Cultivation Of Cultural Competence In The College English Intensive Reading Class

The rapid progress in communication technology and the economic globalization have changed people's idea about time and space and have brought about frequent communications among people of different cultural backgrounds. Language plays a commanding role as a means of communication, especially in cross-cultural communication. However, without enough knowledge of the cultural differences between target and native languages, people are very likely to commit pragmatic mistakes by following their accustomed way. In that case, communication breakdowns arise.In our college English teaching, it is not difficult to find that although students have received several years of formal English education and got their certificate on CET4 or even CET6, they frequently remain deficient in their ability to actually use English. They can not either open their mouths to speak English or understand the appropriate use in normal intercultural communication. Such deficiency and inappropriateness in their communications should draw our immediate attention. It is quite evident that developing students'intercultural communicative competence should be the ultimate goal of College English Teaching. To achieve such a goal, culture teaching is vital necessity in the College English Intensive Reading class.In the hope of improving culture teaching in the College English Intensive Reading class and facilitating students'intercultural communicative competence, this dissertation attempts to tackle the problem of cultural interference in the College English Intensive Reading class and explore effective ways of integrating culture teaching into language teaching for non-English majors in the College English Intensive Reading class.This dissertation is divided into five parts:Part one introduces the importance of integrating culture teaching into the College English Intensive Reading course to non-English major students.Part two provides a literature review of culture teaching, which deals with the conception of culture as well as the relationship between culture, language and intercultural communication.Part three, the core of this dissertation, studies in detail the contrast of the dominant American and Chinese culture patterns, along with the interference of the cultural differences in the College English Intensive Reading class.Part four copes with an empirical study in the form of a written survey and case study to discover problems in the current practice of the College English Intensive Reading Course teaching.Part five illustrates the principles and introduces the methods and techniques for teaching culture in the College English Intensive Reading class. Then the conclusion comes to the end,, reinforcing that culture teaching should be integrated with language teaching in the College English Intensive Reading class.