A Research On Cultivating English Major’s Intercultural Sensitivity Through CCTV-News English Program In Listening Class

In the21stcentury, economic globalization promotes and accelerates cultural globalization moreeffectively than ever. Economic exchanges between countries continue to be strengthened, as do closercultural exchanges. Language is the carrier of cultural transmission, and culture is the main content andpurpose of language learning. The changing of Chinese economic and cultural background as well as thenature of current English teaching in China pose new challenges. To improve students’ interculturalcommunicative competence is the major task of College English Teaching.Intercultural communicative competence includes intercultural awareness, intercultural sensitivity andintercultural adroitness, which respectively cover the communicator’s cognitive, affective and behavioralaspects in the process of communication. Two sides concerning intercultural communicative competenceare reflected in language learning: on the one hand, the target culture and customs are naturally melting intothe learning of the target language. On the other hand, via learning the target language, language learners’native culture is enhanced. After further study, the target culture is recognized and critically accepted, andthe native culture is also exchanged and spread. However, for a long time, language teaching and researchwith regards to intercultural communicative competence are focused on the learning of the target languageculture, objectively diluting the study and output of the Native Culture which results in a phenomena called“Chinese Culture Aphasia”.With the development of the Chinese mainland economy, the environment of English learning inChina has undergone tremendous changes. A variety of English programs based on the background ofChinese culture on CCTV-News English Channel and China Radio International gradually enter thehorizon of English teaching field, providing a wealth of learning resources for English learners and laying agood foundation for the changing of cultural unilateral input situation. The exploitation of ChineseEnglish materials has become the focus of researchers. Based on the previous study, this research tries toadopt the CCTV-News English programs for listening classroom to testify that training on native culture inEnglish class can not only cultivate students’ positive attitudes towards the native culture but also improvetheir level of intercultural sensitivity. Hence, the intercultural communicative competence will beimproved.The experimental method was employed in the present study.120students from English department ofGansu Agricultural University participated. They are randomly appointed as EC (Experimental Class) and CC (Control Class). In EC, CCTV-News programs are used as materials of native culture teaching. In CConly textbook and traditional methods are used. Research instruments include ISS (Intercultural SensitivityScale, Chen and Starosta2000), questionnaire on students’ attitudes towards learning Chinese culture andinterview questions. After one semester’s teaching experiment, data of ISS and questionnaires are collectedand analyzed by SPSS19.0. Findings are given below:(1) After one semester’s native culture teaching, EC students’ level of Intercultural Sensitivity improvedmore than that of CC, especially in the aspects of Interaction Engagement, Respect for CulturalDifference and Interaction Attentiveness(2) After one semester’s native culture teaching, EC students’ attitudes towards native culture learning aremore positive.The present thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter serves as a brief introduction, includingthe research background, the significance of the present study and the structure of thesis. The secondchapter makes a general literature review relevant to the present study, involving relevant studies conductedboth at home and abroad as well as some important definitions and categorizations of key terms. The thirdchapter demonstrates the theoretical framework for the present study. The fourth chapter is devoted to theintroduction of the research methodology for the present study, including research questions specified,subjects under investigation and treatment explained. The same chapter also includes instruments employed,procedures of collecting the data and analyzing the data in a statistical method. The fifth chapter is theresults and discussion of the present study, which shows the results of the statistical analysis, and theinterpretation and discussion of the results of both qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the sixth chapter,the conclusion summarizes the major findings of the research, followed by implications, limitations of thestudy.