Culture Teaching In College English Listening Classrooms

Modern society has made intercultural communication a necessity. In today's world, intercultural communicative competence has become a prerequisite for successful intercultural communication. English, as an international language, has called for Chinese learners'intercultural communicative competence. English listening ability as the most basic skill in the five linguistic skills lays the foundation for successful communication between Chinese people and English speakers. Mere mastery of grammar and vocabulary in college English listening classrooms (CELC) cannot assure successful communication. How to impart cultural knowledge and improve English learners'cultural competence becomes a crucial issue for Chinese teachers and researchers in CELC. Before trying to explore specific techniques and methods of culture teaching, the thesis focuses on the selection of culture teaching content in CELC by classifying culture in order to guide and prepare for culture teaching in CELC. Selection of culture teaching content is contributory to the practice of culture teaching in CELC. Then the thesis conducted a survey among college English teachers and students from some colleges and universities in Guilin, Guangxi Autonomous Region. Two questionnaires were designed in order to investigate the current situation of culture teaching in CELC. Several conclusions have been drawn from the analysis of the survey in the thesis: (1) the incorporation of culture into English language teaching in CELC is positively accepted and is deemed necessary and imperative among college English teachers and students; (2) it is quite necessary to carry out a cultural training program for College English teachers; (3) existing listening textbooks or materials are lacking in enough English cultural knowledge; (4) the incorporation of culture teaching and language teaching in CELC is not effective. Then in the following chapter the thesis tries to propose some prerequisites to improve culture teaching in CELC: (1) college listening textbook compilation or revision should be paid attention to; (2) enough attention should also be paid to college teacher education and training; (3) importance should be attached to the specific techniques of culture teaching in CELC; (4) educational authorities should take efforts in carrying out the new College English Curriculum Requirements for non-English majors and in reforming the current testing system. Some limitations of the research are also mentioned in the concluding remarks. In a word, this thesis attempts to explore how culture teaching can be conducted in CELC for the ultimate goal of increasing the students'intercultural communicative competence by using as many references as available and an empirical investigation.