Developing intercultural communicative skills

Handout 4 (b)
The Relationship between Culture and Foreign Language Teaching
In foreign language learning, linguistic transfer refers to the effect of one language, usually the native language on the learning of another usually the target language. This is also a common strategy employed by foreign language learners. They often use native language patterns or rules in learning target language, which results in errors or inappropriate forms in the target language. This is called negative transfer, also known as interference. Language is inextricably bound up with culture. Cultural values are both reflected by and carried through language. Accordingly, it is inevitable that the way of thinking and expressing influenced by the native culture will be unconsciously transferred to the target language during the intercultural communication. That is the cultural transfer. As a matter of fact, the most difficult thing for the language learners to deal with in their study of the foreign language is not the linguistic forms or grammar, but the cultural difference. In the process of cognition of the world, people always store the schemata into their brain, schemata can be compared to an immerse system of files in one’s brain, where you can classify and store you brain and individual knowledge and experience. After receiving some new information, the brain will set up a new schema to store it or put it in an established schema of the same class. When we communicate, we use the language to accomplish some function such as persuading or protesting, which should be carried out within a social context. Communication is a process, and it is not enough for the learners to simple grasp the knowledge of language forms , grammar and function. The learners must be able to use the language to negotiate meaning in communication, and be able to use the language appropriate to a give social context.

Handout 5
Teacher-made worksheets and work cards
Even with an excellent course book and a wide variety of other materials available, there comes a point at which many teachers find they have to make their own occasional supplementary work cards or worksheets: because they can find what they need nowhere else, because they want to provide for the needs of a specific class, or simply for the sake of variety.
Good teacher-made materials are arguably the best there are: relevant and personalized, answering the needs of the learners in a way no other materials can.
Differences between worksheets and work cards
A worksheet is a page (or two) of tasks, distributed to each student to do either in class or at home, intended to be written on, and usually taken in by the teacher to be checked. Teacher-made tests can be seen as a specific kind of worksheet. Work cards are made in sets, each card offering a different, fairly short task (see, for example, the set of tasks in the Notes to Module 10: Teaching reading). They are not written on: a student does one card, writing answers on a separate piece of paper or in a notebook, and then exchanges it for another, working through as many of the set as there is time for. Answers are often available for self-checking at some central location in the room, or on the back of the card itself. Work cards are permanent and re-usable; worksheets are disposable - though of course further copies can be made. Work cards take more effort and time to produce, but they are also more attractive to look at and work on (colours and cut-out pictures can be used), and more individualized: students have a choice as to which cards they do, and in which order; and the range of tasks available can be much more varied. In fact, the workcard lesson is a rudimentary self-access session, and can be developed into a fully individualized program by varying the number and type of tasks provided.