提高中国学生学术英语写作能力的 必要性与对策思考 张桂萍 教授 中国音乐学院 (CUHK在读博士) 发言提纲 提高中国学生学术英语写作能力的必要性 培养学生学术英语能力所面临的问题 欧洲的CLIL和香港的大学英语课程开设情况介绍 关于提高中国学生学术英语写作能力对策的思考 背景说明 本人非常同意上午两位专家所说的学术英语不是应 该是唯一的以内容为依托的课程。至于此类课程开 设什么内容要基于各个学校学生的具体需求。因此, 本文的所说的“提高中国学生学术英语写作能力的 必要性”是针对那些有这方面需求的那些学生而言 的。 除了上午文教授所说的考研的学生之外,有此类需 求的学生还应该包括即将去海外留学的学生。 一、提高中国学生学术英语写作能力的必要性:从两 篇文章说起 Hayter, J. P. (1994, September 10). English is a barrier. British Medical Journal, 309, 666. Cargill, M., O’Connor, P., & Li, Y. (2012). Educating Chinese scientists to write for international journals: Addressing the divide between science and technology education and English language teaching. English for Specific Purposes, 31(1), 60–69. 第一篇文章是:一位英国医生1994年访问中国后, 发表在British Medical Journal杂志的一封信,信中 写道: “…I realized both the high quality and the large quantity of clinical work practiced by Chinese surgeons. Many clinicians in this academic institute were participating in clinical research and also collating material from their wide experience for publication. This was all destined for the Chinese literature. The main reason for these clinicians not submitting papers to Western medical journals was their perceived inability to express themselves clearly and correctly in English...” 引自 Hayter (1994) 第二篇文章是澳大利亚阿德雷德大学教师 Cargill等(2012)的 文章的一篇论文,介绍他们对 中国科技人员进行国际论文写作培训的情况。 在提到用英语发表论文的感受时,文章引用了 某一位重点大学一年级理科博士生的话作为 “typical comment”: “I didn’t pay special attention on English study ago, and so far my most writing in English may be the compositions in English test or homework. Maybe this essay is also one. Frankly to speak, I’m not very confident in my ability to write in English. I often feel that my vocabulary is so poor during my English writing, and sometimes I don’t know how to express my opinion exactly. I’m afraid that I’ll also have the above difficulties when I try to write my research paper in English in future.” ----引自 Cargill et al. (2012) 文中还引用了另一个学生的话说明学生对目前英语教学的看法: “I always ask myself the same question: what is the goal of studying English at all? To pass the exam, or to gain the enough scores? I don’t know. I just know that up to now, I cannot use English to communicate with foreigner and I absolutely know it must be changed. Maybe modern high school education system would make great progress in enhancing students’ abilities to use English just like a tool to do what they want to do. It is the real aim to study a language laboriously. Since I am a student in Physics Department, and have to read and write English paper frequently, I hope I can use English during my work smoothly.” 此外,邹承鲁院士在著名的Science发表的文章也提 到了这方面的问题: The difficulties lie not so much in following progress in their own fields of interest, but rather in understanding the “rules of the game“ of international science. … , perhaps the biggest obstacle for Chinese scientists is their poor English, which can often obscure otherwise good work. Tsou, C.-L. (1998). Science and scientists in China. Science, 280, 528. 注:邹承鲁(1923-2006),中国科学院资深院士、第三世界科学 院院士,著名生物化学家。 对中国科研人员论文写作问题的研究 1. Li and Flowerdew (2007, p. 106) 引用了科技论文评审 对中国作者的投稿论文的评语: “ The clarity of the presentation is poor. Many times this is due to grammatical errors (too many to enumerate), but oftentimes the wording is just too difficult to follow.” “ The manuscript requires considerable editing as many passages are poorly written.” “ The quality of the language is much below the acceptable minimum level, to such a point that many sentences are simply not understandable. The paper cannot be published as it stands.” 