英语文化课教学效果调查研究

语言和文化的辩证关系历来是外语教师和教育者所关注的一个重要问题。为了解英语文化课的教学效果,本研究对山东某大学英语专业三年级76名同学进行了问卷调查,研究结果表明：英语文化课教学有助于提高学习者的英语语言技巧和文化意识,端正学习者对本族语和母语社会的态度,增强学习者的英语交际能力,培养学习者的未来教师职业感。     

Effects of an international agricultural and horticultural internship on the career and personal development of young adults

Abstract

Interns evaluate their international agricultural and horticultural internship. Topics include: career and personal development, ability to learn and teach, and quality of life during internship. Findings are associated with intern's: gender, native language (English, non-English), type of placement during internship (agriculture, horticulture), present occupation (agriculture, horticulture, other), present work status (owns own business, works for others), and year of internship (1980–1994). Males report greater ability to teach the host. Females report higher quality of life during internship. Agricultural placement interns report greater personal development than horticultural placement interns. Non-native English speakers indicate greater career development than native English speakers. Male non-native English speakers indicate greater learning than female non-native English speakers. Interns now working in agriculture or horticulture and owning their own business report more learning than those now working for others. Personal development during intership has decreased over time for interns presently working in agriculture. Interns now working in other occupations, who had agricultural placements indicate more learning than those who had horticultural placements. Interns not presently working in agricultural or horticultural occupations rate their quality of life during the internship as lower than those now working in agriculture or horticulture. The survey instrument and its analysis are discussed, and the Ohio International Agricultural and Horticultural Intern Program is described.     

优化组合中外英语教师资源,提高英语教学质量

本从中外教师的教育理念、语言素质、教学方法、化素质、个人素质等方面对比分析了中外英语教师的素质，认为中外英语教师各有所长，应相互学习、互通信息、取长补短，对教学资源进行优化组合，以达到最佳教学效果。     

Studies of negative pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics

1.Negative pragmatic transfer and its role in interlanguage pragmaticsInterlanguage pragmatics ( IL P) is a new branch of pragmatics. Itis a pragmatic perspective intothe learner‘s language. As such,it specifically tackles how learners comprehend and produce utter-ances in a target language ( TL) .L earners always use their previous knowledge,experience,skill,etc. in learning to understandand produce meanings in a new situation and with the target language they have learned. Technically,this is referred to ...     

Australian National Character and Australian English

<正>Language and culture have very intimate relationship.From the perspective of sociolinguistics,language is the verbal expression of culture,for a culture's language contains everything its speakers can think about and every way they have of thinking about things.In other words,there are always cultural elements behind the language phenomenon.National character,the concept     

Cognitive and Social Factors Affecting Arab Students Learning English as a Third Language in Israel

This study investigated the relationship between attitudes, interest, and culture, on the one hand, and reading comprehension in English as a third language on the other. Participants were 70 native Arab students aged 15-16 who were sampled from three high schools in the Haifa area. They were administered an attitude questionnaire, culturally familiar and culturally unfamiliar stories, multiple-choice comprehension questions and an interest questionnaire. The results revealed that the Arab students' attitudes towards English were more instrumental than integrative; and their attitude towards the English learning situation was positive. Further, they were more interested in the familiar cultural story than in the unfamiliar one, and they performed accordingly. In other words, type of text (culturally familiar/unfamiliar) was the only significant predictor of reading comprehension in English. However, when reading scores were regressed on the independent variables controlling for text type, interest was the only significant predictor. Thus, in the Israeli-Arab situation, learner interest and type of text are powerful predictors of comprehension of English as a third language.     

