A Study Of Culture Teaching In College English Classes

Language is the carrier of culture. It not only consists of the national history and cultural background, but also reflects the lifestyle and outlook on life. Culture is the root of language and constrains its development. The variety of culture contributes to enrich the language promotion.Nowadays, the rapid progress in communication technology and economic globalization has made intercultural communication an inseparable factor of people's life. However, it is not difficult to find that although the students have received several years of formal English education, they frequently remain deficient in the ability to use English actually. It is a problem that attracts our attention. Therefore, students should be encouraged not only to have the good command of language knowledge and skills, but also to develop the intercultural communicative competence.Directed by College English Curriculum Teaching Requirement, with the guidance of some English teaching theories, such as cultural linguistics, pedagogy, psychology, a survey about English cultural teaching in Yanbian University has been conducted. According to the findings, the article discusses the existing problems in three aspects—teachers, textbooks, students and puts forward the feasible strategies on the basis of them.By the statistical analysis of survey data, the results show that:1,The current state of English cultural teaching is not very satisfactory. On the whole, major students hold the positive attitude towards English society and culture. However, they have a vague image of college English teaching aim, which influences the intercultural communication.2,In contrast with the sophomores (Grade 2005), the freshmen (Grade 2006) pay more attention to some interesting and vivid learning materials in post-class practice, not only focus on the reference books, which is a good phenomenon.3,There are some differences of sexual students in study purpose and personal attitude. The female students who are inclined to improve the comprehensive skills and ability of understanding the foreign culture hope that the teachers give an account of cultural knowledge in great detail.4,Korean nationality students and Han nationality students have no significant difference in English study purpose. Korean nationality is more enthusiastic in acquainting some foreign friends, while Han nationality is intrigued by the English culture deeply.5,There is no obvious statistical difference in textbooks and colleges. The students of new college English and oral English are more active. Agricultural college is superior to medical college in passion of studying English.6,The teachers are in a common condition as to cultural teaching. Over 65% teachers realize the importance, while they make little efforts on how to carry it out. For instance, they occasionally organize the students to read some newspapers and literary works, or appreciate some movies and TV programs. Cultural exam is seldom mentioned and put into practice.In the following process of college English teaching, we should start with textbook construction, lesson establishment, exam form and content and improve the teachers' quality in all aspects. At the same time, we should combine the internal class teaching methods with the extracurricular activities in order to make up the deficient phenomenon of cultural teaching according to the students' different characteristics.