Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Purpose of the Thesis
Up to 2009, there are about 300 million people learning English all over China. English as Foreign Language Teaching (EFL Teaching) can be traced to the early years of 1950s which experienced two big reforms since 1980s. The rapid development of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) and economic globalization provide far more chances and channels for international cultural exchanges which are going on with new contents, forms, scope and methods unheard of before. Here arise the perplexing problems of how to integrate intercultural communication (IC) into EFL Teaching. Since the early 1980s, the importance of culture’s input in EFL Teaching has been recognized by scholars and educators both at home and abroad. The College English Reform on cultivating students’ culture awareness has always been a hot issue in EFL Teaching field.
College English, an integral part of higher learning, is a required basic course for undergraduate students. Under the guidance of theories of foreign language teaching, College English has as its main components knowledge and practical skills of the English language, learning strategies and intercultural communication. It is a systematic whole, incorporating different teaching models and approaches. The objective of College English is to develop students’ ability to use English in a well-rounded way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future studies and careers as well as social interactions they will be able to communicate effectively, and at the same time enhance their ability to study independently and improve their general cultural awareness so as to meet the needs of China’s social development and international exchanges. College English is not only a language course that provides basic knowledge about English, but also a capacity enhancement course that helps students to broaden their horizons and learn about different cultures in the world (italics added)….When designing College English courses, therefore, it is necessary to take into full consideration the development of students’ cultural capacity and the teaching of knowledge about different cultures in the world. (College English Curriculum Requirements, 2007，P18, P24)
The ultimate goal of EFL Teaching has shifted its emphasis from “Linguistic Competence” to “Communicative Competence”, and further to “Intercultural Communicative Competence”. The cultivation of Intercultural Communicative Competence highlights the input of culture knowledge of target language, and the integration of language and culture teaching. Nowadays, College English has become one of the most important compulsory courses in most universities and colleges in China. However, from the very beginning of EFL Teaching in China, the teacher-centered, book-centered grammar-translation method has taken a dominant place in college English teaching. In the classroom, some teachers endeavor to give explanations for new words and grammar rules, analyze structures of complicated sentences, and prepare students for all kinds of examinations by giving them a lot of preparatory exercises. Culture teaching is sacrificed or just confined to introducing some cultural elements as the background knowledge needed in the texts. What is emphasized by the method is linguistic knowledge while language context and culture knowledge are completely neglected. Consequently, although college students are no longer beginners since they already have certain knowledge of English, they still frequently make communicative errors and pragmatic misunderstandings in the process of communication especially with foreigners. The situation of college students is far from satisfactory, which brings culture teaching in college English teaching to the fore. Kramsch once pointed that “Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them.” (Kramsch, 1993: 1). Both language and culture are closely related to each other or we can say language is a part of culture. A fact is that one can never learn a language well if he doesn’t know its culture background. On the contrary, the deeper one understands the culture including the daily life, customs, and living style of the foreign country, the better can one use the language of that country. Merely grasping the language is not sufficient for good intercultural communication.
This thesis conducts a study of EFL Teaching from cultural perspective, pointing out that IC competence has become fundamental skills to a modern person. In order to develop students’ IC competence, specific teaching strategies and techniques are presented in an attempt to integrate culture teaching with language teaching.
1.2 Significance of the Study
The study of IC was brought into China in 1980’s. According to a search in Chinese national library in Sept.2003, since 1988, there had been 163 books or papers involving IC. Apparently, IC study has become a hot research topic, with more than ten textbooks and over 30 post graduates thesis are on IC. But a big problem exists, that is, empirical study is far from enough, which hinders the development of IC study. Prof. Hu Wenzhong urged for more empirical study in 2005. He pointed out that of the 1066 papers related to IC published in 1999-2002 which he found in Chinese Journal Full-text Database, only 6 are based on statistics, which takes up 0.56%. Meanwhile, of 151 papers in the famous leading journal International Journal of Intercultural Relations，72.85% are based on empirical study. This paper analyzes a survey to 60 Chinese overseas students of Shandong University at Weihai (SDUW), demonstrates the problem of “lack of culture” in EFL Teaching and provides some improvement measures.
1.3 Layout of the Thesis
This thesis demonstrates the research on ICC of Chinese non-English majors and illuminates various factors that have influences upon students’ ICC. Based on the research, it also makes some suggestions for culture teaching of EFL Teaching in China. Meanwhile, this thesis offers new viewpoints on treating subculture and culture of a third country in culture teaching.
The whole thesis consists of six chapters:
Chapter One presents an introduction, in which the background, purpose, significance and the general structure of the thesis are briefly explained.
Chapter Two focuses on literature review, in which five aspects are reviewed: connotation of culture, what is intercultural communication, the relationship between Culture and EFL Teaching, the EFL Teaching in China, relevant research at home and abroad.
