An Investigation And Study Of Cultural Studies In College English Teaching And Learning

Culture and cultural studies are important themes of contemporary foreign language education (FLE) research. Scholars have generally come to agree that culture is an important part of language learning; language teaching is actually culture teaching. Communicative competence, in which culture plays an inevitable part, is now widely recognized as one major goal of FLE. It is also believed that cultural studies can contribute to the enhancement of learners' cultural quality. However, it must be pointed out that enthusiastic theoretical explorations in the field of cultural studies in the past decades are not followed by equal zeal in actual teaching and learning practice. Especially in College English teaching for non-English majors, it is common to see teachers busying themselves either in imparting language points to learners or in developing learners' language skills, expecting learners to successfully pass College English Test (CET) Band 4 and Band 6. Culture is largely overshadowed by this over-obsession with language.What exactly is the role of culture in FLE? Is it merely a supplement to learners' linguistic proficiency or does it have more profound significance? What is the current situation of cultural studies in College English teaching and learning (CETL)?process? The thesis plans to answer these questions first. Based on these questions and their subsequent answers, the author offers some tentative suggestions as how to better incorporate culture studies into language studies in CETL.The thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 is the introductory part, covering the purpose of the present research and the framework of the thesis. Chapter 2 is theoretical study of the significance of cultural studies in FLE. It begins with the discussion of objectives of FLE and concludes that there are two major objectives of FLE: to learn the language for communication and to learn the language for learners' personal development. Both aims work together to make cultural studies not merely a part of FLE but the actual content and focus of it. The thesisproceeds to look into the relationship between language and culture, further proving that the interwoven relationship between the two makes cultural studies virtually an inevitable part of language learning. This part is followed by the discussion of several practical considerations for stressing cultural studies in FLE. Also in this chapter, the history of culture teaching in language teaching is briefly reviewed and an integration of language studies and cultural studies is proposed by clearing two popular misconceptions.Chapter 3 presents an overall picture of the status quo of cultural studies in CETL through an evaluation of two series of coursebooks and the analyses of two questionnaires: one for language teachers and the other for students. Furthermore, a socio-cultural test is conducted to test learners' knowledge about the target culture and their corresponding socio-cultural competence. The results of this all-round investigation show that culture has not been taken into serious consideration in CETL: coursebooks are language-oriented; teachers and learners on the whole hold a utilitarian view of CETL objective and their exposure to the foreign culture, both first hand and second hand, are actually extremely limited; learners' knowledge of the target cultures and their corresponding socio-cultural competence are shockingly poor.In view of the huge discrepancy between theory and practice, Chapter 4 is devoted to some suggestions to help narrow the gap. First and foremost, the thesis calls for a full awareness of the values and significance of studying culture in FLE from all people involved in CETL. As regards teaching contents, it argues that an-embracing view of culture is needed. Also, it suggests a question-guided approach to classroom instruction so that the focus of study shifts from form to meaning. In the last section of this chapter, some teaching methods and techniques are covered, including didactic approaches, experimental approaches, wid...