Thank you for following "Yongda English"!
High school English writing teaching design based on cultural character infiltration
Chen Xuejiao Li Fei
Abstract: "General High School English Curriculum Standards" (2017) points out that high school English courses should give full play to the educational function, develop students' core literacy in English subjects such as language ability, cultural character, thinking quality and learning ability, and implement the fundamental task of cultivating morality and cultivating people. Cultural character is an important part of English subject teaching and a quality that teachers are likely to ignore in teaching. In order to further cultivate students' cultural character, teachers should clarify the goals of cultivating cultural character when designing high school English writing classes, deeply analyze the cultural connotation behind the content, guide students to appreciate and identify excellent Chinese and foreign cultures, improve students' humanistic literacy, and regulate their behavior and value orientation. The author takes the teaching practice in the "Healthy Eating" Workbook of the People's Education Press "English" as an example to explore the teaching design of high school English writing that permeates cultural character.
Keywords: High School English; Cultural Character; Writing Teaching
1. Introduction
"Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standards" (2017) attaches more importance to cultural learning, puts cultural character and language ability, thinking quality and learning ability at the same level, and points out that cultural character refers to the understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures and the recognition of excellent culture. It is the cultural awareness, humanistic cultivation and behavioral orientation that students show in a global context (Gao Hongde, 2017). Language and culture are closely linked, and language is an important carrier of culture. As a foreign language, English has a special emphasis on the permeation of cultural awareness from the perspective of meta-culturalism. Through knowledge acquisition, connotation comparison, similarities and similarities analysis, essence absorption and other means, learners should spread excellent traditional culture under the guidance of values of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-improvement, understand and use foreign and foreign cultures, and successfully complete cross-cultural communication ( Chen Yanjun , Liu Dejun, 2016).
Although some content that penetrates foreign cultural knowledge has been added to the high school English textbooks, it still cannot meet the needs of students with higher English proficiency. As an important part of English learning, English writing will play an important role in improving students' core literacy, especially language ability, cultural character, thinking quality and learning ability ( Wang Qiang , 2017).
In order to cultivate students' cultural character, when designing high school English writing classes, teachers must first clarify the goals of cultural character cultivation, deeply analyze the cultural connotation of teaching carriers, guide students to appreciate and identify excellent Chinese and foreign cultures, feel the differences between Chinese and foreign cultures, and enable students to consciously improve their humanistic cultivation and standardize their behavioral orientation in life. In addition, cultural character also includes cultural traditions and social and cultural phenomena that the writing content should conform to. From this perspective, cultural character goes beyond the connotation of cross-cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication skills as explained in previous curriculum standards. In teaching, teachers should gradually expand the content and scope of cultural knowledge based on students' actual situation, and should also pay attention to the organic combination of classroom teaching and extracurricular activities, so as to help students broaden their horizons and form cultural stance and attitudes, cultural identity and cultural identification ability.
2. Writing teaching cases that permeate cultural character
From knowing culture, to understanding and respecting cultural differences, to forming cross-cultural communication skills, it constitutes multiple goals for shaping cultural character. It must be staged and hierarchical in the process of teaching practice. Teaching design must abide by the spiral rise principle from interest to knowledge, and finally to ability (Zhou Lin et al., 2106). Below, take the lesson examples in the "Healthy Eating" Workbook of the People's Education Press "English" compulsory three Unit 2 "Healthy Eating" taught by the author as an example, and discuss the high school writing teaching design that permeates cultural character cultivation.
(I) Description and analysis of teaching content
textbooks are an important carrier for cultivating students' subject literacy. The textbook discourse carries rich cultural achievements, thoughts and emotions, humanistic attitudes and other humanistic value attributes.Teachers should fully study the text of the textbook, improve their awareness of value analysis of teaching content, consciously analyze the arrangement intentions of each part of the textbook, analyze what goals can be used to achieve, and choose and integrate these goals based on students' actual level and development needs (Li Baorong, Li Huifang, 2011).
The teaching content of this class is an after-class exercise in the Workbook part of this unit. It is a conversation caused by opening McDonald's in his hometown. The two interlocutors expressed their views and arguments that supported their views respectively. The conversation is a topic that students are familiar with in this unit. Through classroom discussions, students can write a debate article about whether or not they should open McDonald's shops, and also let them understand the differences in eating habits between Chinese and Western countries and people's different views on McDonald's culture. The design of cultural character goals requires setting reasonable goals based on the themes of each module unit, the specific corpus content, the internal logical relationship between corpus, the students' existing language level, the students' current physical and mental characteristics, etc. It is necessary to set reasonable goals. It is necessary to avoid being too empty and detached from the students' reality, and to avoid being too "covery" or losing the foundation.
(II) Teaching objectives and teaching methods design
This lesson aims to let students understand the differences in McDonald's culture in China and the West. The teaching objectives are set as follows:
1. By listening, grasp the main theme of the conversation and obtain important content in the conversation.
2. Expand the content of the conversation through discussion. Discuss more about the benefits and disadvantages of opening a McDonald's.
3. By writing, record the results shared by students after discussion in the form of text.
4. Learn about the culture related to McDonald's in Western countries and the situation of McDonald's in China. Cultivate students' thinking habits of looking at and thinking about problems from different cultural perspectives.
Focusing on the above teaching objectives, teachers design different activities from the aspects of knowledge ability and literacy to stimulate students' enthusiasm for participation; through teacher-student interaction and ideological collision, cultural character is permeated, reflecting the humanistic care for students and the cultivation of subject literacy.
