The English lecture felt puzzled why that student told her that he was a teacher but at the same time denied it. In fact, the puzzlement is caused by the use of the word “teacher”, which is an address term in Chinese, but not in English. It is no wonder that the English lecture said “Wherd do you teach?” for she interpreted “teacher” as a self-introduction, not an address term. Most occupational titles can be used as address terms in Chinese. Addressing others in their occupational titles can be seen as being essentially an expression of linguistic politeness. A failure to use an appropriate address term is a sign of rudeness, or a signal of a breakdown of established social order. But the English do not necessarily use occupational titles in the same manner. This phenomenon is fully illustrated by the example about “teacher”. From this example, we notice that in cross-cultural English-speaking communication, if the Chinese part addresses native English speakers in their occupational titles, communication barriers will probably occur. The reason why the Chinese adress native English speakers in their occupational titles is that the Chinese learners of English are short of understanding the culture of western countries, namely, awareness of cross-cultural communication. From this example, we can see that the pragmatic competence of Chinese learners of English needs to be promoted.