Teach English in Sulongkou Zhen - Xinzhou Shi

As cultures become more disseminated and de-localized in this age of increased globalization, cultural disparity has grown in its significance when learning the English language. Broadly discussed in Unit 11 ‘Teaching Receptive Skills’ is the idea of how the understanding of a language results from pre-existing knowledge. Yet, in this brief discussion, something that goes largely unaddressed is how a lack of cultural expertise is a significant hindrance to being able to communicate effectively. The receptive skills of listening and reading are most impacted by this, because those skills are supplemented by specialist skills in order to infer meaning from context. Thus when the context is a cultural one and no pre-existing knowledge of that culture is available, meaning can’t be determined and what is being communicated is lost. To be an effective readers and listeners, cultural disparity significantly factors into learning the English language. Listening is specifically impacted by a lack of cultural expertise as it requires a high level of accuracy in the language as well as the possession of the specialist skills of prediction and deduction. To ‘speak naturally’ is a critique that may differ depending on the perspective of both the speaker and the listener. This is readily evident in the discussion of American English versus British English, where, namely, cultural vernacular can render communication difficult despite speaking the same language. For example, the word ‘carriage’ is used in American English as equivalent to a stagecoach and is not longer used in the modern language whereas British English uses the word to refer to subway cars, opting to carrying it into modern use. Alternatively, in Unit 11, ‘Bears Destroyed by Cowboys’ is used as an example of how vocabulary steeped in American culture can be misunderstood as a literal of bears, the animal, killing cowboys, a group of people, rather one football team losing to another. Without that knowledge of American football culture, a literal meaning is taken rather seeing beyond it for the true meaning. Because of a lack of cultural expertise, prediction and deduction are rendered useless and context can’t be given proper meaning. Despite this obvious hindrance to listening, reading in particular is most impacted by a lack of expertise. While listeners have stress, intonation, nonverbal cues and gestures and, most importantly, the ability to ask for clarification, readers don’t have such indicators as their medium is ‘captured’ as Unit 11 states it. Readers, opposed to listeners, are required to analyze, predict, and act within a variety of cultural context that might be presented in a written text. This complication generally comes from a use of idioms or metaphors or other figures of speech or even phrasal verbs that appear to be common and passive to understand, but is highly embedded in specific cultures. Use of these literary devises is a sign of fluency, but also is a hindrance to communication, because the context is solely based in knowledge that those devises mean something and aren’t complete nonsensical. For example, the saying ‘Juliet is like the Sun’ is nonsensical unless the reader knows how to infer meaning from a simile. To complicate the issue further, there is also the use of slang that introduces an element of informality into a written text, which again can hinder what is trying to be communicate as well as the possibility of communicating disrespect. As English becomes more codified as the operational language for the global community, exposure to localized slang is becoming more common, but can largely still be misunderstood without the proper pre-existing knowledge. When meaning is inferred without pre-existing knowledge, offense can be taken on the part of the reader. Simply put, words that may be innocuous to the writer, may be inappropriate to the reader. In both instances of reading and listening, there is little opportunity to predict or deduce meaning when the context is muddled. Without cultural expertise or a pre-existing knowledge of cultural disparity, a general understanding can still be gleamed, but not a true understanding. It is far easier to be misunderstood as language isn’t a static medium, but is highly dynamic and sporadic, dependent on several different factors. An effective communicator is aware of this, but still needs to be taught these inter-cultural communication skills. ‘God, bless you’ is an expression of goodwill or nicety to be said after someone sneezes, which is an innocuous, common phrase in countries where Christianity is a major religion, but if a visiting foreigner doesn’t know the context of that statement, then the meaning is lost on them when they sneeze and hear it. It is a simple idea that as an individual is a medium for values, beliefs, and ideas they hold. Communication is fundamentally about the exchange of those values, beliefs, and ideas, and to do so requires an level of expertise to be effective. In both teaching how to read and listen, it is paramount to factor in how to be aware of cultural disparity.