(III) Teaching process and activity analysis
1. Preparation for learning cultural knowledge
0 Pre-class activities are to allow students to learn necessary cultural knowledge and prepare for knowledge, psychology and ability.
(1) Listen to the import, stimulate learning motivation,
When class starts, the teacher plays a video about Chinese and Western diets. The video is divided into two main parts: the first part is related to food. Food can provide people with the energy necessary for a day; the second part compares Chinese and Western diets. Speaking of China's diet, the healthiest is the world's most dietary type, with low sugar and fat content. Most Western diets contain high fat and sugar content, and the proportion of fruits and vegetables is small, which leads to Westerners' prone to gaining weight and teeth falling off. Playing videos not only allows students to devote themselves to the new lessons with emotion, but also allows them to understand the importance of food to health.
[Design Intent] This video introduces students to the importance of food in life in a relaxed and pleasant way, reminding them to eat healthy and maintain their body's energy through food intake to better devote themselves to their studies and life. At the same time, a brief introduction to Chinese and Western foods is introduced, and students that the salt, sugar and fat contained in food will have an impact on the human body. The different intake and preferences of these ingredients in China and the West have led to obvious differences in body shape and height among Chinese and Western people. Through short videos, students activate their thinking before class, enhance the classroom effect, and activate their cognition of eating habits in China and the West. Teachers should be good at developing and integrating extracurricular English course resources and culturally supplement the textbooks, so that students can understand and understand the culture of Western countries on the basis of adhering to their own cultural concepts, and gradually form their own cultural character, moral standards, code of conduct and values ( Li Jing , 2016).
(2) Create a situation, preset cultural content, and develop thinking ability
Next, use a WeChat message from a friend to directly introduce the topic.As teachers, we should start from the perspective of students, connect more with their life reality, find the corpus they are interested in, and pay attention to the fun, motivation and diversity of the materials (Liu Yu, 2005). Such course resources can maximize the emotional resonance of students, gradually enrich students' cultural knowledge, enhance their cultural sensitivity, and realize their cultural action ability. “Suppose that your quiet hometown is to have a large new McDonald’s restaurant. It will replace a Chinese restaurant that serves the traditional food of your area.” Through this short message, students will think about what attitude they would have if they opened a McDonald’s in their hometown. The teacher then asked questions, such as: "Do you agree to it?" "What is your idea about it" to let the students think further about their attitude. Then let the students look at two pictures of traditional Chinese food and Western McDonald's. After direct sensory comparison, the students have a stronger perception of Chinese and Western food. Through the introduced links, students stimulate their interest in exploration and enter the best listening training state.
[Design Intent]
Warm-up activities before listening training can stimulate students' imagination and train students' ability to use known information to infer unknown information, thereby helping students actively build cultural knowledge and develop thinking ability. This is similar to asking students to look at listening questions first in the exam.
2. Cultural knowledge exploration and understanding
This stage is cultural exploration and understanding under the guidance of teachers. Teachers should pay attention to creating language scenarios and summarize cultural differences in communication at this stage.
(1) Listen widely, grasp the main idea
Students grasp the main idea of listening through broad listening. After listening, the students express the central idea of the conversation. For example, "The dialog is about: whether to build a McDonald's restaurant or not in their hometown." This question is a display-oriented question for understanding the subject of the article, and is a "problem designed to promote students' memory and understanding of information" ( Liang Meizhen , 2011). Students can summarize the general idea of the article through extensive listening and in their own language.
[Design Intent] Students further think about the direction and angle of thinking of teachers through listening exercises before introducing the questions raised by the teacher. The students summarized the theme of this conversation through extensive listening. The purpose is to cultivate students' ability to summarize the central idea of dialogue, and lay the foundation for further obtaining comprehensive listening text information and improving their thinking ability.
(2) Listen carefully and grasp important information.
Listen to the dialog again and answer the following 4 questions. Answer the questions by ticking the correct boxes.
①Who is for building it?
Tina Li Qian
②What are the reasons for building it?
A. Part of our town will be improved.
B. People will have more jobs.
C. McDonald’s will offer us a chance to enjoy something new and different.
③Who is against building it?
Tina Li Qian
④What are the reasons against building it?
A. He hates all that expensive tasteless food.
B. McDonald’s food is not healthy.
C. He loves local dishes.
D. McDonald’s food will pollute our environment.
E. McDonald’s serves a terrible diet for young children.
By listening to the second conversation, students can clarify the positions of Tina and Li Qian and the reasons for holding their respective opinions. Tina is the positive side, which means supporting the opening of McDonald's. She believes that McDonald's opening can promote the development of their town and provide people with more job opportunities. Li Qian is the opposite side and opposes the opening of McDonald's. He thought McDonald's was hard to eat and expensive, he liked their local food better, and what McDonald's provided for the little kids was bad. In response to the attitudes of the two and their respective reasons, the teacher can continue to ask "Do you agree with them?" "Do you think their reasons are persuasive?". Thinking about these issues will involve the different cultural attitudes of Chinese and Western people towards McDonald's.For example, if Chinese prefer their traditional diet, will Westerners think McDonald's be unpalatable and tasteless? If so, how did McDonald's become popular quickly? Will Westerners also think that McDonald's is an unhealthy and bad food? Will their children eat it? Thinking about these issues gives students the opportunity to appreciate the differences between the two cultural areas and understand that McDonald's grew up in a specific cultural context.