Chapter Three is a description of the research design, including research questions, participants, instruments, data collection and analysis procedures.
Chapter Four reports and discusses the results of the investigation as well as the students’ opinions on current cultural teaching.
Chapter Five points out the pedagogical implications and recommendation.
Chapter Six presents the conclusion, including major findings, limitations and suggestions for further study of culture teaching in EFL Teaching.
Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.1 Connotation of Culture
Culture is pervasive. Scholars find it difficult to give “culture” a well-defined definition. Different scholars from different fields perceive culture in different ways. Even within the same field of foreign language teaching, culture has been approached from different perspectives in relation to language teaching. It is no wonder that Eli Hinkle said that “It may not be an exaggeration to say that there are nearly as many definitions of culture as there are fields of inquiry into human societies, groups, systems, behaviors and activities.” (Hinkle, 1999:1)
One of the oldest and most quoted definitions of culture was formulated by the English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor: “Culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. (Tylor, 1958:1) As early as 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn listed 164 definitions of culture that they found in the anthropology literature. And of course, many new definitions have appeared since. For the purpose of the paper, the author is concerned with those definitions that contain the theme of how culture and communication are linked together.
Hoeble and Frost (1976: 6) define culture as an “integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristics of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance.” They have two reasons for taking this position. First, as all scholars of culture believe, culture is transmitted and maintained through communication and learning; that is, culture is learned. Second, each individual is confined at birth to a specific geographic location and thus exposed to certain messages while denied others. All of these messages, whether they be about religion, food, dress, housing, toys, or books, are culturally based; therefore, everything that a person experiences is part of his or her culture.
In Cultural Anthropology, Bates and Plog (1990: 28) propose a descriptive definition: Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the member of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.
This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual, including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally transmitted skills and techniques used to make the artifacts. This definition includes most of the territory of culture on which scholars currently agree.
Using their description as a starting point, Samovar, Porter and Stefani (2006: 36) advance another definition. They define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture can therefore include everything from rites of passage to concepts of the soul.
The above-mentioned definitions all point to the fact that culture is all-pervasive, including not only customs and habits, ideas and beliefs but also the artifacts made by humans. Briefly speaking, Culture refers to the relatively specialized lifestyle of a group of people-consisting of their values, beliefs, artifacts, ways of behaving, and ways of communicating.
2.2 Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. (Wikipedia) Like all species of plants and animals, cultures evolve, but in most cases, it is impossible to explain why they acquired specific characteristics. Some elements are nearly universal, such as religion or at least a belief system and language. Most elements are unique, (Robert L. Stevenson, 1994:29), such as nonverbal communication which according to one scholar who specializes in the field, contains two-thirds of the total “meaning” that is exchanged between two people in an ordinary conversation. Edward Sapir calls nonverbal communication “an elaborate code that is written nowhere, known by one, and understood by all.” Cultural differences in nonverbal communication add a layer of potential misunderstanding that is difficult to avoid. Some gestures and facial expressions are universal, but many are not. (See Figure 2.1)
Figure 2.1 Culture Differences in Signs and Symbols
2.3 Intercultural Communication
Intercultural Communication is becoming common in the modern world. Its growth stirs interest among communication scholars, who offer many approaches for researchers to study.
2.3.1 The Definition of Intercultural Communication
Edward T. Hall used the term “Intercultural Communication” in his classic book The Silent Language to refer to communication between people of different cultures. (E. T. Hall, The Silent Language, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1959, 10). Because this is said to be the first time the term appeared in print, Hall usually is credited with coining the term. Intercultural Communication refers to communication that takes place between persons of different cultures or persons who have different cultural beliefs, values, or ways of behaving. The model in Figure 2.2 illustrates this concept. The larger circles represent the culture of the individual communicator. The inner circles identify the communicators (the sources / receivers). In this model each communicator is a member of a different culture. In some instances the cultural differences are relatively slight. In other instances the cultural differences are great. (Joseph A. Devito 2004:52)
Figure 2.2: A Model of Intercultural Communication
This model of intercultural communication illustrates that culture is a part of every communication act. More specifically, it illustrates that the messages you send and the messages you receive will be influenced by your cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes.
2.3.2 The Process of Intercultural Communication
The successful intercultural communication is based on recognizing the ways in which two cultures resemble one another as well as the ways in which they differ. The comparison of two cultures will provide a basis for better understanding of a person from other backgrounds. (See Figure 2.3)
Figure 2.3: The Model of Intercultural Communication Process
2.4 The Relationship between Culture and EFL Teaching
Culture and language, the members acknowledged, are bound inextricably. Language usage is a function of the cultural context. More and more experts in EFL Teaching believe that “cultural learning has to take place as an integral part of language learning, and vice versa. The mere acquisition of information about a foreign country, without the psychological demands of integrated language and culture learning, is inadequate as a basis for education through foreign languages teaching” (Byram et al, 1994:5). By studying both the language and its culture, the students should be better communicators in the language.
