Cultural Introduction In College English Intensive Reading In Independent College

With the integration of world economy,communication between our country and Western countries is becoming increasingly frequent.English,as the world’s"mandarin",is being paid more and more attention to.The ultimate goal of English learning is to conduct inter-cultural communicate smoothly,which requires understanding of the target culture.However,in reality,even college students who have learned English for many years can not avoid misunderstanding and embarrassment in cross-cultural communication.As Intensive Reading takes up three-quarter teaching hour of College English course.,in order to improve college students’ intercultural competence,it is necessary to introduce culture in College English teaching.At present,there are plenty of researches on culture introduction in College English,but most of them focus on public universities.Research on independent colleges is rare.As a new form of higher education,independent colleges have their own characteristics in various aspects.Through the author’s teaching practice and observation,most of the students in independent college are active in thinking,confident,while their overall cultural level is relatively low compared to those in public universities,and their ability of cross-cultural communication is quite limited.Meanwhile,they tend to be interested in foreign cultures.Therefore,it is necessary and feasible to introduce culture into College English,which is in line with the orientation of "cultivating applied talents" in independent colleges.On the basis of schema theory,the author studied cultural introduction in Intensive Reading of an independent college in Wuhan,aiming to verify whether cultural introduction in IR course can improve students’ intercultural communicative competence and comprehensive English proficiency.Questionnaire,interview,teaching experiment and tests were employed as research methods,aiming to explore the approaches and validity of cultural introduction in teaching.In this process,questionnaire surveys were conducted among 28 College English teachers and 490 undergraduates in the college.The questionnaires were mainly on the following aspects:teachers’ and students’ attitude toward culture teaching,the current situation of culture teaching in the college,and means of cultural introduction and learning.In addition,some students were interviewed to probe the difficulties.Before and after the 16 weeks’ teaching experiment,two groups of students took tests.Finally,the author conducted a questionnaire survey among the students in experimental class.Through analyses of tests’ results,combined with questionnaires and interviews,the following conclusions can be drawn from the research:the introduction of culture in English Intensive Reading courses was conducive to improving students’ intercultural communicative competence and comprehensive English competence.This teaching mode created a more relaxing and lively classroom atmosphere than the traditional one.Students were more focused in class,meanwhile,their interest and enthusiasm for English learning had increased as well.