An inquiry into the efficiency of WhatsApp for self‐ and peer‐assessments of oral language proficiency

Social networking applications such as WhatsApp have been extensively used for language research; however, they have rarely been applied for language assessment purposes. To explore the efficiency of WhatsApp for assessment purposes, 30 Iranian English learners doing self‐ and peer‐assessments on WhatsApp are studied. The changes and the reasons for the changes in their attitudes towards the two assessment types are also investigated. In a multi‐phase study, the participants were trained on the new concepts of mobile‐assisted self‐ and peer‐assessments. They were also involved in the concurrent tasks of self‐ and peer‐assessments as well as think‐aloud protocols and filled out four attitude questionnaires before and after their involvement in the two assessment types. Finally, they were interviewed for the reasons of change(s) in their attitudes. The t‐test and think‐aloud results show that though the participants assigned different grades to themselves and their peers, this is not a procedural difference. The questionnaire results show that the participants generally adopted negative attitudes towards mobile‐assisted assessments after being involved in them. They also gave various reasons for the change(s) in their attitudes. The results can substantially contribute to the ongoing debates on the use of alternative assessments through mobile device applications.     

The role of vocabulary components in second language learners' early reading comprehension

Background

In countries with German as an official language, children with German as a second language perform overall worse in school than their German native speaking peers. This particularly affects written language skills, which require advanced language knowledge. The reasons are manifold, but one is prominent, namely poor vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary, however, consists not only of the number of known words but also of a complex and hitherto under-researched lexico-semantic framework, which is referred to as vocabulary depth.

Method

In the present study, a sample of 373 children (322 German native speakers and 51 with German as a second language) was examined longitudinally in Grade 2 and 3 for their reading comprehension and vocabulary breadth and depth. Vocabulary depth was defined as relational and semantic word knowledge. Latent change score models on vocabulary breadth and depth development including reading precursor skills, non-verbal intelligence and SES were conducted.

Results

The children with German as a second language scored lower than the native German speakers in reading and vocabulary tests, with the difference in vocabulary depth being more pronounced than in vocabulary breadth. Importantly, the differences did not tend to diminish over time, which could have been expected. The differences in reading comprehension can be accounted for mainly by the variations in vocabulary, especially in vocabulary depth.

Conclusions

These findings emphasise the importance of including not only vocabulary breadth but also vocabulary depth in the context of reading research on children who do not speak the majority language.

     

Several Cultural Mistakes in Foreign Language Communication

Culture and language are both products of hum an society. This paper concerns the close relationship betweelanguage and culture. Some social scientists consider that language is the keystone of culture. Language is a media of communicationwhich is culturally conditioned. Culture, as a significant feature of human society and the soil for language emergence as well abackground for language use, is closely knitted together with language. However, current teaching syllabus in China does noprovide a system of the specific cultural contents to be included in any teaching program. Culture as a set of traits is by and largeneglected area and has drawn little attention. According to a famous professor Hu Wenzhongs paper, more than 90% students admithat there is a cultural gap between native English speakers and Chinese English learners and all of them think that awareness ocultural difference should be made a goal in language learning and teaching. In intercultural communication, culturamisunderstanding is often worse than linguistic one and tend to create ill feeling between native speakers and Chinese speakers oEnglish. Therefore, cultural mistakes as well as linguistic mistakes should be avoided in order to be successful in inter culturacommunication.     

"I Never Knew I Was a Bilingual": Reimagining Teacher Identities in TESOL

This study examines imagined professional and linguistic communities available to preservice and in-service English as a second language and English as a foreign language teachers enrolled in one TESOL program. A discursive analysis of the students' positioning in their linguistic autobiographies suggests that the traditional discourse of linguistic competence positions students as members of one of two communities, native speakers or non-native speakers/L2 learners. The analysis also suggests that contemporary theories of bilingualism and second language acquisition, in particular Cook's (1992, 1999) notion of multicompetence, open up an alternative imagined community, that of multicompetent, bilingual, and multilingual speakers. This option allows some teachers to construe themselves and their future students as legitimate L2 users rather than as failed native speakers of the target language.     

Distance learners of German and intercultural competence

The article describes a research project undertaken with advanced adult learners of German at a distance at The Open University, United Kingdom. Their gains in intercultural competence were investigated by looking at how far the students met the prescribed learning outcomes, their knowledge items, language skills, attitudes towards Germans and their assessment results. The findings show that this particular group of learners felt that they had achieved the different requirements of the stated learning outcomes to a surprisingly high level and demonstrated a high level of intercultural competence. In addition, these learners were able to articulate their opinions of commonly held attitudes and stereotypical views about Germans and offered reflective insights into why their personal attitudes differed in many respects from more commonly held views.     