[Design Intent] The teacher uses a task to allow students to obtain more detailed information in their listening skills. At the same time, this task also provides students with a framework, that is, first express their opinions and then explain the reasons. Think about the respective arguments of both sides, deepen students' understanding and memory of McDonald's' rooted growth in Western countries, and cultivate students' cross-cultural communication awareness. Students cooperate with teachers to explore, solve the difficulties in listening dialogue, and lay a solid foundation for the next tasks.
3. Interactive communication and promoting knowledge transformation
0 listening activities are the language output link for students, and it is also the key to forming innovative thinking and cultural character. Students apply the cultural knowledge they have learned to practice, which is conducive to enhancing cross-cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication skills.
(1) Group discussion to cultivate cultural character
"Discuss in groups of four: What is your idea about building a McDonald's in your hometown? Why or why not? (4mins)." Let students further discuss their views in groups and expand more arguments. Students are encouraged to find more arguments that support their views in different cultural contexts. The "Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards" (2011 edition) requires that English teaching and emotional education be organically combined, and various cooperative learning activities are created to encourage students to learn from each other and help each other, experience collective honor and accomplishment, and develop a spirit of cooperation... Special attention is paid to students who are introverted or have learning difficulties, and to create as many opportunities for language practice for them as possible (Ministry of Education, 2012). Through discussion and sharing, students came up with the following argument:
For it: McDonald’s will offer us a chance to enjoy something new and different. They believe having a McDonald’s around may let people know more about a foreign culture. Besides, it means more work for our area that needs jobs badly now. Furthermore, it is a kind of fast food, which provide us a lot of convenience.
Against it: McDonald’s will bring us no good. McDonald’s food is not healthy. It is a kind of junk food; it is rich in fat, sugar and salt, which do great harm to our health. Besides, McDonald’s may pollute their environment, damage water, air and ecology.
McDonald's is a fast food that is easily integrated into the Western fast food culture. Fast food culture is the product of people's accelerated pace of life. Understanding fast food culture indirectly allows students to understand the background of the United States in the late 20th century. At the same time, the introduction of fast food culture also shows that China has also entered the fast-paced ranks. The more modern humans are, the faster the pace of life. In the era when everything is fast, eating seems to have become a burden and a blasphemy activity. Therefore, all busy people began to reduce the time spent on meals, and this fast food that is time-consuming and delicious, gradually became the mainstream. This concept and diet also influenced the traditional Chinese lifestyle.
The student's argument also includes that McDonald's may pollute the surrounding environment. This understanding is also thought of based on the major cultural background of environmental protection in our country, which is a manifestation of combining the national cultural background.
[Design Intent] Students further discussed the reasons for supporting or opposing opening McDonald's, and expanded their thinking ability. After discussion, students have gained more knowledge about the differences in diet between China and the West. We have gained more understanding of Western fast food culture and environmental protection under the background of Chinese culture, and deepened students' cultural awareness.
(2) Internalize actions into character through writing
①Write an article about what you have discussed for my friend Li Hua in order to help him make a final decision. While you are writing, please consider the following structures and patterns:
Para1.
Today we have had a discussion / debate...
Some people are in favor of...
Other people are against...
There is different opinions among people as to...
Different people have / hold different views / opinions on this problem.
Para 2.
Students who are for the idea think...
Some people hold the opinion that...
Para 3.
Students who are against it believe...
Para 4.
In my opinion, I prefer...
②Write 2-3 reasons for each side.
③Use some connections and good expressions.
besides, however, meanwhile, in addition, moreover, further, to sum up, on the contrary ...
This debate-style article can be used as a template to guide students to write similar articles in the future, both in structure and content. Various teaching tasks in the teaching process can help students grasp the structure of the article and provide students with a writing framework. In addition, teachers require students to pay attention to the characteristics of English writing when writing and try to write according to the English writing habits. For example, the structure of the total score, the use of transitional words and conjunctions, and the richness of the sentence structure of the article are particularly prominent in English writing. After students complete their writing, read their composition aloud, and teachers should promptly encourage their courage and outstanding performance.
[Design Intent] This part permeates the writing strategy of building mind map . The relevant content has been fully prepared in the listening and discussion sections, and the teacher has built the entire composition framework very firmly. It is not difficult for students to record it in words. The final writing activity fully focused on students' thinking quality and learning ability, expanded the content and scope of cultural knowledge, consolidated students' understanding of cultural knowledge, stimulated students' interest and confidence in English writing, and at the same time internalized their actions into character.
4. After-class practice, extend character education
English literacy can be directly or indirectly tested through paper and pen exams to varying degrees, but not all aspects of thinking quality, cultural character and learning ability can be evaluated through paper and pen exams. Some literacy is more suitable for testing through non-paper and pen exams ( Cheng Xiaotang , 2017). Through after-class assignments, students can further realize that cultural differences are real. For example: What is your ideas about your English class to be taught? In English only or both in English and Chinese? Teachers encourage students to find more meaningful debate topics online, and suggest that students look for the views that people may adhere to in different cultural contexts and the cultural factors behind this view, and ultimately achieve the goal of character cultivation: anything has two sides, and anyone will be influenced by their surrounding cultural environment.
[Design Intent] In the stage of extending teaching effects, students are presented with extremely challenging tasks, and combined with the character cultivation goals of this lesson, they are educated to expand their thinking and diversify their thinking ability. After-class homework is an extension of students' ideological education in extracurricular areas.
