly in cross-cultural communication, thus avoiding the situation of "cultural shock" in cross-cultural communication.

4? Hierarchical principle

Culture is hierarchical, so the formation of students' cross-cultural awareness is also a long-term and gradual process. In other words, the knowledge of language and culture is so extensive that it is impossible for teachers to give students a more comprehensive understanding of foreign culture through one or several explanations about culture. In this process, on the one hand, teachers should make elementary students master the basic skills of English language first through selective and phased explanations, and the introduction of English-speaking countries' cultures should also be limited to their shallow cultures, such as vocabulary, terms, proper nouns, proverbs, idioms and customs. In the advanced stage, we should cultivate students' pragmatic competence from the perspective of communication needs, such as how to avoid cultural misunderstandings and conflicts in different cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, the implementation of the principle of stratification also requires teachers to consider the fact that different students in the same student group have different levels of mastery and understanding of language and culture. In view of this, teachers will try their best to make students with lower level understand and accept cultural introduction, and at the same time benefit students with higher level.

Second, English newspaper reading teaching to cultivate cross-cultural awareness of the content

In English newspapers and periodicals, news reports have a wide range of topics and words, involving politics, economy, military affairs, diplomacy, education and other fields. Faced with such a situation, it is impossible and unnecessary for teachers to do everything. On the contrary, they must make choices according to the needs of cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness. The author believes that this choice is very important, and the choice should focus on the following aspects:

1 ideology

Ideology includes people's values, religious beliefs and social customs in English-speaking countries. For example, religion represents the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of people in English-speaking countries at a certain period.

At the same time, it also reflects the political, economic, social and cultural conditions of that period, that country or region. Christianity, the Bible and ancient Greek and Roman myths have a great influence on the thoughts and ideologies of Europeans and Americans. In this case, as members of the country's news media, their journalists are writing news or introducing some of their politicians.

When you talk about politics, it is natural to quote some religious classics. For example, written in

Wall (from the Bible, meaning "a sign of impending disaster"); Another example is Pandora's

Box (meaning Pandora's box. This classic comes from Greek mythology, which means "the source of disaster" or "a complex problem that is difficult to solve due to unwise intervention").

Such words or phrases often appear in English newspapers. If you can't understand the cultural connotation, if you just explain it literally, it will cause misunderstanding.

2 political and historical background

The language of any nation, whether written or spoken, is closely related to the historical development and political system of this country. In English newspapers and periodicals, politics is always the highlight; In political news reports, journalists often use a large number of expressions with specific cultural meanings. For example, satisfy

(possessive case of one) personal

Waterloo (18 15, the British-German-Dutch allied forces led by Duke Wellington fought a decisive battle with Napoleon in Waterloo, and as a result, the French army was defeated and Napoleon was exiled to an island, ending his life). This idiom is synonymous with failure or decisive failure. If we know something about this historical event, then we can accurately understand its meaning. On the other hand, it is impossible to understand accurately.

3 literature and art

English-speaking countries and other countries have a long history of literature and art, and traditions have gradually accumulated and precipitated, forming some unique cultural metaphors in their languages. British and American newspaper articles often contain profound information about British and American western literature, especially classical literature. For example, Time magazine once described Nixon's visit to China as Nixon's.

Odyssey to

China. The Odyssey, originally an English epic by Homer, an ancient Greek poet, describes the long and difficult journey of Odyssey after the fall of the ancient city of Troy. In this report, the author's statement is intended to show that the normalization of Sino-US relations has gone through a long process. In this respect, if we don't understand that the Odyssey means "a long journey" here, then it is difficult for us to understand Nixon's.

The true meaning of Odyssey to China.

Thirdly, the methods of cultivating cross-cultural awareness in English newspaper reading teaching.

Although teaching should be done in accordance with students' aptitude, although there is no definite teaching method, in the process of cultivating students' cross-cultural awareness, if teachers can use appropriate methods, they will certainly stimulate students' interest in learning culture and activate the classroom atmosphere, thus receiving good teaching results.

1 comparative analogy method

Comparative analogy refers to comparing the culture of China with that of English-speaking countries to find out the similarities and differences. The news reports in English newspapers and periodicals are the latest, reflecting their latest political trends. Therefore, the natural infiltration of Chinese and English cultures in the teaching of English newspaper elective courses will help to cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness and help to resolve some unnecessary misunderstandings that students are prone to in the process of cross-cultural communication. For example, most English learners in China always use the word "teacher" according to the custom in China. China will feel natural, but native English speakers will find it offensive and impolite. A teacher is a profession and cannot be used as a title. We can say teacher Wu, but we can't say teacher.

Mr. Wu can be used as a title of respect for a teacher, such as thank you, sir? Similarly, madam, miss, madam and sir.

2 Expansibility

When explaining a word or introducing a background knowledge, teachers should not only explain the superficial meaning of the word or background knowledge, but also expand its cultural connotation. Vocabulary constitutes the material shell of language, and there is extremely rich cultural background knowledge behind the material shell. For example, the word history can be extended to gender discrimination in English language and culture; When talking about the number "13", we should not only talk about the bad luck represented by the number "13", but also extend it to the similarities and differences between Chinese and English digital cultures. This can stimulate students' interest in learning and improve their intercultural communication ability.

3 using a variety of teaching media and teaching methods

In the teaching of British and American newspapers, the traditional teaching resources are paper textbooks and British and American newspapers. The limitation of resources leads to a single teaching method and unsatisfactory teaching effect. Most importantly, as a newspaper, it is characterized by timeliness and freshness. Due to the limitations of traditional paper textbooks, what we can use in teaching is often "old news", which also leads to students' inability to grasp the development of English language and culture. At present, the popularity of the Internet can not only enrich the teaching methods of British and American newspapers, but also eliminate the embarrassing situation that traditional English newspapers have been using "old news". First of all, teachers can log on to official website, the major authoritative newspapers in English-speaking countries, and get their latest news reports. Secondly, teachers can also collect real pictures, movies, TV, slides and videos related to newspaper articles or news reports they want to read from English-speaking countries, so that students can have more and deeper understanding of the actual use of English.