On The Cultural Differences Between English And Chinese In College English Teaching

In college English teaching, culture has become one important element that influences language learning, more and more problems around the cultural differences have appeared and puzzled the students. Social scientists tell us that culture differs from one another, and each culture is unique. As cultures are diverse, so are languages. Learning a foreign language well is more than merely mastering the pronunciation, grammar, words and idioms. It means learning also to see the world as native speaks of that language do, learning the ways in which their language reflects the ideas, customs and behavior of their society, learning to understand their "language of the mind". The teacher in his teaching process should pay special attention to such cultural differences and to develop the students' cultural awareness. In fact, learning a language is inseparable from learning its culture. This is the reason why the author has made a study of the cultural difference and college English teaching.In this thesis, by investigating and analyzing the cultural and pragmatic knowledge of Non-English majors in Nanjing Medical University, the author thinks that the biggest obstacle for the non-English majors in the course of English learning is not just language forms such as vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure etc., but the absence of cultural knowledge esp. the cultural difference between the target language and the mother tongue. Therefore, English teaching should take into account to train students in target language forms such as phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, phrases and sentences as well as their foreign language quality, cultural quality and finally their comprehensive quality, so that students can complete the task of cross-cultural communication successfully with English as a tool after their graduation. This paper also proposes a theoretical model and teaching strategies in college English teaching.