Toward A Cultural Dimension Of Chinese College English Teaching

There are many propositions and arguments concerning the integration of culturein foreign language teaching, and what and how to teach culture in foreign languageeducation is a problem faced by language educators all over the world. It is a verycomplicated problem since the answer relies on our understanding of the relationshipbetween language and culture, the role of foreign language education in a givenculture, and the relationship between one's home culture and foreign culture. Thispaper is also concerned with the culture teaching in Chinese college English teaching.Based on the long experience of teaching English in Binzhou Medical College, andmotivated by the studies in the English College in Shandong Normal University, theresearcher of this paper aims to find ways to improve the teaching of culture inChinese colleges and universities. The intention of this paper is to make someproposals of culture teaching in Chinese college English teaching with challengingand remedying the existing ideas and practices in the existing theories so as to makethem better suit the situation to which we apply them.This paper is made up of six parts, including an introduction and a conclusion.The introduction presents the research background which briefly describes thesignificance of culture teaching, the situation of Chinese foreign language teachingand the current situation of college English teaching. It points out that much attentionis only paid to linguistic knowledge such as sentence structure, grammar andphonetics in Chinese college English teaching, while context of language and cultureis ignored. Consequently, there appear communication errors and pragmaticmisunderstanding among the learners and native speakers. In order to make up this,culture teaching is advocated in this paper. And the main problems this paper wants tosolve are what and how to teach culture in Chinese college English teaching.The first chapter is a brief historical review of culture teaching in foreignlanguage teaching in the West and the trends of culture teaching in the area within thewestern tradition and a discussion on culture teaching in College English Teachingand the research of English culture teaching in China. It indicates that culture teachingin foreign language teaching is increasingly valued both in the West and China.The second chapter provides a theoretical basis for the paper which includes thedefinition of language and culture and their relationship. It cites the famous educatorStern's and Malinowski's statements about the relationship between language andculture to illustrate that language is a part of culture and plays a very important role init;without language, culture would not be possible. On the other hand, language isinfluenced and shaped by culture and reflects culture. So language learners should notonly study the cultural context (language and culture) but that they should be madeaware of the interaction between language and culture.The third chapter is survey of the Chinese college students' culture competence.The survey deals with the methodology including objectives, subjects, instrumentsand the data analysis. This chapter constitutes of two parts: a culture test and aquestionnaire. The analysis of the results of the culture test shows that the Chinesecollege students' culture competence is at a low level and is far behind their linguisticcompetence, thus there is an urgency and necessity to teach culture in college Englishteaching. And the analysis of the results of the questionnaire indicates that the Chinesecollege students hold a favorable attitude towards the culture teaching in collegeEnglish teaching and what they are interested in culture learning is the people's wayof life, customs, cultural background in the target culture and the cultural differencesbetween their native culture and the target culture, etc.The fourth chapter is the main part of the paper in which the principles and goalsof culture teaching in college English teaching are produced and some proposals areput forward as to what and how to teach English language cultures in Chinese collegeand university foreign language teaching. The author points out that English cultureteaching in Chinese colleges and universities should be at the students' CollegeEnglish level. The suggested techniques of culture teaching are as follows: firstly,whenever encountered with cultural differences between Chinese and the targetlanguage in the process of teaching the target language, remind the students of thesedifferences and make discussions of them between Chinese cultures and the targetcultures and thus arouse the students' curiosity and interest in target culture. Secondly,add cultural information in the process of teaching vocabulary, and explain to studentsthe connotative meaning of new words and phrases. Thirdly, teach culture throughtextbook language teaching. Fourthly, teach culture through visual aids. For instance,make use of English tapes and films in foreign language teaching, and then discussthem. Fifthly, teach culture through music, pictures and stories, etc. Sixthly, teachculture through role-play in the students' spare time. Seventhly, teach culture throughlectures on a specific topic. Eighthly, ask the foreign teachers to give lectures aboutforeign customs. The contents of culture teaching should be: first, people's way of lifewhich includes the ways of thinking, beliefs, values and religions. Second, the socialcustoms and cultural differences: cultural distinctions and connotations of words;cultural differences in everyday conversation;idioms, proverbs and sayings;metaphorand association;allusions;euphemisms;taboos;language of respect and humility,privacy;third, nonverbal communication;fourth, people and society in general andcultural background.In the conclusion, the author points out that although English language teachingis highly valued in China, the importance of culture teaching has been widely realizedby most of the scholars and teachers, there is much difficulty in putting the theory ofculture teaching into practice in Chinese College English teaching owing to thecurrent educational system. In addition, at present there is no culture teachingtextbooks available to College English in China. So there is a long way to go toward aculture dimension of English teaching in Chinese colleges and universities.