3. After-class reflection
In the process of cultivating cultural character, we must adhere to the following principles:
1. Principle of integration: The four major qualities of English are interconnected and jointly promoted. Teachers should coordinate the relationship between cultural character and language ability, thinking quality and learning ability to avoid the disconnection between language learning and cultural character shaping. Teachers should integrate these English literacy through practical, comprehensive and inquiry activities to change the fragmented state of teaching content, "integrate knowledge learning and skill development into the theme, context, discourse and pragmatic, promote the formation of cultural understanding and thinking quality, guide students to learn to learn, and point to the cultivation of core literacy" (Wang Qiang, 2015).
2. Situational principle: The so-called Situational principle is to create a language learning environment during the implementation of the course, root the shaping of cultural character in a situation close to students' lives, allowing students to use English in real life situations and experience culture personally in activities. For example, in the teaching of literary works such as poetry, drama, novels, etc., teachers can organize students to perform poetry recitation, drama performance, storytelling and other activities to guide students to feel the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western literary works and understand and appreciate the beauty of language during the activities. For example, in the Mid-Autumn Festival curriculum design, teachers can introduce the Mid-Autumn Festival cultural background, organize students to carry out activities such as eating moon cakes, watching the moon, and telling Mid-Autumn Festival folk stories, so that students can understand the inner connection between knowledge and life situations during the activities, and deeply understand the rich connotation of Chinese traditional culture.
3. Principle of gradual progress : The shaping of cultural character should follow the principle of gradual progress, which is mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, the setting of cultural teaching content should fully consider the language level, personality characteristics, acceptance ability and other factors of students of different school stages, and teach students in accordance with their aptitude; on the other hand, in the specific teaching design of shaping students' cultural character, teachers should pay attention to the hierarchy of cultural character shaping, and follow the gradual process from knowing cultural knowledge to understanding and respecting cultural differences, and then internalizing the cultural attitudes in the heart.
4. Principle of contrast and inclusion: The principle of contrast is to guide students to identify differences and similarities between different cultures through cultural comparison in the process of shaping students' cultural character, deepen their perception, understanding, comparison and identification of different cultures, thereby respecting cultural differences, cultivating a "harmonious but different" multicultural awareness, and avoiding the use of their own cultural standards to demand or explain foreign cultures. In the process of cultural and ideological integration in the context of globalization, cultural conflicts occur from time to time, and it is particularly important to face diverse cultures with attitude. The principle of inclusion is to abandon cultural prejudice, understand and accept different cultures with a broad mind of "encompassing all rivers", and to establish national cultural confidence while promoting the harmonious development of world culture.
4. Conclusion
There are huge differences in Chinese and foreign cultures, which affect English teaching. The shaping of students' cultural character should be given full attention in teaching. In high school English teaching, consciously cultivating students' cultural character is not only a requirement for implementing the English teaching goals, but also an important part of cultivating students' cultural elements. As a teacher, you should have a pair of cultural insights to ensure the smooth development of cultural education. It should be made clear that the development of cultural character must rely on accumulation and subtle influence. Teachers should penetrate the cultivation of students' cultural character into every class of daily teaching. At the same time, students’ cultural character and reading literacy are not developed overnight. In fact, all concepts are developing and changing, and the connotation of cultural character will continue to enrich with the development of society. Therefore, if teachers focus on exploring the ideological nature of the textbooks in their daily teaching and consciously penetrate character education in reading teaching, it will have a subtle influence on students and will be of great benefit to the cultivation of students' character.
Thank you for following "Yongda English"!
High school English writing teaching design based on cultural character infiltration
Chen Xuejiao Li Fei
Abstract: "General High School English Curriculum Standards" (2017) points out that high school English courses should give full play to the educational function, develop students' core literacy in English subjects such as language ability, cultural character, thinking quality and learning ability, and implement the fundamental task of cultivating morality and cultivating people. Cultural character is an important part of English subject teaching and a quality that teachers are likely to ignore in teaching. In order to further cultivate students' cultural character, teachers should clarify the goals of cultivating cultural character when designing high school English writing classes, deeply analyze the cultural connotation behind the content, guide students to appreciate and identify excellent Chinese and foreign cultures, improve students' humanistic literacy, and regulate their behavior and value orientation. The author takes the teaching practice in the "Healthy Eating" Workbook of the People's Education Press "English" as an example to explore the teaching design of high school English writing that permeates cultural character.
Keywords: High School English; Cultural Character; Writing Teaching
1. Introduction
"Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standards" (2017) attaches more importance to cultural learning, puts cultural character and language ability, thinking quality and learning ability at the same level, and points out that cultural character refers to the understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures and the recognition of excellent culture. It is the cultural awareness, humanistic cultivation and behavioral orientation that students show in a global context (Gao Hongde, 2017). Language and culture are closely linked, and language is an important carrier of culture. As a foreign language, English has a special emphasis on the permeation of cultural awareness from the perspective of meta-culturalism. Through knowledge acquisition, connotation comparison, similarities and similarities analysis, essence absorption and other means, learners should spread excellent traditional culture under the guidance of values of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-improvement, understand and use foreign and foreign cultures, and successfully complete cross-cultural communication ( Chen Yanjun , Liu Dejun, 2016).