The relationship between language and culture has been a focus of attention from a variety of disciplinary perspectives for many years. Linguistics, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and others have sought to understand whether and how cultural factors influence aspects of human behavior such as perception, cognition, language and communication. Within language teaching, cultural factors have occasionally attracted the interest of both theoreticians and practitioners. Robert Lado was one of the first to suggest that cultural systems in the native culture could be compared with those in the target culture and serve as a source of transfer or interference in much the way other types of contrasting linguistics systems do. Others have examined a range of different aspects of second language use that are subject to culturally based influences, including classroom interaction, roles of teachers and students, and teaching styles. (Hinkel 1999a)
2.5 EFL Teaching in China
The role and status of English in China is presently higher than ever in history. This is evidenced by its position as a key subject in the curriculum, with its growing use as the medium of instruction for schools adopting a bilingual approach to education and for postgraduate courses in premier universities, as a crucial determinant for university entrance and procuring good jobs in the governmental as well as the commercial sector. The status of English is such that knowing it “confers social prestige in its own right” (Jin and Cortazzi, 2006: 10).
2.5.1 A Brief Overview of EFL Teaching in China
Adamson (2004) proclaims that in many respects, the history of EFL Teaching in China is a history of China itself. In the early 1950s there was a strong influence from the former Soviet Union. Grammar-translation methods established in the Russian textbooks had a deep influence on China's EFL Teaching, especially on the Intensive Reading Course (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996). From the late 1950s, EFL Teaching in China had featured Grammar-translation and Audio-lingualism (Adamson, 2004). Based on the centralized curriculum, almost all English textbooks are designed to teach grammar, reading and writing, with little emphasis on listening and speaking, let alone activities such as games or role play. We can say the traditional EFL Teaching is based on listening, reading, speaking and writing among which reading and writing are the highlight. (See Figure 2.4)
But culture teaching in EFL fails to meet our expectation to some extent. The need for effective intercultural communication education in EFL Teaching is a fact that must be faced by the educational establishment. The goal of culture teaching must be to prepare students to become useful, functioning members of society. This is a significant challenge especially for overseas-study students who will or have different learning styles as well as different expectations, culture diversity in the abroad classroom.Overseas-study students entering the multicultural classroom come from culturally diverse backgrounds and bring with them different ideas about education. When non-English-speaking students enter the American university or college system, they are encouraged to assimilate into the English-speaking culture. This assimilation can act as a wedge between students’ existing cultural identity and the social system into which they are entering. Teachers can mediate this difficult process by showing respect for their students’ native languages and thus ease students’ adaption to an English-speaking culture. With the coming of the new century, the importance of understanding the target culture and developing intercultural communicative competence is an increasingly acknowledged aspect in the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Although great achievements have been made , in, culture teaching, problems still remain, and the situations in college English teaching are far from satisfactory.
Figure 2.4: Model of the Traditional, Classroom-Based Instructional Techniques Course
2.5.2 Causes of Current Situation
Firstly, problems which are resulted from education system. In our foreign language teaching system, there is no comparatively systematic culture teaching program or concrete culture syllabus. For example, there are corresponding requirements and detailed prescription for the linguistic knowledge— phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar and skills—listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. However, the cultural items in culture teaching are ambiguous. The syllabus has no specific requirements for culture teaching. Also, there are no clear suggestions and guidance on the contents, strategies and techniques about culture teaching, which results in the disorder and confusion in culture teaching.
Secondly, problems which are resulted from teaching methods. In teaching practice, the teacher-centered, book-centered grammar-translation method has taken a dominant place in EFL Teaching. This method is time-consuming, energy-consuming but inefficient. What is emphasized by the method is linguistic knowledge while language context and culture knowledge are completely neglected. Or sometime teachers explain some cultural phenomena, but their introductions about cultural knowledge are few, casual and unsystematic. Consequently, although college English students are no longer beginners since they already have considerable knowledge of English, they still frequently make communicative errors and pragmatic misunderstandings in the process of the intercultural communication.
Thirdly, problems which are resulted from teachers. Although most teachers realize the importance of culture teaching, there still exist some factors that restrict culture teaching. (1) due to the insufficient class hour and language difficulty of textbooks, many teachers do not feel they can spare in an already overcrowded curriculum. (2) teachers assume that students will be exposed to cultural materials later, after they have mastered the basic grammar and vocabulary of the language. Unfortunately, “later” never seems to come for most students. (3) many teachers are afraid to teach culture because they fear that they are not knowledgeable or experienced enough in culture teaching. Little chance is offered to them to experience the foreign culture by themselves. Moreover, they have never been offered culture teaching training. So culture teaching for them is naturally a difficult task.
