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3 Culture Capsules
Students can be presented with objects or images that originate from the target culture. The students are then responsible for finding information about the item in question, either by conducting research or by being given clues to investigate. They can either write a brief summary or make an oral presentation to the class about the cultural relevance of the item. Such activities can also serve as a foundation from which teachers can go on to discuss larger cultural, historical, and linguistic factors that tie in with the objects. Such contextualization is, in fact, important to the success of using culture capsules.
4.2 Learning Culture
Not only learning culture from the teachers, students should learn culture by themselves. To do this, students may be encouraged to do the following.
4.2.1 Narrow Reading
Lrashen (quoted in Zhu Xiangrong et al, 2003) recommends narrow reading to minimize interference from the text. According to Krashen, narrow reading refers to reading that is confined to a single topic or to the texts of a single author. After the first few pages, the reader will adjust to either the repeated vocabulary of a particular topic or the particular style of an author. The significant advantage of the narrow reading method from the schemata-theoretic point of view is that schemata are repeatedly accessed and further expanded and refined, resulting in increased comprehension. While doing narrow reading, teachers should make sure that materials should never be too challenging, neither too difficult nor too simple, but always meaningful and rewarding and students can work them out through effort. In this way a student’s prior knowledge is gradually built up, which will eventually facilitate reading in general. In the process of this kind of reading, students may feel frustrated now and then, but they can work through these reading materials successfully because of their variety and briefness. Students will find them interesting and exciting, because the repeated vocabulary of a particular topic or the particular style of a writer is presented to him continuously. According to schema theory, when the schemata are repeatedly activated, further enlarged and refined and accommodated, one’s reading comprehension will be greatly improved.
4.2.2 Extensive Reading
To increase cultural knowledge, students should also read extensively. That’s to say, they should read all kinds of books about western cultures. First of all, teachers should encourage and lead students to read more about the history, geography, customs, habits, and behavior patterns of native speakers. In every stage and aspect of language learning, teachers should encourage students to discover cultural phenomenon and cultural connotation and often compare English and Chinese cultures and find out their differences to strengthen the sensitivity to the culture of the target language.
Secondly, students should also read literature in English as a means of broadening their cultural knowledge, because literature reflects the life and culture of a people. William F. Marquardt (1967, 1969) and W. P. Allen recommend the use of literature to achieve this goal. William F. Marquardt views literature as a vehicle for creating cross-cultural empathy and he states “The surest way to teach empathy for culturally different problems is through literature. Literature vivifies and high lights the ways people of a part本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。