The Performance in Learning English and the Importance of Culture
...oreign language. In view of this situation, I intend to take English study as an example, and see people how to learn English. I have done an investigation about English study from Chinese learning English as a foreign language. 1). The motive of learning English. Percentage of learners interviewed Interest in the language 18.1% Interest in foreign culture 12.5% Required by parents or colleges 16% In order to find a good job 19.5% In order to get an diploma in English 7% Following the trend of the time 26% Just for fun 0.9% (*Form 1) From the form above, we can see that the highest percentage is “the trend of the time”. Nowadays, more and more people started to learn a foreign language especially English. Learning English to follow the trend is obviously more compelling than the interest in the language itself. It means that may be some people did not voluntary of their own accord to learn English. Have learned of form 1, most people who learned English were affected by exterior factors, and not by interior factors. Generally speaking, in the perspective of educational psychology, we can divide the reasons of learning English into two categories. (1) Stimulated by surface layer of material such as diplomas, good jobs, or high salary. (2) Stimulated by deep layer of spiritual things such as interest or the desire to acquire knowledge and information of foreign culture. The former one we call it surface motive or instrumental motive, and the latter one we call it deep motive or integrated motive. From the form above, the first two reasons are deep motive, and the others are surface motive. Thus, we can find out that the percentage of surface motive is higher than the percentage of deep motive. We must know that to learn a foreign language, it is not enough to get a diploma. Many students who had already got a diploma in English were not really at the level of what they got. Here to learn a language, your motives seem to be very important. But surface motives cannot help you to get to a high level in language learning. Why are there so many people who always said that they couldn’t learn English well although they had tried hard to learn? Because they had different motive and not all the motives are good enough for learning English. To learn a foreign language, firstly, you need to like it, to love it. Then, you must try hard to learn it. From the form above it, the percentage of the learners who are fond of English is not so high. That means so many people are in a situation of “要我学”, not in the situation of “我要学”. People who are in this situation usually do not get study initiative. So they will feel hard to master a foreign language. 2). Comparison between boys and girls on how to learn English. ① The percentage of girls in investigation of learning English. Interest in English 70% Proficiency Not bad Simple conversation Hard to master The level they have reached None 61.5% 34% 4.5% Try hard to recite words and grasp grammar and structure Learn it with foreign culture and in culturally English situation The learner thinks that the best method to learn English is… 17.6% 82.4% Yes No Do you like seeing English films or reading English novels? 88% 12% Very high High Intermediary Very low The level of the knowledge of foreign culture 1% 38% 56% 5% Recite words Do a lot of reading in English Do a lot of exercise of grammar Make studies of foreign cultures and learn from them Methods the learners used 28% 18.3% 7.5% 46.2% Yes No Have you read English masterpieces before? 67% 33% Can understand the content and get the deep meaning from the article Understand 3/4 of the meaning Understand 1/2 of the meaning Just understand a little To read an article, how well can you understand without a dictionary? 5.5% 68% 23% 3.5% (*Form 2) ② The percentage of boys in investigation of learning English. Interest in English 33.6% Proficiency Not bad Simple conversation Hard to master The level they have reached 0.8% 33.6% 39.5% 26.1% Try hard to recite words and grasp grammar and structure Learn it with foreign culture and in culturally English situation The learner thinks that the best method to learn English is… 31.1% 68.9% Yes No Do you like seeing English films or reading English novels? 68.9% 31.1% Very high High Intermediary Very low The level of the knowledge of foreign culture None 34.1% 60% 5.9% Recite words Do a lot of reading in English Do a lot of exercise of grammar Make studies of foreign cultures and learn from them Methods the learners used 47% 11.8% 23.5% 17.7% Yes No Have you read English masterpieces before? 33.6% 66.4% Can understand the content and get the deep meaning from the article Understand 3/4 of the meaning Understand 1/2 of the meaning Just understand a little To read an article, how well can you understand without a dictionary? 3.4% 37% 42% 17.6% (*Form 3) ③ Analyzed the situation of the girls from form 2. It is said that the girl’s ability to learn language is so strong. Yes, I agree this point. To learn a language well, the first thing is to like it, and your motive must be active. Then, you need to use a proper method to learn a language. From form 2 above it, 70% of the girls like English. It means that the girls’ enthusiasm of learning English is remarkably enormous. Being fond of English will impel them to learn English. This determination is one of the factors in leaning a language well. But this is just one step. You must know how to learn it. Most Chinese students think that if you want to learn a language very well, it’s important for you to spend more time on reciting words and phrases. Yet most westerners don’t agree to this idea. They believed that they can remember the words and phrases from reading articles and books, and do not have to waste much time reciting. This difference is affected by specific cultural circumstance. Different cultures have different conceptions, so that when we try to learn a foreign language, we need to know its culture. Culture is one of the most important methods in learning language. From form 2 above it, we can see that although there is 82.4% of the girls who know the best method is to learn more foreign culture and study in English circumstance, they are still not experts on it. No one thought she was proficient. Many of them only mastered the simple conversation although they had worked very hard. This phenomenon here is typical. Maybe we will have a question why their levels are still so low when most of the learners know the best method? It is said that it’s easier said than done. We can see the percentage of levels of understanding foreign culture. Although they knew it was important to learn foreign culture, there were more than half learners who did not really know foreign culture. Also, looking at the squares about ‘methods the learners used by themselves’, and not more than a half learners used the method that ‘to know more foreign cultures and learn from it’. It means that nearly all of them know the method of learning language, but they didn’t know how to use it. When they started to learn it, maybe they will still choose the old method which most Chinese students used, such as reciting words, doing more grammar practices, read aloud in the morning and so on. When the foreign teachers saw these phenomena, they felt very surprised because they thought