Although some content that penetrates foreign cultural knowledge has been added to the high school English textbooks, it still cannot meet the needs of students with higher English proficiency. As an important part of English learning, English writing will play an important role in improving students' core literacy, especially language ability, cultural character, thinking quality and learning ability ( Wang Qiang , 2017).
In order to cultivate students' cultural character, when designing high school English writing classes, teachers must first clarify the goals of cultural character cultivation, deeply analyze the cultural connotation of teaching carriers, guide students to appreciate and identify excellent Chinese and foreign cultures, feel the differences between Chinese and foreign cultures, and enable students to consciously improve their humanistic cultivation and standardize their behavioral orientation in life. In addition, cultural character also includes cultural traditions and social and cultural phenomena that the writing content should conform to. From this perspective, cultural character goes beyond the connotation of cross-cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication skills as explained in previous curriculum standards. In teaching, teachers should gradually expand the content and scope of cultural knowledge based on students' actual situation, and should also pay attention to the organic combination of classroom teaching and extracurricular activities, so as to help students broaden their horizons and form cultural stance and attitudes, cultural identity and cultural identification ability.
2. Writing teaching cases that permeate cultural character
From knowing culture, to understanding and respecting cultural differences, to forming cross-cultural communication skills, it constitutes multiple goals for shaping cultural character. It must be staged and hierarchical in the process of teaching practice. Teaching design must abide by the spiral rise principle from interest to knowledge, and finally to ability (Zhou Lin et al., 2106). Below, take the lesson examples in the "Healthy Eating" Workbook of the People's Education Press "English" compulsory three Unit 2 "Healthy Eating" taught by the author as an example, and discuss the high school writing teaching design that permeates cultural character cultivation.
(I) Description and analysis of teaching content
textbooks are an important carrier for cultivating students' subject literacy. The textbook discourse carries rich cultural achievements, thoughts and emotions, humanistic attitudes and other humanistic value attributes.Teachers should fully study the text of the textbook, improve their awareness of value analysis of teaching content, consciously analyze the arrangement intentions of each part of the textbook, analyze what goals can be used to achieve, and choose and integrate these goals based on students' actual level and development needs (Li Baorong, Li Huifang, 2011).
The teaching content of this class is an after-class exercise in the Workbook part of this unit. It is a conversation caused by opening McDonald's in his hometown. The two interlocutors expressed their views and arguments that supported their views respectively. The conversation is a topic that students are familiar with in this unit. Through classroom discussions, students can write a debate article about whether or not they should open McDonald's shops, and also let them understand the differences in eating habits between Chinese and Western countries and people's different views on McDonald's culture. The design of cultural character goals requires setting reasonable goals based on the themes of each module unit, the specific corpus content, the internal logical relationship between corpus, the students' existing language level, the students' current physical and mental characteristics, etc. It is necessary to set reasonable goals. It is necessary to avoid being too empty and detached from the students' reality, and to avoid being too "covery" or losing the foundation.
(II) Teaching objectives and teaching methods design
This lesson aims to let students understand the differences in McDonald's culture in China and the West. The teaching objectives are set as follows:
1. By listening, grasp the main theme of the conversation and obtain important content in the conversation.
2. Expand the content of the conversation through discussion. Discuss more about the benefits and disadvantages of opening a McDonald's.
3. By writing, record the results shared by students after discussion in the form of text.
4. Learn about the culture related to McDonald's in Western countries and the situation of McDonald's in China. Cultivate students' thinking habits of looking at and thinking about problems from different cultural perspectives.
Focusing on the above teaching objectives, teachers design different activities from the aspects of knowledge ability and literacy to stimulate students' enthusiasm for participation; through teacher-student interaction and ideological collision, cultural character is permeated, reflecting the humanistic care for students and the cultivation of subject literacy.
(III) Teaching process and activity analysis
1. Preparation for learning cultural knowledge
0 Pre-class activities are to allow students to learn necessary cultural knowledge and prepare for knowledge, psychology and ability.
(1) Listen to the import, stimulate learning motivation,
When class starts, the teacher plays a video about Chinese and Western diets. The video is divided into two main parts: the first part is related to food. Food can provide people with the energy necessary for a day; the second part compares Chinese and Western diets. Speaking of China's diet, the healthiest is the world's most dietary type, with low sugar and fat content. Most Western diets contain high fat and sugar content, and the proportion of fruits and vegetables is small, which leads to Westerners' prone to gaining weight and teeth falling off. Playing videos not only allows students to devote themselves to the new lessons with emotion, but also allows them to understand the importance of food to health.
[Design Intent] This video introduces students to the importance of food in life in a relaxed and pleasant way, reminding them to eat healthy and maintain their body's energy through food intake to better devote themselves to their studies and life. At the same time, a brief introduction to Chinese and Western foods is introduced, and students that the salt, sugar and fat contained in food will have an impact on the human body. The different intake and preferences of these ingredients in China and the West have led to obvious differences in body shape and height among Chinese and Western people. Through short videos, students activate their thinking before class, enhance the classroom effect, and activate their cognition of eating habits in China and the West. Teachers should be good at developing and integrating extracurricular English course resources and culturally supplement the textbooks, so that students can understand and understand the culture of Western countries on the basis of adhering to their own cultural concepts, and gradually form their own cultural character, moral standards, code of conduct and values ( Li Jing , 2016).
