Cultivation Of Intercultural Communicative Competence In The English Reading Classroom

This study intends to explore how to cultivate non-English major students' intercultural communicative competence in the English reading classroom. The study of intercultural communicative competence starts in America in 1960s. In China, it basically begins in 1980s. Now the study of intercultural communicative competence has become more and more heated in the field of foreign language education in China. Enhancement of intercultural communicative competence is becoming one of the aims of foreign language learners.Non-English major students take up a large portion of English learners in college. Reading course is also a significant subject for non-English major students. However, there isn't much research on how to cultivate their intercultural communicative competence in the English reading classroom. By means of inputting culture in the reading classroom, the author tries to cultivate students' intercultural communicative competence.The author attempts to answer the following questions in the study:1. What positive influences can be brought on students in the process of culture teaching? And then how do these influences enhance students' intercultural communicative competence?2. Can culture teaching improve students' scores in reading comprehension examination related to cultural contents?3. What principles and methods of culture teaching are effective and feasible?The study explores the principles and methods of culture teaching in the English reading classroom. 60 non-English major students from two regular classes in Xi'an Technology & Commerce College participate in the one-fall-semester research from September in 2007 to January in 2008. The subjects take part in a pre-test and a post-test which are aimed at finding if culture teaching could enhance their scores in reading comprehension examination related to cultural contents. 16 among them are selected for the in-depth case study who are required to write diary entries. Based on the results of the diary entries, the author sums up some questions and then interviews the rest of the subjects. Diary entries and interviews are both conducted by using descriptive research techniques.After one semester, it is found that the research basically achieves its goal. The author finds that culture teaching not only broadens students' cultural knowledge, but also increases their interest in learning English and changes their attitudes towards target culture, which reduce their cultural barriers in the real communicative context and enhance students' intercultural communicative competence. Based on the findings, recommendations for more productive teaching and learning are suggested for English instructors and learners in China.