Introduction Of Cultural Elements In College English Intensive Reading Course

China's entry into WTO will take its cooperation with foreign countries to a new stage of development. English as an international language is becoming increasingly important. The society is in great need of persons with both specialized knowledge and intercultural communicative competence in English. Non-English majors in China make up the majority of English learners and they shoulder the arduous task of cooperation and exchange with the outside world. However, in our college English teaching, the teaching of the culture of the target language has long been ignored and importance is only attached to the linguistic competence of students. We are more aware of students' linguistic deficiencies than of their cultural inadequacy. As a result, the students' socio-cultural competence is low, as can be seen from the survey in this paper. Accordingly, the students' communicative competence is far from satisfactory, as is revealed by many investigations. The present situation of college English teaching hi China can not fit in with the needs of the current society when intercultural contacts become more and more frequent and requirements to the English proficiency of college and university graduates run higher and higher. Therefore, something must be done to improve this situation.Since language and culture are so closely related that learning a foreign language inevitably involves learning its culture, one cannot learn English well if he or she is ignorant of the culture of the English-speaking countries. It is universally accepted that the goal of English teaching is to equip students with communicative competence. Accordingto Hymes, one of the important components of communicative competence is the ability to select a linguistic form that is appropriate for a specific situation, or use English appropriately in social interactions. Therefore, in college English teaching, we should not only attach importance to the linguistic competence of students, but also to their socio-cultural competence so as to bridge the gap between linguistic competence and communicative competence. Thus it is up to the EFL teachers to introduce to students cultural elements in IR course, which is the predominant course for non-English majors, with an aim to enhance their intercultural awareness and improve their communicative competence in English. The introduction of cultural elements to non-English majors is not only necessary but also feasible because of the ever-increasing linguistic proficiency of freshmen and the requirement of the new College English Syllabus. In view of the characteristics of IR course, the introduction of cultural elements can be done from several aspects, including vocabulary, translation, reading and writing. Special attention should be paid to the comparison of cultural differences between English and Chinese.To facilitate the culture teaching in IR course, we should make full use of students' extracurricular activities and offer them selective courses about English culture in order to broaden their cultural horizons and strengthen their cultural sensitivity. In spite of all these efforts, culture teaching can not be guaranteed or done in an effective and scientific way unless we make proper changes in the existing College English Syllabus, tests, and textbooks. In addition, teachers' qualifications are the key to the successful implementation of culture teaching. Teachers should constantly improve themselves both in professional knowledge and in teaching technique.This dissertation is divided into six parts:Part one introduces the importance of IR course to non-English majors and the present situation of college English teaching.Part two deals with the relationship between language and culture, and the importance of culture in TEFL. It also talks about the feasibility of introducing cultural elements to non-English majors.Part three is the core part of this dissertation. It discusses several approaches to introducing cultural elements in IR course, that is, the integration of culture teac...