(2) Create a situation, preset cultural content, and develop thinking ability
Next, use a WeChat message from a friend to directly introduce the topic.As teachers, we should start from the perspective of students, connect more with their life reality, find the corpus they are interested in, and pay attention to the fun, motivation and diversity of the materials (Liu Yu, 2005). Such course resources can maximize the emotional resonance of students, gradually enrich students' cultural knowledge, enhance their cultural sensitivity, and realize their cultural action ability. “Suppose that your quiet hometown is to have a large new McDonald’s restaurant. It will replace a Chinese restaurant that serves the traditional food of your area.” Through this short message, students will think about what attitude they would have if they opened a McDonald’s in their hometown. The teacher then asked questions, such as: "Do you agree to it?" "What is your idea about it" to let the students think further about their attitude. Then let the students look at two pictures of traditional Chinese food and Western McDonald's. After direct sensory comparison, the students have a stronger perception of Chinese and Western food. Through the introduced links, students stimulate their interest in exploration and enter the best listening training state.
[Design Intent]
Warm-up activities before listening training can stimulate students' imagination and train students' ability to use known information to infer unknown information, thereby helping students actively build cultural knowledge and develop thinking ability. This is similar to asking students to look at listening questions first in the exam.
2. Cultural knowledge exploration and understanding
This stage is cultural exploration and understanding under the guidance of teachers. Teachers should pay attention to creating language scenarios and summarize cultural differences in communication at this stage.
(1) Listen widely, grasp the main idea
Students grasp the main idea of listening through broad listening. After listening, the students express the central idea of the conversation. For example, "The dialog is about: whether to build a McDonald's restaurant or not in their hometown." This question is a display-oriented question for understanding the subject of the article, and is a "problem designed to promote students' memory and understanding of information" ( Liang Meizhen , 2011). Students can summarize the general idea of the article through extensive listening and in their own language.
[Design Intent] Students further think about the direction and angle of thinking of teachers through listening exercises before introducing the questions raised by the teacher. The students summarized the theme of this conversation through extensive listening. The purpose is to cultivate students' ability to summarize the central idea of dialogue, and lay the foundation for further obtaining comprehensive listening text information and improving their thinking ability.
(2) Listen carefully and grasp important information.
Listen to the dialog again and answer the following 4 questions. Answer the questions by ticking the correct boxes.
①Who is for building it?
Tina Li Qian
②What are the reasons for building it?
A. Part of our town will be improved.
B. People will have more jobs.
C. McDonald’s will offer us a chance to enjoy something new and different.
③Who is against building it?
Tina Li Qian
④What are the reasons against building it?
A. He hates all that expensive tasteless food.
B. McDonald’s food is not healthy.
C. He loves local dishes.
D. McDonald’s food will pollute our environment.
E. McDonald’s serves a terrible diet for young children.
By listening to the second conversation, students can clarify the positions of Tina and Li Qian and the reasons for holding their respective opinions. Tina is the positive side, which means supporting the opening of McDonald's. She believes that McDonald's opening can promote the development of their town and provide people with more job opportunities. Li Qian is the opposite side and opposes the opening of McDonald's. He thought McDonald's was hard to eat and expensive, he liked their local food better, and what McDonald's provided for the little kids was bad. In response to the attitudes of the two and their respective reasons, the teacher can continue to ask "Do you agree with them?" "Do you think their reasons are persuasive?". Thinking about these issues will involve the different cultural attitudes of Chinese and Western people towards McDonald's.For example, if Chinese prefer their traditional diet, will Westerners think McDonald's be unpalatable and tasteless? If so, how did McDonald's become popular quickly? Will Westerners also think that McDonald's is an unhealthy and bad food? Will their children eat it? Thinking about these issues gives students the opportunity to appreciate the differences between the two cultural areas and understand that McDonald's grew up in a specific cultural context.
[Design Intent] The teacher uses a task to allow students to obtain more detailed information in their listening skills. At the same time, this task also provides students with a framework, that is, first express their opinions and then explain the reasons. Think about the respective arguments of both sides, deepen students' understanding and memory of McDonald's' rooted growth in Western countries, and cultivate students' cross-cultural communication awareness. Students cooperate with teachers to explore, solve the difficulties in listening dialogue, and lay a solid foundation for the next tasks.
3. Interactive communication and promoting knowledge transformation
0 listening activities are the language output link for students, and it is also the key to forming innovative thinking and cultural character. Students apply the cultural knowledge they have learned to practice, which is conducive to enhancing cross-cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication skills.
(1) Group discussion to cultivate cultural character
"Discuss in groups of four: What is your idea about building a McDonald's in your hometown? Why or why not? (4mins)." Let students further discuss their views in groups and expand more arguments. Students are encouraged to find more arguments that support their views in different cultural contexts. The "Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards" (2011 edition) requires that English teaching and emotional education be organically combined, and various cooperative learning activities are created to encourage students to learn from each other and help each other, experience collective honor and accomplishment, and develop a spirit of cooperation... Special attention is paid to students who are introverted or have learning difficulties, and to create as many opportunities for language practice for them as possible (Ministry of Education, 2012). Through discussion and sharing, students came up with the following argument:
For it: McDonald’s will offer us a chance to enjoy something new and different. They believe having a McDonald’s around may let people know more about a foreign culture. Besides, it means more work for our area that needs jobs badly now. Furthermore, it is a kind of fast food, which provide us a lot of convenience.
Against it: McDonald’s will bring us no good. McDonald’s food is not healthy. It is a kind of junk food; it is rich in fat, sugar and salt, which do great harm to our health. Besides, McDonald’s may pollute their environment, damage water, air and ecology.