that it was null and void to do these. And they suggested us teachers tell the students that if they wanted to be good at foreign language, they must get rid of their wrong habits. ④ Analyzed the situation of the boys from form 3. Different sexes have different ways of study. According to form 3, it is very clear that boy’s methods of learning a foreign language are not exactly the same as girl’s. Unpleasantly to say it is worse than girls. From my investigation, it helped me to confirm my conjecture that the girl’s ability to learn a language is stronger than boy’s. Firstly, look at the percentage in the first line of form 3. Only 33.6% of the boy learners are fond of English. This is just a small percentage. Also, seeing from form 1, the learner’s motive of learning English, the large percentage is in the surface motive, such as finding a good job, pushing by the trend, and required by parents or schools. I had already analyzed that surface motives were not so effective in studying a foreign language. The boys weren’t interested in learning English. Therefore, it was not easy for them to learn it well. Secondly, they didn’t notice the importance of foreign culture. From form 3, although more than half of them knew that to learn English, the best way is to learn in foreign culture and circumstance, when they started to learn, they all used the wrong ways. Nearly 50% of them chose the way of words reciting as their method. I can’t say it is a bad method, but not a good method. Using this method, we just can learn the surface things, just a low level, and it’s hard for us to get to a high level. So many of them still thought that it was hard to learn English and they just can make simple conversation. ⑤ Comparison between boys and girls. It is clear to see there are many differences between boys and girls in learning a foreign language. Girls are more interested in English than boys. It is a basic reason why girls are better than boys in learning a language. Girls seemed to be more enthusiastic and patient so that they can learn it well. Seeing from the percentage of the level of mastering English, 61.5% of the girl learners thought that they were not bad. But among boy learners, just 33.6% of them were not bad. Contrarily, the percentage of the level of ‘hard to master’ from boy learners is very high. It means that boys thought that it was hard for them to learn English and they had no interest in it. So they can’t be good at it. But it is not an important factor. What an important thing is their employment of method in learning English. From form 2 and 3, we can know that both of the boys and girls had supported that the best way to learn English was to learn it with foreign culture and study in English circumstance. Yes, that’s right. Their thoughts are correct. But they still stayed on a surface level. They didn’t know the importance of it. Looking at the row of ‘the level of understanding foreign culture’, the percentage of the level of ‘know a little’ from the girls is 56%, and the percentage from the boys is 60%. And nearly none of them is an expert on it. From this information, it is clear that all of them have not realized the importance of learning culture while learning a foreign language. Maybe this is one of the important reasons why Chinese students always say it is hard to learn English. They didn’t catch the main point and do not really know how to learn it. Looking at the percentage of ‘the methods of the learners used’, the girl’s way of learning a foreign language was better than boy’s. Most boys just used the method of reciting words or practicing grammar. Girls would pay more attention to foreign cultures and learn from it. Although it was not a high percentage, generally speaking, it is also a proof that girls are more competent than boys in learning a foreign language. According to the result of my investigation above, we can see that most students’ main way of learning English is to recite words, not reading and listening. Reciting words are not referring to contexts and situation. It means that they don’t think much of cultural circumstance. It is not enough only to depend on reciting words while you are learning a foreign language. Here shows us that there is a close relationship between language and culture. Maybe everyone want to know that why to know more or less cultural knowledge can make a big difference in learning a foreign language? In every nation, their people will have their own language and own culture. Culture influences and shapes the linguistic form of language. We can make a metaphor that language is like a mirror which can reflect nation’s culture. Also, language is like a window which can reveal all the contents of their culture. Culture has its particularity. In the broadest sense, language is the symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Therefore, to master a language, we need to familiarize ourselves with cultural particularity which is in the rear of language; we need to see clearly the differences between our nation’s culture and that of other nations. We always say that we can’t master English well, or it is very hard to learn. Why would these problems arise very commonly? Because we still have language barriers, in other words, we still have difficulties as a result of the differences between cultures. Therefore, we need to overcome these barriers and differences, and then we can master the language well and be an expert on it. II. We must attach importance to learning foreign culture while studying a foreign language. A. To learn a foreign language is to communicate with foreigners. You need to know the deep meaning of the words from foreign culture. Maybe some people will say that although they don’t have the knowledge of western culture, they still know how to speak English. Why do they have to waste much time learning western culture? Theoretically speaking, if you know some English words and grammar, it’s no problem for you to speak simple English or carry on conversation. But it is not enough for you to master a language. You want to learn English, because you want to communicate with foreigners. You and the foreigners are not in the same cultural environment so that your behaviors, your manners, your cultures are not the same. If you don’t know foreign culture and just know a little English, in your communication, maybe you will make yourself laughingstocks. There is a story which is told of a shoe store in Rome. In front of the shop there was a sign which was used to attract English-speaking customers: Shoes for street walking. Come in and have a fit. This sign caught the attention of many English-speaking tourists, who gathered in front of the shop---not to look at the shoes displayed in the windows, but to read the sign and then break out into laughter. Why did they do this? If we explained these words one by one and guessed the surface meaning, or if you were a person who just knew a little English, maybe you can get the meaning from the shopkeeper. But if you were an English speaker, surely, you must break into laughter. Because the Italian shopkeeper did not realize that a street walker means a prostitute, while to have a fit does not mean to have a try, but to become suddenly and violently angry or upset. No wonder the amusement and laughter! If you think that it’s no problem just to know a little Eng...