A Survey Of Vocational College English Majors’ Competence Of Expressing Chinese Culture In English

Under the background of intercultural communication theories, based on the theory ofChinese culture Aphasia, the thesis focus on a survey of vocational collage English majors’competence of expressing Chinese culture in English. With further analysis and discussion ofthe data, problems of the current situation of teaching culture has been probed into, andsuggestions as pedagogical implications are put forward for improvement of vocationalcollege English major’s competence of expressing Chinese culture in English.The research is conducted from April, 2011 to June the same year. As far as the subjectsare concerned, there are 180 student subjects from three main vocational English majors, thatis to say, Business English, Applied English and Tourism English, and 50 teachers for theEnglish majors in vocational college selected as teacher subjects.In the survey, a test consisting of Chinese words and expressions translation and awriting of cultures comparison and contrast is designed for student subjects. Twoquestionnaires are designed respectively for student subjects and teacher subjects to gain theirattitude toward the current situation of culture teaching and learning. In terms of reliability,10 student subjects and 5 teacher subjects are interviewed after the test and questionnairesand their responds would be analyzed carefully to testify the data collected from the test andthe questionnaires.By analyzing the data collected from the survey with SPSS and other quantitativeanalysis tools, we can clearly notice that both the student subjects and teacher subjects arequite interested in Chinese culture and they agree that because of the vague understanding ofChinese culture and the lack of vocabulary and expressions that can convey Chinese culturein English, vocational college English majors have a rather low competence of expressingChinese culture in English. However, Tourism English majors do better than the other twovocational college English majors in expressing Chinese culture in English. The ChineseCulture Aphasia exists commonly in vocational English majors. Therefore, the problems inthe current culture teaching and learning mainly concern with the design of curriculumsettings of vocational college English majors, the lack of Chinese culture knowledge and expressions of Chinese culture, the contents of textbooks for vocational English majors andthe orientation of examination.Suggestions as pedagogical implications are tried to be put forward in the aspects ofimproving curriculums settings, enhancing culture teaching in English class, textbookscompilation and designing culture–oriented examinations.In spite of the limitations of this thesis, the writer hopes that this study could be ofcertain an inspiration to future research on the competence of expressing Chinese culture inEnglish which may finally be of some help to the education for vocational English majors.