Cultivation Of Students' Intercultural Competence In College English Reading Teaching Based On ESA Theory

With intercultural awareness and communicative competence becoming the humanistic goals of foreign language teaching in Chinese higher education,the cultivation of versatile talents with both linguistic competence and intercultural competence(ICC)has become a widespread concern in the field of foreign language education.However,there is a noted absence on the study that how to actualize it in real classroom-based teaching and what are the educational outcomes.In recently years,there has been a sustained discussion on the potential role of discourse reading in promoting the development of learners' intercultural competence.For English learners in China,English discourse reading is essentially an intercultural activity.It can serve as an ideal approach to help learners enhance their intercultural awareness and promote their intercultural competence.Relevant researches on intercultural foreign language teaching,together with the cultural factors in New Progressive College English Integrated Course Book I were investigated.Based on the current status of intercultural competence of non-English majors,and the ESA theory proposed by Harmer,class activities integrating intercultural teaching into discourse reading teaching were designed and implemented to college students.ESA theory takes into full consideration of the characteristics of language learning,and divides teaching into three elements:Engage,Study and Activate.The three elements can be arranged into different teaching sequences according to different teaching contents.The effects of intercultural discourse reading teaching on students' ICC were measured which were compared with that of traditional discourse reading teaching.In this study,a blended approach was adopted to measure college students' ICC.At the beginning and end of the experiment,the assessment instrument,Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation system of Chinese undergraduates' intercultural competence was used to assess students' intercultural competence.In addition,students'reflective journals which could reveal the real learning process were used to capture the characteristics of their ICC.After the experiment,the course evaluation questionnaire was distributed to students in class of research participants through E-mail and 7 participants were randomly selected to participate in the semi-structured interview so as to get a comprehensive understanding of students' attitudes and feedback on intercultural discourse reading teaching.Findings from the data show that:(1)Compared with traditional discourse reading teaching,intercultural discourse reading teaching is more effective in significantly improving students' total intercultural competence;(2)In terms of the six dimensions,intercultural discourse reading teaching is more conducive to the remarkable improvements of students'knowledge of self,intercultural awareness and attitudes;(3)With regard to course feedback,students in class of research participants hold very positive attitudes towards intercultural discourse reading teaching.Students deem that the teacher's efforts in the teaching of language skills,the teaching of multicultural knowledge and the teachers' guidance on the comparison and analysis of different cultures are very sufficient and effective.As for achievements,students' perceived improvements on intercultural achievements are slightly more positive than on English achievements.Therefore,it is concluded that the teaching practice of integrating intercultural teaching into discourse reading teaching under the guidance of ESA theory is effective in cultivating college students' intercultural competence.The knowledge of self,intercultural attitudes and awareness of students in class of research participants have been improved to a measurable extent.