Finally, problems which are resulted from testing system. The implementations of CET-4 and CET-6 have promoted the development of EFL Teaching, but a lot of problems also arise. Although CET-4 and CET-6 have been reformed as the reaction to the Teaching Requirements issued by the Ministry of Education, it is still lack of testing students’ social cultural competence. What’s more, all kinds of tests accompanying it have great impacts on students’ graduation, job seeking and future career, for this reason, students sacrifice the function of English as a tool of intercultural communication with foreigners to the function of English as a tool of smooth graduation and promising job. Therefore, testing system, especially CET-4 and CET-6, although reformed, cannot avoid being blamed on for the failure of intercultural communication.
All these problems in culture teaching bring about students’ weakness in their intercultural communicative competence. It is necessary to improve this situation.
2.5.3 The Trends of EFL Teaching in China
Efforts for developing English teaching through communication or student-centered approaches have been encouraged by China's central education authorities as evidenced in the recent curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2001, 2003, in Jin and Cortazzi, 2006). It is true that the ultimate goal of learning English is to develop the communicative competence. However, there can be various methods of teaching and learning for the same purpose. If we examine the research on the practice of English teaching in China, we can find the following trends: (1) Teaching for communication; (2) Task-based English teaching; (3) Attention to learner differences; (4) Developing learning autonomy; (5) Developing automaticity in English teaching and learning; (6) Attention on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). (Qin Jie & Tian Jinping, 2008: 47-53)
2.6 Relevant Research Abroad
Foreign language education has rather a long history---at least five hundred years. Culture teaching is greatly influenced by the change of teaching approaches in foreign language education.
The importance of culture teaching in foreign language education was first recognized in the late nineteenth century. According to Stern, there was “no reference to anything that might be described as the ‘cultural’ aspect of language teaching” before 1899, when Sweet’s book The Practical Study of Languages: A Guide for Teachers and Learners was published. (Stern, 1997:263) Later, in 1990, the Report by the Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America officially acknowledged teaching European civilization and recommended it for school curricula.（Modern Language Association of America, 1900:7-8）From then on that culture teaching was confirmed as one of explicit teaching aims and carried out systematically.
Before the 1960s, most people learned a second or foreign language for the purpose of reading and studying its great literary masterpieces of civilization. At that time, language and culture were separated. Flewelling (1993:339) has similar assertions. He claimed that “it was through reading that students learned of the civilization associated with the target language”. On the other hand, the primary educational aim of foreign language teaching was cross-cultural communication and understanding. Meanwhile, with the development of the social sciences, the disciplines of anthropology and sociology were extremely emphasized. It was undoubtedly natural that people had a more comprehensive and concrete understanding of culture.
During the 1960s, the purpose of learning a second or foreign language was changed from mere literature reading to successful social communication. The importance of culture was then emphasized not for the study of literature but for language learning. Thus, since communication played a major role among all the teaching goals, spoken language was paid more attention to compared with written language. From these we can conclude that “culture with small c” was in the central place of the area of foreign language and culture teaching and learning.
In the 1970s, sociolinguistics quickly became a dominant field of study. Its effect on foreign language education was so great that more emphasis was laid on the context and situation where the second or foreign language would be concerned. The Culture plays a more important role in the second or foreign language teaching curriculum. At the same time, “the communicative approach” finally took the place of “the audio-lingual approach” and was extensively used in foreign language education. Foreign language teachers realized that the training of learners’ communicative competence was the most important goal of foreign language teaching. So, good communication in a second or foreign language was regarded to be more fundamental than correct grammar in language teaching and learning. With the advancement of communicative competence, the significance of culture in language teaching was theoretically questioned. Seelye’s Teaching Culture: Strategies for Foreign Language Educators (1974) was the representative work in this period of time. The points of view then, especially those about communication within the cultural context of the target language, have been influencing foreign language teaching and learning nowadays, and have promoted the development of foreign language and culture teaching.
During the 1980s, there appeared a lot of influential works. Among them, Stern’s Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching has a great influence on current second or foreign language pedagogy in both theory and practice. In this book, he stated three-level framework for second or foreign language teaching theory. Essentially, Stern’s three-level framework includes a basic level based on the social sciences (including linguistics and educational theory), an inter level where theory and research are combined together in applied or educational linguistics, and a practical level where the methodology and organization of second or foreign language teaching and learning meet in the educational context. In this book, Stern found and discussed “the concepts of society”, and connected his model with the cultural aspect of second or foreign language teaching. “With anthropology, sociology, and sociolinguistics providing the foundations at level one, studies and ethnographic description of the second or foreign culture lead into the language teaching context at level two, which is supported by the socio-cultural component of the second or foreign language curriculum at level three” (Stern, 1997:255). The great importance about the Stern’s conceptual framework is that it recognizes society as the context for language, culture and communication. That is to say, society can be taken as the foundation of language, culture and communication. Stern states a clear frame of the society that is represented in the socio-cultural component of the second or foreign language curriculum. It is like “a region, a country or a number of countries”. Besides, Seelye’s Teaching Culture: Strategies for Intercultural Communication (1984) stresses intercultural communication in second or foreign language teaching. In this book, Seelye states that strategies of foreign language teaching must be changed from culture input to intercultural communicative competence training. There are also other major works about the teaching and learning of culture.
