The Effects Of Film Teaching On College Students' Intercultural Communication Competence,Intercultural Sensitivity And Self-efficacy

With the development of economic globalization and cultural diversity in recent years,intercultural communication has become more important in individuals' daily life.Ministry of Education is also about to implement Chinese English Ability Rating Scale,which attach importance on practical language ability and cultural awareness and intercultural communication competence.Previous The College English Curriculum Requirements(2007)demand that developing students' intercultural communication competence as a major teaching objective in College English Teaching(CET).But CET has concerned with language skills training and knowledge transfer for a long time.Teachers pay inadequate attention to cultivating foreign language learners' intercultural communicative competence and most of them followed the traditional grammar-centered approach.English films,authentic teaching materials combine language and culture,do not deserve enough teachers' and scholars' attention in developing intercultural communication competence,not enough empirical researches have been conducted.Therefore,the author will discuss the application of English films in English teaching to cultivate non-English major students' intercultural communication competence(ICC),intercultural sensitivity(IS),and English learning self-efficacy by empirical research in this paper.So the author combined English films and English textbook in college English teaching and carried an experiment study for eighteen weeks.The study focused on the following four questions:(1)What are the effects of film teaching on cultivating non-English majors'intercultural communication competence?(2)What are the influences of film teaching on training non-English majors'intercultural sensitivity?(3)What are the effects of film teaching on improving students' English learning self-efficacy?(4)What are the students' suggestions concerning the implementation of film teaching?To test the effectiveness of English film teaching approach in enhancing learners'intercultural communication competence(ICC),intercultural sensitivity(IS),English learning self-efficacy,the author carried out an experiment study for one semester.86 freshmen of two parallel classes from College of Journalism and Communications,Shaanxi Normal University participated in this study.They were randomly divided into control class(CC)and experimental class(EC)with traditional teaching and English film teaching approach.The results showed that there were significant differences in learners' intercultural communication competence,intercultural sensitivity.English learning self-efficacy improved but not significant.It could be concluded that the application of English films in foreign language teaching is an effective and feasible way to improve non-English majors' intercultural communication competence.The results of the interviews also showed that English film teaching methods was welcomed by students;It can change students' attitude towards intercultural communication.Suggestions were also provided by students for teachers who want to conduct English film teaching in the future.The implications from the study are:intercultural communication competence could be developed through English films instruction.In addition,English teaching researchers and teachers should strengthen the development of intercultural education materials,design extracurricular activities with technology,help learners to forge two-way intercultural exchange awareness.Still,the author has to admit that there are still some limitations existing in present research,such as small samples and short teaching period.Therefore,the author hopes that foreign language researchers take these factors into consideration in their further English film teaching study so as to improve learners' overall intercultural communication competence.