英語文化和創新思維引領下的高中閱讀教學

傳統英語教學的弊端之一是過多關注語言知識的機械式傳授，忽略對學生思維能力和創新能力的培養，忽略語言文化習得和跨文化交際能力的培養。作為高中英語教師，在閱讀教學中不但要夯實學生的語言基本功，提升學生理解與獲取信息的能力，還應結合學生思想敏捷、眼界開闊、求新求異、富有朝氣的特點，創設激發學生創新思維的活動，引領自主探究英語文化。

一、在閱讀前讓學生對閱讀材料產生興趣和期待

教學人教版選修8 Unit 5 “Meeting your ancestors”中的課文“A Visit to the Zhoukoudian Caves”前，我引導學生“to act as an archaeologist to make tentative guess about Peking Man’s life according to the needle and thread and the necklace.”學生分組討論后得出如下觀點。

From the needle and thread， the students got the following guesses：

1. The fact that people then used bone needles shows that they did not use metal and they hunted animals.

2. They were very clever because they could make a hole at the end of the needle， which was not an easy task.

3. They repaired or made clothes.

4. They might use animal skins to make the clothes.

From the necklace：

5. That people then wore necklace shows that they cared about their appearance and loved beauty. So we can see that loving beauty is the nature of human beings.

6. The beads were made of animal bones. We can guess people then hunted animals.

7. The fact that some beads were made of fish bone shows that there used to be a lake or river nearby， where people caught and ate fish.

8. From the fact that some of the beads were made of seashells， we can predict that early people might travel to the sea which is far from Zhoukoudian or trade with other groups of people.

二、閱讀中探究閱讀文本涉及到的文化知識

全文理解了人教版必修1 Unit 2“English Around the World”的課文“THE ROAD TO MODERN ENGLISH”后，我引導學生對英語的發展歷史進行更深層次的理解，就課文中的“Why has English changed over time？”分小組討論。我設置了下面的問題：Why was English based more on German than English and then became less like German？ Why did these new settlers enrich the English language and especially its vocabulary？通過學生的思考、討論和語言的加工，他們表述的英語發展史無疑帶上了語言特色和符合他們時代和年齡的特點。如一個小組作了如下的表述。

The history of English is the history of English Being Conquered and Conquering

At first the English spoken in England between about AD 450 and 1150 was very different from the English spoken today. It was based more on German than the English we speak at present. It was probably because at that time England was conquered by German. Then between about AD 800 and 1150， England was conquered first by Danish and then by French. For their convenience， these conquerors or rulers might use their languages as the official languages. So during these periods， the new settlers enriched the English language and especially its vocabulary.

From the 16th century， with the development of the British Navy， British began to conquer the other part of the world， such as Indian， America， Australia， Singapore， Malaysia， South Africa and Hong Kong， etc. When the conquerors ruled their colonies， they used English as the official language， so the English spread to parts of the world.

In a word， the history of English is the history of English being Conquered and Conquering.

三、在閱讀后進一步挖掘文化和歷史背景并參與實踐

學習了人教版選修6 Unit 1 “ART， A Short History of Western Painting”后，為了進一步激發學生的創新性，我要求他們通過繪畫展現各個時期人們的信念（faith）對繪畫風格的理解。

The description of Creative God from the student

My painting’s name is Creative God. There are many things that the God created， such as the sun， the moon， the human beings and mountains. People in the Middle Ages thought God was everything. It was God who made the planets move around the earth. So people during this period loved God even after they died. They thought their souls would always follow God happily.

The description of New City Sunrise from the student

The top of the painting is the sun and cloud. In the middle of the painting is a new city. The lower part is the sea. This is impressionism style. The person in the boat wants to escape from the city to get close to nature.

責任編輯 魏文琦