Study of Cultivating Intercultural Awareness in High School—Based on English Euphemism

Euphemism,which is one of universal language phenomena,provides an important approach to improve the communicative effects and maintain interpersonal relationship harmoniously.This paper aims to arouse the attention of high school English teachers to cultivate students’intercultural awareness.This thesis,with a brief introduction of English euphemism,presents a profound study of how to promote the intercultural awareness of students in high school with the help of English euphemism.     

Rethinking of immigration policy change and its impacts on foreign Chinese students＇ adaptation in the US after September lIth

This paper, through a phenomenological study, is designed to study those overwhelming problems and concerns in intercultural adaptations commonly confronted with foreign Chinese students at an American institute since September 11th. After a qualitative study on the concerns and intercultural adaptations of fifteen Chinese graduate students majoring in different programs, it was found that in addition to language and culture deficiencies, the instability and the changes of the immigration laws and regulations regarding international students and scholars after the September 11th incident in the US is the big hurdle that encumbers them from a comparatively faster and better adaptation. The growing economic prosperity in Mainland China also affects the foreign Chinese students＇ motivation in intercultural adaptations in the US.     

How to Motivate College English Students

College students in their early 20’s are energetic,focusing on things they are really into.Unfortunately,English is not one of their interests.This paper focus on how to make the students realize the importanceof English study and to create harmonious atmosphere for everyone to learn English more actively in a cooperative way.     

An Analysis of Pragmatic Failure in Intercultural Communication

With the globalization of the world economy,intercultural communication is becoming more and more important.In China,more and more people learn English,Even though they have little difficulty in understanding the literal meaning of utterances when confronted with authentic communication situations,they may not interpret the utterances correctly,or express themselves appropriately.The problem of pragmatic failure has been holding an important position in the study of intercultural communication.In this paper I will mainly analyze the phenomena of pragmatic failure in senior middle school students’daily conversations in intercultural communication,and discuss the nature and causes of pragmatic failure in intercultural communication situations.After we gain a better understanding of the phenomena,recommendations will be made on how to avoid pragmatic failure,and to increase intercultural communicative competence in English.     

Oral Presentation——Opportunity or Suffering

This paper is about a reflective practice happened in the author’ s College English teaching.Since 2005,a 5-minute oral-presentation was required for all the students in turn,in order to raise opportunities for them to practice oral English.But the students’ responses were always disappointing since they only took the task as a burden.After the teacher lift the limits on presentation time,form,sequence,partner,etc.,better learning outcomes were achieved.When reflecting on this change,Biggs’3P Models of "constructive alignment" is taken into account.Any teaching and learning activity (TLA) cannot put the students’ and the teacher’ s presage aside since the students’ ability,interests,motivation as well as the teacher’ s objective,assessment approach and so on are co-determinants of a successful TLA.Further suggestions are given based on this reflection at the end of the paper.     

A Study of Code-Switching in Students’ Talk in College English Class

Code-switching between English and Chinese usually occurs in students’ talk when they are involved in taking communicative language activities in college English class. This paper studies the situations in which students are likely to use codeswitching and analyzes it from the perspective of the mental world in Verscheren’s Adaptation Theory. It shows that inadequate mastery of English language, cultural differences and the improper adjustment to context may lead to students’ using of codeswitching. It also shows that the use of code-switching in students’ talk adapts to students’ cognitive elements and emotive elements as well.     

Gender Differences in Communication among Undergraduates Students

With the development of intercultural communication,researchers not merely pay attention to dominant culture study but also focus on sub-culture and related culture,which exist in the same dominant culture.As a result,gender differences in communication have become a sub-field of the study of language and society.This paper investigates gender differences in communication among undergraduate students.The result of the study can help us to understand the miscommunication between male and female undergraduates and make a reference to effective class communication.     

On Improving Students’ Interest

In schools,many students aren’t interested in English and they don’t like studying English.This is a great problem that needs to be solved by teachers.’Interest is the best teacher’.This paper provides four main teaching methods to develop the students’ interest:situational teaching,games,songs and humor.     

Evaluation of a Contemporary College English Listening Textbook for Second-year English Major Students at University Level

The role of textbooks,as one important channel between teachers and students,has always aroused scholars’interests,but what indeed are the roles of textbook for students and teachers? This paper aims to evaluate a listening textbook that is used by English major university students in China.Three research questions are proposed which are:(1) What are the students’per ceptions about the listening textbook? (2) What are the teachers’opinions about the listening textbook? (3) To what extent do students and teachers perceptions match? In order to answer these three research questions,questionnaires were designed for both students and teachers to obtain the data.This study is supported both qualitatively and quantitatively.The data of this research suggested that both students and teachers have found advantages of this listening textbook,which they may find helpful for their learning and teaching,but they are also not satisfied with some aspects of the textbook,which they think need further improvement.The students’and teachers’opinions to some extent have reached some agreement about the textbook,but students may not be so enthusiastic about the textbook,while the teachers may show much reliance on the text book.This study has its limitations,but it also provides some insights for teachers and textbook writers.     

Views on College Students’ English Learning Motivation

This paper aims at exploring college students’ English learning motivation to language learning, including effort, interest, and attitudes. To some extent, it is very important to perform activities in language learning classes. On the one hand, teachers should do every effort to develop students’ keen interest in English study so as to foster their intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, they should set up new goals for students and feedback properly in order to build confidence in English learning. In a word, it is essential for English teachers to understand students’ motivation of English learning so as to save time and teach more efficiently.     

