Cultural Integration Into College Oral English Teaching: An Exploration And Application Of Intercultural Communication Theories

The New College English Curriculum Requirements (2004:5) issued by the Ministry of Higher Education clearly states: "As a systematic whole, College English has as its main components knowledge and practical skills of the English language, learning strategies and intercultural communication; it takes theories of foreign language teaching as its guide and incorporates different teaching models and approaches." The New Requirements issues a real challenge to the present college English teachers. Currently, college English teaching still sticks much to the traditional teaching method rather than placing the adequate emphasis on intercultural communication and its competence development.Brembeck, an American foreign language teaching specialist, once pointed out, "…to know another's language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of oneself." (quoted in Wang Zhenya, 1991:6). Moreover, the New Requirements also claims that the objective of College English in listening and speaking is not only developing students' ability to be able to exchange information effectively through both spoken and written channels, but at the same time enhancing their ability to improve their cultural quality so as to meet the needs of international exchanges as well. Cultural conflicts are easily caused by different cultural backgrounds, as a result, knowing different cultural customs, life styles, thinking patterns, religious rituals, and non-verbal communication has become indispensable parts in college English teaching.The present dissertation explores the relevant theories on intercultural communication in an attempt to find out the positive factors contributing to oral English teaching in the Chinese EFL context. In this study, a survey was first implemented among 220 non-English major undergraduate students in Southern Yangtze University and the findings indicate that the students have limited command of cultural knowledge, low intercultural competence and a great desire for culture learning. During the eighteen-week practice of intercultural integration into oral English teaching, two English tests were given before and after the study. The results show that the application of intercultural communicative theories is effective in fostering the students' intercultural communicative competence and promoting students' spoken abilities as well. At the end of the study, a group of interview with 20 students was conducted to further explore the feasibility and effectiveness of this teaching reform. The feedback information indicates that students' cultural awareness, English study motivation, enthusiasm of class involvement have been improved to a large extent.The dissertation clarifies the significance and indispensability of culture integration into college oral English teaching; applies some effective techniques aiming at developing a new teaching model for current college English teaching reform and obtained some desirable teaching results. It is hoped that the issues discussed through the process will attract further study among those who are interested in the same academic direction.