The Introduction Of Culture To College English Teaching

The study of culture introduction into language teaching is based on the relationship between language and culture. American social linguist Sapir (1921) believes that:language can not exist without its culture root. In the field of foreign language teaching, many linguists have reached a general consensus on the relationship between language and culture: language is the carrier of culture; culture is the container of language. However, some traditional teaching methods, in which great importance are attached to linguistic competence, but communicative competence are ignored because of separating language from culture, are being challenged. Therefore, culture introduction becomes a hot topic in foreign language teaching. In the United States, Britain, France and other foreign countries, there are some "culture-based language curriculums" (Culture-oriented English Programmes). In China, college English teaching has been fully improved in every aspect, from teachers' qualities, students' learning environment to the attention from the country. The students' linguistic competence has been improved, but unfortunately significant progress has not been achieved in elevating students' communicative competence. Many students can pass a series of English level tests easily, but they have met a lot of obstacles while communicating with foreigners and some even makes silly mistakes. The fact shows that if teachers unilaterally focus on linguistic competence in English teaching, but ignoring the culture education, students can hardly achieve communicative competence as well as linguistic competence.This thesis first gives an introduction to culture teaching, then, shows the theoretical framework by illustrating the relationship between language and culture, and points out the importance of cultivating students' culture awareness. Through the analysis on the culture missing phenomenon in current college English teaching in China, it finds the reasons and solutions to this problem. Thereafter it indicates the purpose, content and special methodologies related to culture introduction. Finally, through classroom teaching practice, it compares the culture teaching method with conventional teaching method. The actual test results demonstrate that the introduction of culture into college English teaching is an effective way to improve students' language skills and communicative competence. In addition, it puts forward some prospective results and limitations on the culture introduction to college English teaching, hoping that it can provide reference to vast numbers of English learners and serve for college English teaching.