E-mail writing as a cross-cultural learning experience.ppt

Introduction Cultivating international understanding, responsibility, and effective particiption in a global age(Kramsch, 1991, p.221) Robin-Stuart and Nocon(1996) categorize the different theoetical perspectives regarding how culture is acquired in a foreign language classroom: (1) culture as an automatic outcome of language instruction; (2)culture as knowledge or skills that may be objectified ; (3) culture as meaning making process The first, and probably the more traditional, view assumes that language study itself can automatically lead to cross-cultural understanding; even without any specific treatments designed to promote intercultural understanding and instruction, language study and performance per se will automatically open the door to another culture and to shared understanding. The second view:culture as facts to be learned and stored; culture is regarded as a list of facts to be cognitively consumed in the development of a knowledge base The third perspective, and the most recent one, views culture as ``a way of perceiving, interpreting, feeling, being in the world, wanting to smile, wanting to scream, loving, hating, and relating to where one is and who one meets (Robin-Stuart and Nocon, 1996, p. 432). Introduction The study of culture became an important aspect of foreign language teaching that is oriented toward communicative proficiency of foreign language teaching that is oriented toward communicative proficiency (Omaggio, 1986). Culture learning and teaching progress from defining culture as the best in human life to everything in human life (Brooks, 1975; Seelye, 1974) The use of Internet, especially e-mail writing, has certainly brought together students of different languages and e-mail writing, has certainly brought together students of different languages and cultures to interact with one another in ways that were not possible before. Context and purpose of the study Many Chinese EFL teachers recognize the need to include