寻根文学文化主题形态的嬗变

从寻根文学的理论与实践出发 ,对寻根文学的文化主题形态加以描述。认为寻根文学作家虽然有着大致相同的追求 ,但由于作家对民族文化的不同价值取向 ,决定了他们寻根文学的不同方向 ,从而决定了寻根文化主题形态的嬗变和演进。     

非英语专业英语写作中的母语迁移现象研究

通过运用定量分析的方法，对大学非英语专业学生英语写作中的母语迁移现象及其文化根源进行研宛。在英语写作教学中，应加强文化教育，让学生了解汉英两种文化的差异，以便能够有意识地培养自己用英语思维的能力。     

Land of ‘My 9’: Welsh–English Bilingual Girls Creating Spaces to Explore Identity

Based on ongoing research into the literacy practices of bilingual girls from different UK communities, this article focuses on the experiences of 11‐ to 13‐year‐old Welsh–English bilingual girls in Wales. Examples of the girls' talk about their bilingual lives are explored within the social, political, educational and literary context of the Welsh language today. The position of these young Welsh speakers within both the wider dominant, English language context and that of the Welsh language and culture proves to be riven with paradox. However, the girls make creative use of their situation to explore and demonstrate their own identities. One way in which this is evident is in their use of electronic text, and examples are drawn here of their use of personal websites and Instant Messaging in order to provide an insight into their experience.     

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DIAGNOSTIC LANGUAGE TEST FOR TRAINEE TEACHERS OF GERMAN

ABSTRACT:  This article describes the development and validation of a diagnostic test of German and its integration in a programme of formative assessment during a one-year initial teacher-training course. The test focuses on linguistic aspects that cause difficulty for trainee teachers of German as a foreign language and assesses implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge as well as students' confidence in this knowledge. Administration of the test to 57 German speakers in four groups (first-year undergraduates, fourth-year undergraduates, postgraduate trainees, and native speakers) provided evidence of its reliability and validity.     

Preparing Australian Teachers to Teach Asian Studies: The importance of in-country experience

In 1997 and 1998 students entering primary and early childhood courses at a rural Australian university were surveyed about their attitudes towards the teaching of Asian Studies. This paper presents the results of this survey. It further considers the extent to which the students' prior study of Asian language, Asian Studies or their personal experience of travel in Asia influenced their views of the importance of teaching Asian Studies and their feelings of competence in teaching Asian Studies. Implications for teacher education institutions and education systems are explored.     

德国学生习得汉语塞音声母的初步分析

文章使用塞音声学格局分析的方法对3名德国学生的德语塞音格局及汉语塞音格局进行了考察,并与汉语母语者的塞音格局进行了对比分析。结果看到,德国学习者能够区分汉语送气音和不送气音两个音位范畴;德国学生的汉语送气塞音发音好于不送气塞音。德国学生的错误发音方式是用母语中的浊音特征替代汉语中的不送气特征;用母语中的较紧、较弱的送气特征替代汉语中的较松、较强的送气特征。文章的结果也基本验证了Best的PAM理论和Flege的SLM理论。通过这些分析也看到,塞音声学格局的分析方法对于第二语言语音习得研究是有效的。     

“I Like English Better”: Latino Dual Language Students’ Investment in Spanish,English, and Bilingualism

This mixed-methodology study surveys 63 fifth graders in a one-way dual language school. Findings alarmingly indicate that although these students are native Spanish speakers in a school that delivers 50% of their instruction in Spanish, they prefer English both academically and socially. Subsequent interviews with 10 sample students of the larger study generate deeper understandings about how these students view their languages. If dual language programs are going to be maximally successful, then they must foster an environment that encourages students’ attitudes and investments toward both of their languages, taking particular care to protect and promote the minority language.     

英汉语言心理及语言表达差异研究

英汉民族对于同一思维对象或内容的思维角度可能不尽一致,从而在语言上会采用不同的表达形式。中西文化在思维模式方面的差异,直接而且根本地影响和决定了语言的语用原则和表达方式,文章从语言心理深层的角度,对英汉思维模式与语言形式差异进行对比研究,以探索影响英汉语表达差异背后的文化心理规律。