McDonald's is a fast food that is easily integrated into the Western fast food culture. Fast food culture is the product of people's accelerated pace of life. Understanding fast food culture indirectly allows students to understand the background of the United States in the late 20th century. At the same time, the introduction of fast food culture also shows that China has also entered the fast-paced ranks. The more modern humans are, the faster the pace of life. In the era when everything is fast, eating seems to have become a burden and a blasphemy activity. Therefore, all busy people began to reduce the time spent on meals, and this fast food that is time-consuming and delicious, gradually became the mainstream. This concept and diet also influenced the traditional Chinese lifestyle.
The student's argument also includes that McDonald's may pollute the surrounding environment. This understanding is also thought of based on the major cultural background of environmental protection in our country, which is a manifestation of combining the national cultural background.
[Design Intent] Students further discussed the reasons for supporting or opposing opening McDonald's, and expanded their thinking ability. After discussion, students have gained more knowledge about the differences in diet between China and the West. We have gained more understanding of Western fast food culture and environmental protection under the background of Chinese culture, and deepened students' cultural awareness.
(2) Internalize actions into character through writing
①Write an article about what you have discussed for my friend Li Hua in order to help him make a final decision. While you are writing, please consider the following structures and patterns:
Para1.
Today we have had a discussion / debate...
Some people are in favor of...
Other people are against...
There is different opinions among people as to...
Different people have / hold different views / opinions on this problem.
Para 2.
Students who are for the idea think...
Some people hold the opinion that...
Para 3.
Students who are against it believe...
Para 4.
In my opinion, I prefer...
②Write 2-3 reasons for each side.
③Use some connections and good expressions.
besides, however, meanwhile, in addition, moreover, further, to sum up, on the contrary ...
This debate-style article can be used as a template to guide students to write similar articles in the future, both in structure and content. Various teaching tasks in the teaching process can help students grasp the structure of the article and provide students with a writing framework. In addition, teachers require students to pay attention to the characteristics of English writing when writing and try to write according to the English writing habits. For example, the structure of the total score, the use of transitional words and conjunctions, and the richness of the sentence structure of the article are particularly prominent in English writing. After students complete their writing, read their composition aloud, and teachers should promptly encourage their courage and outstanding performance.
[Design Intent] This part permeates the writing strategy of building mind map . The relevant content has been fully prepared in the listening and discussion sections, and the teacher has built the entire composition framework very firmly. It is not difficult for students to record it in words. The final writing activity fully focused on students' thinking quality and learning ability, expanded the content and scope of cultural knowledge, consolidated students' understanding of cultural knowledge, stimulated students' interest and confidence in English writing, and at the same time internalized their actions into character.
4. After-class practice, extend character education
English literacy can be directly or indirectly tested through paper and pen exams to varying degrees, but not all aspects of thinking quality, cultural character and learning ability can be evaluated through paper and pen exams. Some literacy is more suitable for testing through non-paper and pen exams ( Cheng Xiaotang , 2017). Through after-class assignments, students can further realize that cultural differences are real. For example: What is your ideas about your English class to be taught? In English only or both in English and Chinese? Teachers encourage students to find more meaningful debate topics online, and suggest that students look for the views that people may adhere to in different cultural contexts and the cultural factors behind this view, and ultimately achieve the goal of character cultivation: anything has two sides, and anyone will be influenced by their surrounding cultural environment.
[Design Intent] In the stage of extending teaching effects, students are presented with extremely challenging tasks, and combined with the character cultivation goals of this lesson, they are educated to expand their thinking and diversify their thinking ability. After-class homework is an extension of students' ideological education in extracurricular areas.
3. After-class reflection
In the process of cultivating cultural character, we must adhere to the following principles:
1. Principle of integration: The four major qualities of English are interconnected and jointly promoted. Teachers should coordinate the relationship between cultural character and language ability, thinking quality and learning ability to avoid the disconnection between language learning and cultural character shaping. Teachers should integrate these English literacy through practical, comprehensive and inquiry activities to change the fragmented state of teaching content, "integrate knowledge learning and skill development into the theme, context, discourse and pragmatic, promote the formation of cultural understanding and thinking quality, guide students to learn to learn, and point to the cultivation of core literacy" (Wang Qiang, 2015).
2. Situational principle: The so-called Situational principle is to create a language learning environment during the implementation of the course, root the shaping of cultural character in a situation close to students' lives, allowing students to use English in real life situations and experience culture personally in activities. For example, in the teaching of literary works such as poetry, drama, novels, etc., teachers can organize students to perform poetry recitation, drama performance, storytelling and other activities to guide students to feel the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western literary works and understand and appreciate the beauty of language during the activities. For example, in the Mid-Autumn Festival curriculum design, teachers can introduce the Mid-Autumn Festival cultural background, organize students to carry out activities such as eating moon cakes, watching the moon, and telling Mid-Autumn Festival folk stories, so that students can understand the inner connection between knowledge and life situations during the activities, and deeply understand the rich connotation of Chinese traditional culture.
3. Principle of gradual progress : The shaping of cultural character should follow the principle of gradual progress, which is mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, the setting of cultural teaching content should fully consider the language level, personality characteristics, acceptance ability and other factors of students of different school stages, and teach students in accordance with their aptitude; on the other hand, in the specific teaching design of shaping students' cultural character, teachers should pay attention to the hierarchy of cultural character shaping, and follow the gradual process from knowing cultural knowledge to understanding and respecting cultural differences, and then internalizing the cultural attitudes in the heart.
