Integrating Culture Into College English Teaching

Nowadays, developing learners' intercultural communicative competence has been the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching and culture teaching is in vital need in foreign language teaching. However, far less attention is attached to culture features in teaching practice. In the long run, in English language teaching of China, the development of students' linguistic competence has been emphasized, while the development of students' cultural awareness and socialcultural competence has been ignored. The dissertation presents an empirical study on culture teaching in college English teaching, which testifies the positive effects on improving non-English major students' cultural awareness and sociocultural competence as well as enhancing their English proficiency.The author first explores the relationships between language and culture, and that between culture and intercultural communication. Then the development of culture teaching abroad and at home is reviewed. Culture teaching is related to language teaching, but different from the latter. Hence, the necessity and importance of integrating culture teaching into college English teaching to non-English majors is elaborated and the author proposes teaching culture by integrating cultural awareness into communication teaching. The corresponding principles, contents and techniques of culture teaching are also introduced. In order to learn about the sociocultural competence of non-English majors and the problems of culture teaching practice, the author conducts investigations on non-English majors and English teachers, which show that students' sociocultural competence lags behind their linguistic competence. Furthermore, English teachers cannot conduct practicable culture teaching without clear knowledge about the notion of culture teaching, adequate cultural information, corresponding teaching techniques and concrete guidance as to what the teacher is supposed to be aiming at.On the basis of the results of the investigations, the author carries out a teaching experiment in college English classroom, arguing that culture teaching is an effective way to promote the students' cultural awareness and English proficiency. Itis a quasi-experiment conducted on the culture teaching to 60 Chinese non-English majors in the English class for 17 weeks, who are divided into experimental group and control group. During the experiment, the experimental group is given more chances to expose to English culture, while the control group is not. At the end, the subjects are examined by sociocultural test and language proficiency test. The differences between the two tests of the two groups are examined by t-test. The results show that the students in the experimental group have made progress in cultural awareness and language proficiency. Culture teaching not only helps improve students' cultural awareness, but also contributes to the development of their interest in learning English and the cultivation of their ability in using the language, thus enhancing their overall communicative competence, which indicates a positive impact on the language study. Accordingly, the research testifies the effectiveness of the culture teaching. Nevertheless, the data analysis also shows that learners' abilities in language proficiency and cultural knowledge are not closely related so that they should be cultivated respectively, which further proves the necessity of culture teaching. To ensure the implementation of culture teaching, the author suggests making some necessary changes and supplements to current college English syllabus, textbook and tests.Though the study has some limitations for an individual researcher's ability is limited, it is useful for EFL teachers in China to get to know the importance of culture teaching and helpful for future foreign language teaching and research.