Cultivation Of Intercultural Communicative Competence And Oral English Teaching In Vocational Senior High Schools

Modern enterprises and the third industry need the students who have not only the abilities of reading and translation, but also the ability of conversation. For this demand, most of vocational senior high schools set up oral English course. Oral English teaching began early, but the theories and researches about it are behind. The students didn't get the real abilities of talking with foreigners. In the communication between people of different cultures, the greatest barrier lies not only in the differences of languages, but also in those of cultures, which permeate all aspects of human life. Therefore, the importance of the target- culture teaching has been drawing attention ever since.For the first time, cultural awareness and intercultural communication has been prescribed in the new criteria of English course for national elementary education, which was issued in 2001. Intercultural communication has become a noticeable issue in English language teaching ever since. Language learning and culture acquisition are mutually supportive; this is especially true in the oral English class.There is a survey on students'social cultural knowledge and their practical ability in Jinan Vocational School of Foreign Language. The result indicates that culture learning is on the increase in current foreign language education. Yet, the average level of cultural knowledge is moderate. There are two problems related to cultural learning: first, teachers pay more attention to transmission of knowledge while neglect students'interaction. Second, teachers need systematic training in cultural knowledge and approaches of culture learning.Thus, this thesis addressed two questions: what's the current situation of cultural awareness teaching and learning in Chinese oral English classrooms and how can we improve culture teaching and learning. The data were gathered by tests from classroom. Pedagogical implications were made as to how to promote cultural integration in oral English classes.This thesis is organized into four parts:Chapter 1 is a brief survey of related literature of intercultural communication teaching in English.Chapter 2 states the conceptions and the components of intercultural communicative competence. It analyzes the relationship between intercultural communication and foreign language teaching, which provides the theoretical base for the experiment in Chapter Three. Chapter 3 designed and organized social culture knowledge and practical ability tests and made an analysis of the data of the two tests designed and organized by the present author. The first test shows that the English learners'social cultural knowledge is far inferior to their linguistic knowledge. So the author introduces different communication rules including verbal communication, nonverbal communication and social etiquettes. The purpose is not to cover all the social cultural rules, but rather to guide the English learners to a better understanding of the target culture. After a year's experiment, the sample students have greatly improved their intercultural communicative competence and facilitated English learning in oral class.Chapter 4 is the major findings and implications for oral English teaching in vocational senior high schools.