How Can Chinese English Teachers Create a Communicative,Intercultural Classroom to Achieve Optimal Student Learning Outcomes

The main goal of English language teaching is to train the students’ ability to listen,speak,read and write in English,and develop their communicative competence.Traditional English teaching cannot meet the requirements of the learners and society as more and more international opportunities could be accessible.Teachers are no longer the controllers in the classroom;they act as facilitators,assessors,organizers,prompters and participants.This paper,therefore,aims to discuss how Chinese English teachers can create a learner-centered,communicative and intercultural classroom to achieve the best student learning outcomes.     

A Survey of Learner’s Autonomy and Its Inspiration on College English Teaching

This paper,based on the investigation of students’autonomous English learning competence,aims to identify the problems students have in learner’s autonomy(LA) and to further explore the possible ways to develop students’autonomous English learning competence in Chinese context.     

Chinese Students in the United States:A study of Anxiety/Uncertainty Managing Behaviors

With The Anxiety/Uncertainty Management(AUM) Theory as framework,the paper had demonstrated an in-depth examination on Chinese students’ anxiety/uncertainty managing behaviors and strategies when they are exposed to the new environment in the US.One-on-one interview was employed to analyze both the internal and external factors during their adaptation to new cultures.Further recommendations would be given for developing intercultural communication studies in Chinese students’ oversea education or related other topics.     

Consideration on Vocational Students’ Participation in Class:With Special Reference to Task-based Approach and Traditional Method

This paper covers an experimental study on vocational students’ participation in the class under task-based approach and traditional grammar-translation teaching method.As vocational colleges in China have developed rapidly,teachers are still exploring and experimenting with different teaching approaches in order to find the suitable one(s).Using the theory of task-based approach,the grammartranslation method,the author conducts an experiment by recording.The following key issue has been addressed and some conclusive results have been made.The paper intends to find an answer to the following question:Under which teaching approach can students participate in the class more actively? Based on the above research work,the following result has been reached:Task-based approach can promote students’ mastering of vocabulary and grammar,and students participate in the class more actively.The author would like to share her experiences with others in pedagogical studies of teaching vocational college students English.     

Cultivation of Autonomous Learning Ability and Intercultural Communication Competence in Foreign Language Teaching

Learner Autonomy has been a hot topic in foreign language learning and teaching since 1960s,especially in relation to life-long skills.As the globalization develops,intercultural communication becomes more and more significant for college students.This essay attempts to explore main approaches to cultivate and improve students’ autonomous learning ability and intercultural communication competence in foreign language teaching.     

An Analysis of Lexical Errors Made by Chinese Students in English Study

Errors made by language learners can be regarded as a reflection of learning process and they help teachers assess students’ learning.Lexical errors are one part of the errors made by students.This essay tries to make an analysis about the main types and causes of the lexical errors made by Chinese learners who study English as a foreign language and put forward some suggestions to solve the lexical problems.     

The Use of LDOCE4 on CD-ROM in EFL Students’ Writing: a Case Study

This case study examines the use of LDOCE4 on CD-ROM in EFL students’writing.Four participants at different proficiency levels were invited to write a composition on a given title.They were then asked to revise their compositions twice,first using the paper dictionary,and secondly using the CD-ROM.Based on a comparison of the two versions,the following conclusions were drawn:1 The CD-ROM is generally more beneficial to EFL students’writing than the paper dictionary.2 Al though the CD-ROM is helpful,it is not a panacea.3 The CD-ROM can provide little help to lower intermediate learners.     

An Analysis on the Reasons for Communicative Barrier in Intercultural Communication

As the globalization develops,intercultural communication becomes more and more common.However,different countries have different cultures.When communicating with foreigners,people naturally tend to use their own cultural knowledge as a guide to judge others’behavior.This may bring misunderstandings,even communicative failure in intercultural communication.This paper tries to analyze the possible reasons for communicative barrier in intercultural communication.     

Intercultural Communication Competence in English Teaching

With the development of globalization,more and more people have been realizing the importance of intercultural communication.Thus,people pay more attention to the cultivation of intercultural communication competence to expect a broaden horizon.It is important to blend the cultivation of intercultural communication competence into English teaching.Meanwhile,the main aim of English teaching is to develop students’intercultural communication competence.To achieve this,the paper is going to analyze the reasons for the failure of some intercultural communication and propose some practical suggestions on how to adapt to different situations from the teaching aspect.     

Cooperative learning as a correction and grammar revision technique： Communicative exchanges, self-correction rates and scores

This paper focuses on cooperative learning （CL） used as a correction and grammar revision technique and considers the data collected in six Italian parallel classes, three of which （sample classes） corrected mistakes and revised grammar through cooperative learning, while the other three （control classes） in a traditional way. All the classes involved in this study were in their first year of secondary school, and although most students had a level of English which was A2, they made a certain number of mistakes also in grammar topics like the present tense, which is the grammar topic under examination in this study. This paper analyses the sample students＇ communicative exchanges while they performed the error correction activity through CL, compares the self-correction rates reported by the two groups of students after the two types of correction and revision activities （traditional and through CL） and the students＇ scores in tests given to students one, four and eight weeks after the correction lessons. The aim of the study is establishing if the use of CL as a correction and grammar revision technique had a beneficial effect on the students who experienced it and in particular on the low achievers.