A Comparative Study Of Chinese Culture Instruction For Chinese And International Students In College ELT

The phenomenon of"Chinese culture aphasia"has been concerned about by the foreign language educators for several years, but it has not yet been meliorated effectively. Along with the spreading of Chinese culture to the outside world and an increasing number of international students coming to study in China, Chinese culture is playing a more important role in ELT. As for Chinese students, Chinese culture instruction in college ELT is helpful for improving their English language competence and intercultural communicative competence. As to international students from nonnative-English-speaking countries to China, it can foster their understanding of Chinese culture and English language competence as well as their intercultural communicative awareness.Based on the theoretical framework, the author conducts a comparative study of Chinese culture teaching in English on two groups of subjects: Chinese students and international students who are nonnative-English-speakers, aiming at exploring the instructional models of Chinese culture in college ELT. The research consists of two teaching experiments respectively for the two groups. The experiment for international students consists of two phases. Their mastery and understanding of Chinese culture are analyzed by the reflections, summarization and evaluation in each phase. SPSS 13.0 is used to analyze the experimental data in the two phases by the means of descriptive statistics, Paired-Samples Test, Two-Way ANOVA, and Independent-Samples T-test so as to test the teaching effectiveness and explore the influence of some factors such as gender, major and region. The experiment for Chinese students is comprised of three parts: pre-course survey, which is conducted to investigate the students'mastery and English expressiveness of Chinese culture and some related conditions by a questionnaire and a test paper; implementation of the instruction designed according to the teaching objectives; post-course survey by the succeeding questionnaire and test paper. Descriptive statistics, qualitative study and Wilcoxon Test are used to analyze the experimental data of Chinese students to test the effectiveness of the instructional design and to find out the students'attitudes and feelings about the course and instruction. The statistical results show that the instructional design for Chinese and international students are both effective.Based on the experiments, the author gives a comparative analysis between the two groups on teaching aims, teaching contents, teaching methods, teaching process and teaching evaluation. The author constructs two instructional models respectively for Chinese and international students, designs a bilateral instructional model helpful for improving communication and reciprocity of both sides, and puts forward some corresponding suggestions, so as to promote Chinese culture teaching in college ELT for Chinese and international students.