他們到底想說什麼?—從文化背景與語言使用之關聯看中外師協同教學計畫

Abstract

自2001年開始，臺灣各地的教育局及教育部開始對外引進外籍英語教師，並搭配本地英語教師到各公立學校入班協同教學。在實施了十多年後，更多協同教學計畫將陸續施行，但這並不代表中外師之間的合作益發順暢。過去研究顯示這類協同教學計畫所產生的一類問題為中外師之間的溝通障礙，而本研究以中外師不同的文化背景為著墨點，探究這些不同文化如何影響中外師之間的溝通順暢與否。

本研究主要探討何為中外師常討論的議題、以及中外師溝通中所產生的社會語用失誤。四所在臺灣實施中外師協同教學計畫的公立學校加入此研究，研究參與者總計有六位來自美國、南非、紐西蘭、加拿大、澳洲的外師，以及十四位臺灣的中師。研究者共進行了十八次的會議觀察、四十三堂課室觀察、以及二十三次的訪談。

在分析了觀察紀錄、會議逐字稿語料、及訪談語料後，本研究將所發現中外師常討論的議題分為教學、行政、社交三方面。針對中外師溝通中產生的社會語用失誤，本研究依其在溝通中發生的不同時期歸為兩類。第一階段為前溝通階段，中外師在此階段會遇到的問題有「要不要說」、「要跟誰說」、「什麼時候說」、「在哪裡說」；第二階段為溝通中階段，中外師在此階段對於「如何說」這個問題使用的不同溝通策略反映在四種面向上，分別為使用的詞彙或句型、使用較易入耳的話包裝原始訊息、訊息排列方式、對話風格。社會語用失誤的發生多是因為中外師對此兩階段中的五項溝通問題有不同的考量，而本研究使用三種文化模式來解釋東西方的文化差異之處，其為集體主義與個人主義、高語境文化與低語境文化、關係趨向文化及任務趨向文化，並進一步討論此三種文化模式如何影響中外師對所遇到的五項溝通問題產生不同考量，以致誘發社會語用失誤的產生。

對於提升中外師之間的跨文化溝通，本文提供了大方向的準則以及一個含有八步驟的訓練模式。藉由探討不同文化所習慣的不同語用方式是如何造成中外師之間的溝通障礙，本研究希望能改善中外師之間的溝通，並能進一步促進中外師協同教學計畫以及臺灣的英語教育。

關鍵字: 協同教學、社會語用失誤、跨文化語用學、互動社會語言學、跨文化溝通Since 2001, a growing number of public schools in Taiwan have started to recruit foreign English teachers (FETs henceforth) from native English speaking countries to team teach with local English teachers (LETs henceforth). After years of implementation, more team teaching projects will be carried out by central and local educational bureaus in Taiwan, which leads to a growing opportunity for FETs and LETs to cooperate with each other. However, some research has presented that communication between team teachers was a common problem, especially due to teachers’ differed cultural backgrounds. Therefore, research about how to improve communication between LETs and FETs from the perspective of culture is of great importance.

The present study aimed to investigate the cross-cultural communication among FETs and LETs by examining what kind of common issues and sociopragmatic failures may occur in the communication of team teachers. To achieve this goal, four public schools in Taiwan with EFL team teaching programs were chosen for the current study. Six FETs from USA, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia and fourteen LETs all born and raised in Taiwan were observed for 18 meetings and 43 classes, and interviewed for 23 times in total.

Based on the observation notes and taped discourse data from the meetings and interviews, the study revealed the frequently discussed common issues from the communication of team teachers and categorized them into those regarding teaching, administration, and socializing. Many sociopragmatic failures were noted by this study, and they were found to occur when the LETs and FETs had different concerns at two stages, pre-communication stage with five dimensions, i.e., “tell it or not,” “tell it to whom,” “when to tell it,” and “where to tell it,” and during-communication stage with the question “how to tell it” from four aspects, i.e., linguistic forms, sugar coating, information sequencing, and conversational styles. Cultural patterns such as individualism and collectivism, low-context culture and high -context culture, and task-oriented culture and relationship-oriented culture were used to explain why the FETs and LETs tended to behave and perceive differently toward the occurred sociopragmatic failures.

Some general guidelines and an eight-step training model are provided by this study to facilitate the cross-cultural communication between FETs and LETs. By examining communication breakdown resulting from different strategies of language use preferred by various cultural norms, this study hopes to improve the communication among LETs and FETs, and further facilitate team teaching programs and English education in Taiwan.

Keywords: team teaching, sociopragmatic failures, cross-cultural pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics, intercultural communication