对中国科研人员论文写作问题的研究 2. Wu (2008)对有国际期刊投稿经历的40位武汉的博士 生调查,半数以上的人认为语言是最大的问题,文中引 用了评审的评语: “It’s noted that your manuscript needs careful editing by someone with expertise in technical English paying particular attention to English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure so that the goals and the results of the study are clear to the reader.” “As presented, the writing is not acceptable for the journal.There are problems with the sentence structure, verb tense, and clause construction.” “The English of your manuscript must be improved before resubmission.We strongly suggest that you obtain assistance from a colleague who is wellversed in English or whose native language is English.” 原因分析: “Academic language… is no one’s mother tongue” (Bourdieu et al, 1994, p. 8) 学术英语所用的不是一种不同的语言,但是 大量研究已经表明,与非学术英语相比,前 者在句法、词汇及篇章结构方面有其不同的 惯例。 因此,学生需要这方面训练。 二、培养大学生学术英语能力所面临的问题 根据本人的经历自1994年先后开设科技英语、英语文献阅 读与翻译、音乐剧英语等ESP课程的经历: 缺乏政策导向和支持:自下而上开此类课程,困难较大 具体问题 教师本身:感觉上此类课程“出力不讨好” 教务部门:重视程度不够 学生:觉得有用,但因为是选修,积极性不高 教材:除了通用教材,往往需要补充讲义 …… 三、欧洲的CLIL和香港一些大学英语课程开设 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): 欧盟 1995 白皮书: Teaching and Learning Towards the Learning Society: proficiency in 3 community languages is a priority and suggests lowering the starting age and teaching content in a foreign language as ways to contribute to the achievement of this objective. 欧盟2005 英语教学报告:… an excellent way of making progress in learning a foreign language is “to use it for a purpose so that the language becomes a tool rather than an end to itself.” 香港地区高校大学英语课程开设 基本都分为三个模块: 基础英语:English for university studies, General university English… 专门目的英语(ESP):Academic Writing, University English for business students, University English for engineering students, …for arts, Workplace English… 工作坊(Workshop)等活动: IELTS, Presentation skills, Pronunciation, … 说明: 这里介绍欧洲和香港地区大学的一些做法,并 不是因为本人认为这些方法就一定完全适合内 地学生。但是,有可能他们的这些做法对我们 解决目前的问题有启发。 四、关于提高中国学生学术英语写作能力对策的思考 希望修订后的《教学要求》能够促进各学校对此类课程的支持 进行本校的需求调查,争取政策支持 根据本人的经验,课程开设: 先开设内容相对简单的过渡性课程:(因时间关系,细节略 先为研究生或英语起点较高的本科生开始(因时间关系,细节略) 研讨式授课方式: 教材:自编(+ 通用) 工作坊、模拟会议等形式 语料库等网络资源建设 感触: “I always ask myself the same question: what is the goal of teaching English at all? To help the students pass the exam, or gain high scores? I don’t know. I just know that now many students cannot use English to communicate with foreigner and I know that it must be changed…” Adapted from Cargill等(2012) 主要参考文献 Flowerdew, J. (1999a). Writing for scholarly publication in English: the case of Hong Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 123-145. Flowerdew, J. (1999b). Problems in writing for scholarly publication in English: the case of Hong Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 243-264. Flowerdew, J. (2001). Attitudes of journal editors to nonnative speaker contributions. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 121-150. Flowerdew, J. (2008). The non-Anglophone scholar on the periphery of scientific communication. AILA Review, 20, 14-27. Li,Y., & Flowerdew, J. (2007). Shaping Chinese novice scientists’ manuscripts for publication. Journal of Second Language Writing, 28(3),100-117. Marsh, D. & Lange, G. (1999). Implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning. Finland: Continuing Education Centre/TIE-CLIL. Marsh, D. (2002): CLIL/EMILE – The European Dimension: Actions,Trends and Foresight Potential. Brussels: The European Union. Wu, X.(2008). A Survey of the Chinese science doctoral students’ publishing experience in international journals. Unpublished Thesis(MA.), Huazhong University of Science and Technology.