In Europe, a focus on “cultural studies” developed in foreign language education during the 1980s, as described in Byram (1, 986, 1988 and 1989), a celebrated educational expert in foreign language and culture teaching. In his famous book Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education in 1989, Byram provided the concept of “cultural studies”, which was described as “the hidden curriculum of foreign language (FL) teaching” (Chen, 1999:111). Consequently in 1994, he redefined the notion of cultural studies in his well-known book named Teaching-and-learning language-and-culture. Byram (1989) emphasizes that teaching the target culture should get rid of the interference of the native culture and create a totally new culture input environment for the learners. In addition, he compared and analyzed the use of learner’s first language and foreign language. With this kind of combination, he raised an integrated approach for the teaching and learning of foreign language and culture. According to Byram (1989:138), this includes: First, language learning in sense of skill-acquisition, enriched by the study of the nature of language as a social and cultural phenomenon. Second, the study of language would in turn be combined with a study of culture, both of these conducted with comparative techniques through the learner’s mother tongue. Third, the selected aspects of the foreign culture which is from the viewpoint and within the ethnic identity of the foreign peer group and in the foreign language, thus direct experience of them would in turn help the language learning process. Byram discussed some theoretical issues concerning the teaching and learning of foreign language and culture, and provided practical suggestions to English teachers and learners.
In 1997, in his new book Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence, Byram advocated the cultivation of learners’ IC competence. His idea of “IC competence” applied to and also guided the tendency of foreign language and culture teaching in the world. “Byram’s contribution lies in a systematic analysis and a solid educational foundation on how to treat first language, foreign language, home culture and target culture learning at different stages and in different levels, breaking the limitation of additive cultural information by introducing the concept of learner’s internal cultural knowledge and trying to answer how to help learners to gain this knowledge and achieve the intercultural communicative competence.” (Chen, 1999:112).
In the 1990s, the importance of teaching and learning culture in foreign language education was stressed much more than before. Kramsch (1991) points that the teaching of culture implicitly or explicitly blends with the teaching of social interaction, and the spoken as well as written languages. Buttjes and Byram (1991) think the teaching of language and culture as integrated and advocate intercultural mediation to serve as a source of causal knowledge about culture. In the meantime, many kinds of ways of culture teaching were introduced to foreign language teachers. Fantini (1997) summarizes four kinds of new ways in teaching culture: activities for language-culture exploration, activities for sociolinguistic exploration, activities for culture exploration, and activities for intercultural exploration. These strategies applied to foreign culture teaching inspire language teachers both at that time and at present. To sum up, these foreign scholars have given some insightful advice on how and what to teach in culture teaching.
2.7 Relevant Research in China
Compared with the western countries, culture teaching of foreign languages in China has lagged behind and the question of how to teach foreign culture in the classroom is far more than a pedagogical issue. Although Luo Changpei (1950) probed into the relationship between language and culture in his book Language and Culture as early as in 1950s, people sneezed at it because of the special political environment and the confrontation against the western culture.
In the next two decades, with the intention of protecting home culture and maintaining their tradition, people were not allowed to learn anything from foreign culture. Because attention was mostly given to politics and the Chinese context, content reflecting Chinese politics and reality dominated foreign language curriculum. There were such few authentic language materials written by native speakers that English textbooks were full of materials that mirrored mainly the Chinese culture.
Since the early 1980s, China entered into a booming period of cultural studies. Chinese scholars began to discuss the connection of Chinese and western cultures. Some books and articles were published on introducing foreign culture into Chinese foreign language teaching. Among them, an article named Culturally Loaded Words and English Language Teaching, which is written by Xu Guozhang (1980), is considered as one of the earliest articles dealing with the study of language and culture. Other articles could be found, such as “Language and Culture” Series (1981) by Deng Yanchang, Cultural Differences and Foreign Language Teaching (1982) by Hu Wenzhong, etc. Moreover, many other English teachers explored teaching methods to introduce target culture into their language class. For example, He Ziran and Yan Zhuang (1986) gave advice to incorporate culture elements in discourse, grammar, and vocabulary to ensure “pragmatic appropriateness”. Similar efforts could be seen in Wang Weihua (1987), and Wu Guohua (1990).Culture teaching in this period is only regarded as the introductory, neither systematic nor mature.
