On The Interplay Between Culture Teaching And College English Learning Motivation

The combination of teaching and learning is widely appreciated in English teaching. As for learners, many factors, such as motivation, anxiety, self-confidence, and volition, etc., affect language learning. All of them are internal factors. Among them, motivation, for the reason of its born complexity, is eye-catching to many scholars and has been studied a lot. As to teachers, many factors also influence their teaching. Among those factors, what to teach and how to teach are very important. In order to respond to the two questions, numerous scholars have done many tentative researches on influencing factors of teaching process. In these researches, culture factor is more attractive for the reason that culture and language are inseparable from each other. Therefore, integrating culture into teaching is applauded popularly. However, most of the concerning researches had intended to explore external factors.Existing researches could be divided into two categories: one focuses on learners'internal factors, the other focuses on their external factors. Only a few of them have aimed to ameliorate internal factors by utilizing external factors. Even fewer studies have been conducted on the relationship between culture teaching and college English learning motivation.Based on the existing researches of motivation and culture teaching, this study focused on ameliorating learners'internal factors by utilizing external factors. The author carried out a tentative investigation on English learning motivation types and intensity of college students, the substantial content and effective methods of culture teaching, and the relationship between culture teaching and college English learning motivation.The research questions are: 1) what is the current situation of college English learning motivation? 2) What is the college students'attitude towards culture teaching? 3) What is the relationship among English achievements, types of motivation and culture teaching? 4) What are the interplays between culture teaching and college English learning motivation? The goals of this research were: 1) to explore the interrelationship between culture teaching and college English learning motivation; 2) to provide evidence for the interplay between these two fields; 3) to confirm the substantial content and efficient methods of culture teaching; and 4) to approach the clear purpose of culture teaching and shed light on further study.The subjects were chosen by random, involving four classes: three were from Shandong Agricultural Administrators College, majoring in accounting, and one was from Weifang Medical College, majoring in clinical medicine. All of these 174 students were in the second semester of college life. Except for the formal survey, a pilot study purposed to test the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire, and re-investigation for retest reliability, were conducted. The content of the questionnaire includes four parts: (1) demographic features and achievements; (2) English learning motivation in college students, which includes seven types of motivation: motivation of intrinsic interest, motivation of immediate achievement, motivation of learning situation, motivation of going abroad, motivation of social responsibility, motivation of individual development, motivation of information medium; (3) The knowledge of cross-cultural communication; (4) Culture teaching, designed by the author, includes two dimensions: 1) contents of culture teaching (cultural knowledge related with the contents of the textbook, knowledge of custom, communicative knowledge, and values) and 2) methods of culture teaching (teaching with modern technology and interactive teaching).The obtained data were coded with the help of SPSS11.5 by the computer. The results are demonstrated as follows:(1) The current situation of college English learning motivation is revealed in these aspects: motivation of individual development is the main type; intensity of motivation of intrinsic interest, motivation of immediate achievement, motivation of social responsibility, motivation of information medium,and motivation of learning situation are in the middle rank.(2) College students'attitude towards culture teaching: students strongly desire to learn cultural knowledge related with the contents of the textbook, followed by teaching communicative knowledge, teaching with modern technology, interactive teaching, and knowledge of custom.(3) There are significant correlations between 4 types of motivation (motivation of information medium, motivation of intrinsic interest, motivation of social responsibility, and motivation of immediate achievement) and 3 achievements (the achievement of the nation-wide matriculation examination, the achievement of first semester, and the achievement of cross-cultural communicative knowledge). The correlation is also significant between the achievement of cross-cultural communicative knowledge and interactive teaching.(4) There are significant interplays between culture teaching and types of motivation, which are displayed in five aspects: 1) knowledge of custom versus motivation of information medium, motivation of individual development, and motivation of intrinsic interest respectively; 2) teaching communicative knowledge versus motivation of information medium and motivation of intrinsic interest respectively; 3) interactive teaching versus motivation of information medium, motivation of individual development, and motivation of social responsibility respectively; 4) teaching with modern technology versus motivation of information medium, motivation of individual development, motivation of intrinsic interest and motivation of social responsibility; 5) cultural knowledge related with the contents of the textbook versus motivation of information medium, motivation of individual development, and motivation of intrinsic interest respectively.In addition, in this research, motivation of social responsibility of students majoring in science is higher than that of students majoring in liberal art.According to the above results, pedagogical suggestions are inferred: firstly, among college students, motivation of individual development needs to be maintained. Five types of motivation need to be aroused, such as motivation of intrinsic interest, motivation of immediate achievement, motivation of social responsibility, motivation of information medium,and motivation of learning situation. Secondly, the contents of culture teaching should match students'aspiration. Thirdly, motivation of information medium and motivation of intrinsic interest need more attention in the process of teaching. Fourthly, in order to maintain and arouse English learning motivation, the efficient methods of culture teaching are interactive teaching and teaching with modern technology; and the students'calling content of culture teaching should be cultural knowledge related with the contents of the textbook, knowledge of custom and communicative knowledge. Meanwhile, moderate learning motivation will facilitate culture teaching. Lastly, the motivation difference between majors is worth noticing.