Evaluating Treatment Of Cultural Content In Contemporary College English From The Perspective Of Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching

Culture, as an important component in language acquisition, imposes profound effect on learners. In the New Syllabus for English Majors issued in 2000, intercultural communicative competence, for the first time, is included among the targets for language teaching; hence, the enhancement of the importance of culture in language teaching and learning. The change in the syllabus of 2000 establishes new target and direction for research in theoretical development as well as teaching practice in China. As an important course for English majors, Comprehensive English may offer proper chances and necessary culture environment for English majors to cultivate intercultural communicative competence. Widely used for Comprehensive English course, Contemporary College English, a set of textbooks newly designed and published, is worth analyzing and examining for the sake of intercultural language teaching.In content, the thesis is designed based on the actual needs of intercultural foreign language teaching. On the basis of literature review of research and theories in culture teaching and textbook evaluation, the thesis develops an analysis and evaluation on the culture-related materials in Contemporary College English. In the first part, the author briefly introduces the teaching content, theoretical development and current situation of culture teaching home and abroad. Then the development of textbook evaluation theory, methods as well as some established checklists or criteria for the treatment of cultural content in textbooks are presented. Based on the above two parts, and taking the purpose of the present thesis into consideration, the author chooses a proper method for evaluation and establishes an evaluation checklist for the treatment of cultural content in Contemporary College English. Through qualitative analysis, the components of these textbooks, such as texts, exercises and cultural background introduction, etc., are analyzed from varied aspects, including internationality, presentation of macro and micro culture content, rotation of cultural themes, authenticity of materials, exercises and culture notes and literary appreciation, etc.To cultivate intercultural communicative competence, teachers and students need a mutual platform to better communicate and learn. Textbook is obviously an essential part in this process. In this sense, textbook evaluation, to a large extent, may play an important role in the reform of current teaching system of English majors from the perspective of intercultural language teaching. Through an analysis of relative data collected in this essay, the culture-related materials in Contemporary College English are objectively summarized and evaluated. Referring to the requirements for intercultural language teaching, the author concludes with comments on both advantages and disadvantages of this set of textbooks. These conclusions may, on the one hand, impose positive effect on the revision of current textbooks, compilation of new textbooks as well as the practice in language teaching and study; on the other hand, they can also offer constructive suggestions for the implementation of the teaching principles and requirements of the New Syllabus.