On The Relationship Between College English Teaching And Culture Teaching

Language and culture are inseparate and interdependent for language is not only a part of culture but also the carrier of culture transmission. Language is a system of symbols that can be studied analytically, enjoying the properties of duality, arbitrariness and productivity as well as diverse variations(variation over time, variation in physical space and social variation); Culture is dynamic. It is not innate but learned through accumulation and enriched generation by generation. The first chapter of this dissertation respectively illustrates the above properties of language and culture, and states the fact that they intrinsically relate to and mutually influence on each other.Language teaching and culture teaching supplement each other. Culture teaching is unavoidable in language teaching activities. The second chapter first takes some lexic, syntax and translation examples as the evidence of the inseparability of language teaching and culture teaching, then points out the low status of culture teaching in English language teaching (in this thesis it, in particular, means college English teaching) by brief review of English language teaching in China as well as influential culture teaching experience in Britain and Germany, and finally proceeds further to present the significances of strengthening culture teaching in English language teaching.Chapter three concerns the analyses of current situation of college English-culture teaching in China and their corresponding problems by means of questionnaires and interviews implemented among my colleagues at the College English Department, WUST (Wuhan University of Science and Technology) for the purpose of obtaining enlightenment to figure out practical approaches. The main problems lie in the following aspects: Lagging syllabus, skill-oriented teaching methodology, dilemma of teachers and administrators, and unappealing textbooks.The last part is the highlight of the whole thesis. After the in-depth analyses of the current situation of college English-culture teaching as well as the existing problems, a culture teaching approach, that is, a teaching pedagogy to advance college English teaching from an intercultural perspective is suggested. The author holds that it can, to some extent,fulfill both linguistic and social purposes in college English teaching, which makes college English teaching more valuable and significant. In addition, in this dissertation some tentative solutions to the problems in college English teaching are proposed from intercultural perspective in such essential aspects as framework, textbooks, teachers and learners by means of drawing inspiration from the study of culture transfer, culture contrast as well as that of other relevant disciplines containing linguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, ethnography and social psychology. The advocated approaches are as follows: 1) establishment of definite framework for culture teaching. 2) compilation of culture-based textbook. 3) advancement of teachers' expertise (two aspects: accumulation of disciplinary and theoretical study on culture teaching, and popularization of new teaching beliefs and renovation of teaching methodology). 4) cultivation of students' motivation (three aspects: integrated-skill instruction, task-based teaching and utilization of supplementary media).