In the 1990s, cultural study focused on the research of intercultural communication. A number of representative works on the linguistic and pedagogical studies of culture and intercultural communication appeared. For instance, Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing (1989) made systematical comparative studies on foreign culture and Chinese culture, enriching the research materials in this field. Gu Jiazu (1990) not only analyzed the connection between language and culture from macro aspects but also introduced features of different foreign cultures from micro aspects such as ethnic cultural values, tradition, literature, and etc. Hu Wenzhong (1990) studied the factors influencing intercultural contact and characteristics of culture within the scope of intercultural communication. Scholars have realized the importance of values, social norms, and ways of life as well as that of material culture. Researches about culture teaching were carried out systematically both at a macro level and at a micro level from late 1980s to late 1990s. The objective of culture teaching in this period is to develop students’ IC competence and great achievement has been made.
Other books, such as Jia Yuxin’s Intercultural Communication (1997), and Hu Wenzhong’s Culture and Communication (1994) and Aspects of Intercultural Communication (1999) also discussed culture teaching.
To sum up, the research has been fruitful in culture teaching and the review of culture teaching history gives us the insight into the development in cultural studies.
2.8 Summary
This chapter first presents the historical development of culture teaching in foreign countries and in China, and then deals with current situation of culture teaching in China. We can conclude that culture teaching research has gained great improvement. Its importance and necessity have been recognized. Recently, special attention has been paid to the cultivation of students’ intercultural communicative competence by means of integrating culture teaching with language teaching.
However, problems still exist. To sum up, present culture teaching has at least four main problems: ambiguous and unsystematic teaching syllabus, dull teaching method, inefficient teaching staff and improper testing system. All of these situations produce so many students who can get high marks in their examinations but cannot communicate with native speakers in a proper way. To reflect upon the current situation of culture teaching in China is necessary since there are really some problems in it requiring immediate action to.
Chapter Three: Methodology
As previously mentioned, a great deal research on the relationship between culture and EFL teaching has been made since 1980s greatly influenced by the foreign counterparts. Language use cannot exist outside a certain social context; on the other hand, language is not only a tool of communication, but also a means to reflect cultural features of a nation (Halliday, 1973:41). They are intertwined. Therefore, acquiring cultures of English-speaking countries is of great importance. Teachers have paid much attention to the teaching of culture and EFL teaching has made great progress in some aspects. Yet students are generally said to be incompetent in English communication, though most of them have learned it for six to eight years since junior middle school or even primary school. The reasons may be various, like teaching methods, materials, facilities, and so forth. But a very important reason for being incapable of communication is inefficient exposure to the target culture, students having little acquisition of cultural events. This further proves the necessity of the teaching of culture in EFL teaching. On this, the author in this chapter makes a survey on the overseas-study students’ acquisition of IC competence through College English.
3.1. Research Questions
This study focuses on why, what and how to teach IC in College English. To find out the students’ IC competence at present, the attitudes of students towards the teaching of culture, and the contents of the teaching of culture, the author as well as the researcher attempted to answer the following research questions:
1) What is the current situation of IC teaching in EFL Teaching?
2) What is the importance of IC teaching?
3) What measures should we take to improve the IC teaching in EFL Teaching?
3.2. Subjects of the Research
The subjects in the research include 60 students sampled at random from Shandong University at Weihai who are now studying abroad. (See Table 3.1) Among them, ten students were interviewed and the other 50 students were distributed questionnaire. All the students take New Horizon College English and College English (New Edition) as their English textbook when they were in China. All of them have learned English for eight years and have not attended the CET4. They are actively engaged in the learning of College English. Therefore, the researcher can claim them as a representative sample, though the numbers of the subject is small to some extent.
|
Background
Subject |
Gender |
Grade |
Length of Study |
English Level |
|
M |
F |
One |
Two |
8 year |
9 year |
H |
I |
L |
|
Interview Group (10) |
4 |
6 |
5 |
5 |
7 |
3 |
2 |
6 |
2 |
|
Questionnaire Group (50) |
19 |
31 |
34 |
16 |
21 |
29 |
14 |
32 |
4 |
Table 3.1 The Background Information of Subject
Note. H=High; I= Intermediate; L=Low
3.3. Instruments
The research was designed according to Liu Lisha's graduation thesis (Liu Lisha, 2008), which can be divided into two parts including interview and questionnaire that is composed of two parts: the first part is on culture competence and students’ understanding of culture study; and the second part is on the contents of the IC teaching.
All of the items chosen for the questionnaire are multiple-choice questions. The first part includes 10 questions on the attitudes of the students towards English and IC study. For the convenience of statistic analysis, the researcher makes it in the form of multiple choices and as a part of the questionnaire. In this part Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 are the description of subjects’ characteristics and what kind of country he or she is now studying in. Questions 6, 7, 8 are for the awareness directly described by students towards the teaching of culture; Questions 5, 10 are for the present situation of the teaching of culture and students’ sensitivities towards culture as well as the teaching of culture.
3.4. Structure of the Instruments
The interview instrument (See APPENDIX I) includes five questions which are all about culture shock and intercultural adaptation and acquisition. These five questions are elaborately designed in wording and sequence. In each question, there are several sub-questions about the same gist.
