Context And Foreign Language Teaching--A Chinese Educational Perspective

The traditional teaching method is still quite popular in Chinese foreign language classes. Teachers, who adopt the method, always pay much attention to the accuracy of language forms but ignore the appropriate use of the language. As a result, the inappropriate use of the foreign language often occurs when students communicate with people from western countries, which frequently results in their embarrassment and even the failure in communication. The reason for this, according to the author, is largely due to the teachers' ignorance of the application of context theory into their language teaching. Language is closely related with context, for the use of language can not be detached from it. Context has a great influence on interpreting and restricting the use of language. Therefore, foreign language teaching can not be detached from context.With the unprecedented development of economy, science and technology and the quickening process of the international economic integration in the world, the cross-cultural communication becomes more frequent than ever. Thus, cultivating students' communicative competence becomes more and more important. In order to meet the demand of society and cultivate more students with communicative competence, this thesis, based on the discussion of context theory, its relationship with foreign language teaching and the survey study conducted in two secondary schools and one university, attempts to suggest a systematic model on the application of context theory into foreign language teaching so as to improve the quality of foreign language teaching in our country and thus cultivate more students with communicative competence.This thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter one is concerned with the conception and classifications of context, which aims at providing teachers, learners and researchers alike the theory into their practice on one hand and a theoretical basis for the suggestions of how to teach foreign language within context in Chapter four. In this chapter, the concept of context from some leading linguistics is presented first. Based on the views of context from those schools and the consideration of foreign language teaching, this thesis classifies context into linguisticcontext and non-linguistic context.Chapter two discusses the close relationship between context, language, and foreign language teaching. This chapter intends to show the inseparable relationship between context, language and foreign language teaching and at the same time provides a theoretical reference for the suggestions of how to apply context theory into foreign language teaching in Chapter four. In the chapter, the relationship between context, language and foreign language teaching is discussed in detail. In order to do a consistent and systematic job, a historical overview of the previous research in the field is also presented in this chapter.Chapter three is the survey study of investigating some teachers and students in both Chinese secondary schools and universities about their current situation of teaching and learning English through context in terms of their understanding of context theory, their application of it, the problems in their work under discussion, and their suggestions for a better job, with the purpose of finding out the problems existing in the current foreign language teaching in terms of context. Despite the importance of context in foreign language teaching, through the survey study, we find that the current application of context theory to foreign language teaching is unsatisfactory.The last chapter is the focus of this thesis. It provides teachers and students a systematic application of context theory into their foreign language teaching and learning so as to improve the quality of foreign language teaching in our country. The suggestions of how to apply context theory into three important fields of foreign language teaching-vocabulary, grammar and reading are presented in detail in this chapter together with a plenty of examples to illustrate the point better.