With the development of society and the speeding up of education globalization, the communication and cooperation between nations becomes more and more frequent. The goal of college English teaching is to improve the students intercultural communicative competence, preparing our students for a quickly changing world. Cross-cultural communication refers to the communication between the native speakers and nonnative speakers, namely, the communication among people of differences in language and culture background.
There are different beliefs, values among different groups of people, cultural differences are objective reality. Its formed a certain conventional communication rules in every culture.
Therefore, the human communication is conducted under the guidance of the rules of communication. From different cultural groups, people are used to explaining others with their own culture and deducing inaccurate communication rules. Its hard to avoid misunderstanding and even cultural conflict. Language and culture are inseparable. For many years, the foreign language teaching in Indonesian college has always been focusing on grammar and vocabulary and neglecting the cultural factors and the cultural differences of the target language and native language. It is not to mention to the cultivation of students cross-cultural communication ability. Language is the communicative tool and the carrier of culture. Modern foreign language teaching pay attention to language as the tool, language as a means of teaching, to cultivate students ability to communicate in the target language. Hence, culture introduction is necessary in modern foreign language teaching.
The Relationship between Language and Culture
As early as in 1921 the American linguist Sapir in his writings noted that language cannot exist without culture. Social linguists believed that language is the carrier of culture and culture is rooted in language. Therefore, culture import cannot be ignored in language teaching. Language is an important part and form of the culture. Any languages are used by people who communicate with each other through the spoken or written language form with a certain words in a certain area. At the same time, a specific of Oriental and Occidental Culture language is always connected with the people and nation of the language and history, culture, society background.
Language and culture has always been to study together. English teaching is to foster the students ability to use the language. In order to get the ideal language application ability, the teacher cant teach English as a tool, but teach language as the carrier of culture to the students. Only when English teaching introduce culture, can it make up the lack of students language knowledge and cultural background, thus effectively improving the students language application ability. Linguistic educationalist Lado pointed out: If we dont master the cultural background, it is impossible for us to teach language successfully. If we do not understand the cultural pattern and standards, it is impossible for us to really learn the language.
There are differences in different culture value orientation, a way of life, and ways of thinking. In the different societies, people abide by their own code of conduct and social norms in the process of communication with the corresponding social expectations with their own culture. Foreign language teaching should pay attention to the penetration of cultural background knowledge and cultivate the students cross-cultural communication consciousness to make the students understand the cultural differences of different nations, which is a key point in the new historical period of foreign language teaching. Therefore, we not only explain the language knowledge and train language skills, but also teach the relevant cultural background.
Differences Between Indonesian and Western Cultures
Indonesian culture and western culture derive from two very different civilizations. Both cultures have its generality, so-called cultural overlap, but cultural differences are more frequent and can be called the cultural conflict.
Above-mentioned differences are only the appearance of cultural conflict, whose root lies in the difference of a way to thinking as the social cultural products. Indonesian and western culture has its own tastes on abstract thinking and image thinking in the way of thinking. When Indonesian explain the problem, they prefer image and metaphor method. Even if the problem involves logical reasoning, Indonesian also choose to imaginable thinking. Relatively speaking, westerners have preference for abstract thinking. The difference in language is obvious. The order of the two languages is just the opposite on the expression of the concept of time and space. The reason is that Indonesian preference is comprehensive thinking, focusing on the overall effect and dialectical thought. In contrast to Indonesian, English people prefer analytical thinking and logical thought. Westerner think personal value is supreme, stressed self-control and self-control widely, so little paper in humble and self-effacing expressing. They accept with pleasure faced other peoples praise. However, Indonesian people have a dialectical understanding on personal honor. They are modest and prudent in front of the outstanding result.
The Significance of Culture Introduction
In the field of foreign language teaching, culture teaching is to serve language teaching, which ultimate goal is to improve the learners intercultural communication abilities. Learning and mastering of English means that make use of the English language as a tool to understand their political economy, religion, geography, history and local conditions and customs. As a result, learners use the language accurately in intercultural communication, to more deeply understand the profound and rich cultural connotation through language.
The effect of classroom teaching is closely connected with the students attention. However, new and unique cultural introduction activities make students involve into learning quickly, and concentrate to the knowledge, maintaining this state in a long time. All in all, it can improve the efficiency of classroom teaching. Importing culture can trigger the students interests in learning, which is the key factor to stimulate students learning motivation. Importing culture skillfully can trigger students interest in learning and stimulate students learning enthusiasm, making them explore learning actively. At the same time, the students ability can be improved to use the language correctly. The purpose of learning a language is applying them in our daily life. Thus cultural knowledge is essential to use the language correctly. In the process of teaching language, it can lay a good foundation for the students to importing culture.
Facing the exchange of the Indonesian and western in various fields, Indonesian are also facing more and more intercultural communication. Inevitably, it exists some obstacles of cross-cultural communication. The cultural differences of different ethnic groups are the major cause. For example, when Indonesian meet with each other, they used to the greeting that where are you going? Or have you eaten yet? In fact, he or she does not really want to know where are you going or have you eaten. It is just the greeting. But the westerner thinks that it is impolite involving personal privacy. Thus it can be seen if Indonesian impose their habits and cultural pattern to westerner during the communication; it will lead to the deviation of understanding and misunderstanding. Only when English teaching pay attention to cultural differences and introduce culture, can reduce students committed cultural mistakes in English.
Conclusion
To sum up, language cannot be separated from the culture. Culture introduction is an important content of English teaching. To cultivate the students communicative competence, especially cross-cultural communication ability, it is very important to understand the cultural background. Teachers should be realizing the importance of teaching cultural knowledge. In the teaching of language knowledge, we should be pay attention to teach cultural knowledge as much as possible and contrast between Indonesian and western culture in order to strengthen students sensitivity to cultural differences, to better train the students ability to cross-cultural communication.
By: Angga WP Permadi, Sekretaris DPC GMNI Kediri
References
Kramsch, C. (1997). Context and culture in language teaching. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Kramsch, C. (1999). Language and culture. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (1997). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press.Tomalin, B., & Stempleski, S. (1998). Cultural awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Valdes, J. (1986). Culture bound. Combridge: Combridge University Press.
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