Nearly all five questions are begun with a yes-no sub-question, which is then followed by what or how questions.
The total 15 questions in the questionnaire (See APPENDIX II) are located in two independent parts. Part one is designed to investigate the current situation of IC teaching in EFL teaching and the importance of IC teaching.
Part two is designed to investigate how to take some measures to improve the IC teaching in EFL teaching and which is more efficient and suitable for overseas-study students during their intercultural sojourning.
The ten questions in part one use the Likert Scale, which was first introduced by Rensis Likert, to evaluate how subjects react to the items the author gave. Among the five scales, “one” means strongly disagree, and “five” means strongly agree. For Part One, subjects can answer questions only by writing something or choosing an appropriate answer from the given options. Part Two includes five questions, for each of which four options are provided indicating different IC teaching method. Finally, all subjects are required to fill in the Background information which is mainly about the demographics of the subjects including name, gender, age, the length of English learning, English level, etc.
3.5. Data Collection
The author interviewed ten subjects by msn, QQ and Skype on the five questions (See APPENDIX II) and collected answers after the interview. The author designed the questionnaire according to the results of interview and then distributed the questionnaire to another fifty subjects through internet and asked them to choose the appropriate answers to the questions. The subjects were informed that they should finish the questionnaire honestly and independently. The papers were required to be accomplished in two days. After collecting the answer sheets, the researcher made necessary numerical calculation and analyzed the statistical results. Finally, the implications and conclusions are drawn on the base of data.
Chapter Four: Analysis, Discussion, Results and Findings
4.1 Analyzing and Discussing Data from the Interview
By means of the interview, a qualitative study is developed to analyze raw data gained from ten subjects. Answers of the five questions can show some similarities and commonalities of intercultural adaptation although fifty subjects have different backgrounds.
►Question 1
For the first question which is about the first impression of the host country and the first feeling of being abroad, 89% of the subjects still have a clear memory and use the following adjectives to describe the beginning part of their studying abroad experience: exciting, curious, different, fresh, cool, wonderful, and so on. All of these words totally correspond to what have been described in honeymoon stage of U-Curve Model (Figure 4.1, 4.2). 26% of the subjects even show that they have a strong desire to share these excitement and freshness with relatives or friends, while others also state that they may feel a little uneasy and nervous about the new environment. Different subjects experience different duration of this first arriving stage, from a couple of days to a few months.
Figure 4.1 U-Curve Figure 4.2 Stages of Culture Shock
►Question 2
From the answers to the second question the author draws the conclusion that all subjects definitely have different degrees of difficulties or problems in their proceeding daily life after or the moment they arrive in the host country. These difficulties or problems cover a wide and various range. Both in study life and non-study life, language barriers appear to be the most obvious one. What they have prepared for language at home is only a beginning for further studying in the totally native environment. Besides language, huge quantities of reading and writing assignments in most foreign educational systems are also what they feel difficult to complete in their study life.
In study life, the transition from traditional Chinese education approaches such as the teacher outputting and the student inputting to modern foreign education approaches such as critical thinking and cooperative learning also combines to be the impact Chinese International Students have to face.
In non-study life, most students admit that main problems and difficulties come from accommodation and food, and others also state that climate and entertainment are aspects they couldn’t adapt to. A few subjects even mention that prejudice and discrimination set many obstacles to smoothly continue their daily life. Most of them choose to face and solve problems or difficulties rather than give them up. Getting more contacts with locals and natives as well as , institutions is one of the most effective ways. Learning from other students who have been abroad earlier is the most direct method. Trying their best to learn the host culture in formal or informal ways are some other solutions. Most of them show that they have solved these problems or difficulties at present.
►Question 3
For the third question about the opinion on IC knowledge in EFL teaching in China, most subjects view that it is helpful to their overseas-study especially in daily life aspect. Most of knowledge they learned in class can be used abroad such as the vocabulary, slangs, greetings, custom, traditions and so forth. But 39 subjects consider that the IC knowledge they learn in English class is out of date. The students need most updated knowledge which is more helpful to them if they live and study in a foreign country.
►Question 4
For the answers to the fourth question, most subjects show that they have already adapted to the new environment. In fact, the superficial level adaptation can be achieved by a large majority of subjects representing in their adapting to the overseas life. However, the deep level adaptation can be achieved by few of them. Most of them couldn’t really adapt to cultural values and social norms in the host country. Although they are still in the process of adaptation, they clearly feel the changes and even some growth after going abroad. Some of them show that they have become more flexible and smarter to solve problems and difficulties. Their intercultural communication competence has been greatly improved. The sojourning experiences make them become more psychologically mature and behaviorally independent. Others even show the confidence that if they are given another chance to sojourn in another new foreign country, they will definitely not behave themselves as they have done earlier, and at least, there will be less stress and pain.
