Culture Teaching In Foreign Language Instruction In China: Obstacles And Remedies

In the late 1970's and early 1980's one group after another of foreign language teachers in China, to meet the demands of reforming and opening to the outside world, went abroad for visits or further studies, and at the same time more and more foreigners came to China. Teachers of English came to realize in intercultural communication that ignorance of foreign cultures often resulted in communication breakdowns and conflicts. Therefore, the subject of culture teaching in English teaching began to be studied. In the last 20 years there have been lots of studies made on the subject. However, the integration of English teaching and culture teaching can hardly be regarded as satisfactory with much talk and little effect. The present paper briefly reviews culture teaching in English teaching since 1949, investigates 138 middle school teachers to elicit their responses to culture teaching with a view to discovering problems in culture teaching and, through analyzing these problems, suggests some remedies.