4. Principle of contrast and inclusion: The principle of contrast is to guide students to identify differences and similarities between different cultures through cultural comparison in the process of shaping students' cultural character, deepen their perception, understanding, comparison and identification of different cultures, thereby respecting cultural differences, cultivating a "harmonious but different" multicultural awareness, and avoiding the use of their own cultural standards to demand or explain foreign cultures. In the process of cultural and ideological integration in the context of globalization, cultural conflicts occur from time to time, and it is particularly important to face diverse cultures with attitude. The principle of inclusion is to abandon cultural prejudice, understand and accept different cultures with a broad mind of "encompassing all rivers", and to establish national cultural confidence while promoting the harmonious development of world culture.
4. Conclusion
There are huge differences in Chinese and foreign cultures, which affect English teaching. The shaping of students' cultural character should be given full attention in teaching. In high school English teaching, consciously cultivating students' cultural character is not only a requirement for implementing the English teaching goals, but also an important part of cultivating students' cultural elements. As a teacher, you should have a pair of cultural insights to ensure the smooth development of cultural education. It should be made clear that the development of cultural character must rely on accumulation and subtle influence. Teachers should penetrate the cultivation of students' cultural character into every class of daily teaching. At the same time, students’ cultural character and reading literacy are not developed overnight. In fact, all concepts are developing and changing, and the connotation of cultural character will continue to enrich with the development of society. Therefore, if teachers focus on exploring the ideological nature of the textbooks in their daily teaching and consciously penetrate character education in reading teaching, it will have a subtle influence on students and will be of great benefit to the cultivation of students' character.
References
［1］Bachman, L. F. & Palmer, A. S. Language Testing in Practice［M］. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
［2］Jones, L. The Student-Centered Casroo［M］. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
［3］MeTEOR Education. Characteristics of Effective Instruction: Student- Centered Classroom ［EB/OL］. https:// meteoreducation.com/wp - content/uploads/iowa-core-student centered-leamingpdf, 2016-9-27.
［4］Paul, R. & Elder, L. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Proesional and Personaland Personal Life［M］. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Financial Times / Prentice Hall, 2002.
[5] Gao Hongde. Cultural character goals: important development of English courses [J]. English learning (teacher version), 2017(1).
[6] Li Baorong, Li Huifang. Suggestions on the rational use of textbooks in English teaching in primary and secondary schools [J]. Foreign Language Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools (middle school), 2011(3).
[7] Li Jing. Research on the positioning of the functions of high school English courses in my country [J]. Curriculum·Teaching Method·Teaching Materials, 2016(6).
[8] Ministry of Education. Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards (2011 Edition) [S]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2012.
[9] Ministry of Education. English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools (2017 Edition) [S]. Beijing: People's Education Press, 2018.
[10] Liang Meizhen. Problems types and design methods in the processing stage of English text in high school [J]. Foreign Language Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools (Secondary Chapter), 2011 (4).
[11] Lorraine W. Anderson (written); Jiang Xiaoping et al. (translated). Bloom Education Target Taxonomy (revised version): Learning and Teaching and Evaluation from the Perspective of Taxonomy (full version) [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2013.
[12] Liu Yu. Flexible processing of curriculum resources in English teaching [J]. Foreign Language Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools (Secondary Chapter), 2005 (9).
[13] Wang Qiang. Report on core English literacy [Z]. Beijing: Dongzhimen Middle School, 2015.
[14] Wang Qiang. Three keywords that promote the transformation of English teaching methods: "situation", "problems" and "activity" [J]. Basic education courses, 2016(3).
[15] Wang Qiang. English reading teaching under the background of core literacy: questions, principles, goals and paths [J]. English learning (teacher version), 2017(2).
[16] Wu Heping and other equality. Cultural awareness in English courses [J]. English learning, 2015(12).
[17] Zou Zheng, Zhang Ming. Mind map: an important fulcrum for improving students' independent learning quality [M]. Nanjing: Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2014.
[18] Zhou Lin, Wang Dan, Wang Lan. Inspiration of Finnish English Education on the Cultivation of English Subject Literacy (J). English Teaching and Research in Primary and Secondary Schools, 2016 (2).
[19] Qi Luxia. Design and Language Application Principles of Written Expression Questions in College Entrance Examination [J]. Foreign Language Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools (Secondary Schools), 2006 (2).
A Teaching Plan of Senior English Writing Based on the Infiltration of Cultural Character
Chen Xuejiao Li Fei
Abstract: English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017) says Senior English Curriculum should exploit its educational function, develop students’ core competes, namely students’ language ability, cultural character, thinking quality and learning ability. Implement the fundamental task of cultivating talents. But cultural character is a vital part of students’ core competes and will be neglected easily. In Order to foster cultural character of students, teachers should know the aim of infiltrating students’ culture character. Analyzing the in-depth content behind the cultural connotation; guiding students to appreciate and identify the Chinese and foreign excellent culture; feeling the cultural differences between China and foreign countries. Therefore, students can improve their humanities accomplishment in life and regulate their own behavior orientation. This teaching practice based on Book 3 Unit 2 “Healthy Eating” Workbook as an example to discuss cultural character culture in the teaching design of English writing in senior high school.
Key words: senior English; cultural character; writing teaching plan
(This article was first published in "Research on Foreign Language Teaching in Basic Education" 2021 Issue 11)