►Question 5
The answers to the last question show that most subjects still present their preferred tendency for home culture, others show that they feel like a in-between influenced by both home culture and host culture, and few of them indicate that they have totally become “foreign” or “assimilated”. When the subjects who start their sojourning at an older age or with a higher education level, it will be hard for them to totally give up the home culture and assimilate into the host culture. These subjects will choose to stand on the side of home culture when they complete their sojourning journey. However, for those who start their sojourning at a younger age or with a lower education level, it is possible to become completely foreign no matter from what aspects, the outer appearance such as body languages, and the inner aspects such as ways of thinking, cultural values and so on.
4.2 Analyze and Discuss Data from the Questionnaire
4.2.1 Analyze and Discuss Data from Part One
After studying 50 subjects' responses to ten questions in part one of the questionnaire, the author gains the final results about the characteristics and personality of the subjects, current situation of IC teaching in EFL Teaching, the effect and evaluation of present EFL Teaching.
◆The statement “I am open-minded, optimistic and confident“ mainly reflects the subjects' characteristics. Among the 50 subjects, 10 students strongly agree, which is 20 percent. 32 students agree, taking up 64 percent. 7 are uncertain or neutral, which takes up 14 percent. Only 1 student disagrees, which is 2 percent. From the result, the author may easily find that 84% of subjects are open-minded and optimistic. (See Table 4.1)
|
I am open-minded, optimistic and confident, |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
disagree |
1 |
2.0 |
2.0 |
2.0 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
7 |
14.0 |
14.0 |
16.0 |
|
agree |
32 |
64.0 |
64.0 |
80.0 |
|
strongly agree |
10 |
20.0 |
20.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.1
◆The statement “I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad.”, 7 strongly agree, taking up 14 percent. 31 agree, which takes up 62 percent. 10 are uncertain or neutral, which takes up 20 percent. 2 students disagree, which is 4 percent. No one choose “strongly disagree”. From the result, we may easily get the conclusion that 76% of subjects are easy-going and good at communication. (See Table 4.2)
|
I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
disagree |
2 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
10 |
20.0 |
20.0 |
24.0 |
|
agree |
31 |
62.0 |
62.0 |
86.0 |
|
strongly agree |
7 |
14.0 |
14.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.2
◆Compared with the statement “I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad.”, which 13 subjects strongly agree, occupying 26 percent. 37 agree, which takes up 74 percent, the statement “I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad.”, 7 agree, taking up 14 percent. 33 are uncertain or neutral, which takes up 66 percent. 10 students disagree, which is 20 percent. From the obvious difference, we may draw the conclusion that the EFL Teaching is lack of culture knowledge. To believe that whoever is learning English is also learning the culture knowledge and skills required to be a competent L2 / FL speaker “denies the complexity of culture, language learning, and communication” (Lessard-Clouston, 1997). It is deemed important to include IC in EFL curriculum. (See Table 4.3, 4.4 &4.5)
|
I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
agree |
37 |
74.0 |
74.0 |
74.0 |
|
strongly agree |
13 |
26.0 |
26.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.3
|
I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
disagree |
10 |
20.0 |
20.0 |
20.0 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
33 |
66.0 |
66.0 |
86.0 |
|
agree |
7 |
14.0 |
14.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.4
|
|
Valid |
Missing |
Total |
|
|
N |
Percent |
N |
Percent |
N |
Percent |
|
I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad * I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad |
50 |
100.0% |
0 |
.0% |
50 |
100.0% |
|
I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad * I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad Cross tabulation |
|
Count |
|
|
|
I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad |
Total |
|
|
|
disagree |
uncertain/neutral |
agree |
|
I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad |
agree |
8 |
26 |
3 |
37 |
|
strongly agree |
2 |
7 |
4 |
13 |
|
Total |
10 |
33 |
7 |
50 |
Table 4.5
◆For the statement “I had a lot of communication with nationals from my arrival country before studying abroad.”, 14 are uncertain or neutral, which takes up 28 percent. 28 students disagree, which is 56 percent. 3 choose “strongly disagree”, which is 6 percent. 90% all together don’t give positive answer to this statement which illustrates that in China students do not have a lot of chances to communicate with native speakers. (See Table 4.6)
|
I had a lot of communication with nationals from my arrival country before studying abroad |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
strongly disagree |
3 |
6.0 |
6.0 |
6.0 |
|
disagree |
28 |
56.0 |
56.0 |
62.0 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
14 |
28.0 |
28.0 |
90.0 |
|
agree |
5 |
10.0 |
10.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.6
◆For the statement “I had some prior visiting or studying experiences in foreign countries before studying abroad.”, 9 strongly disagree, taking up 18 percent. 41 disagree, which takes up 82 percent. No one choose “strongly agree”, “agree”, “uncertain/neutral”. (See Table 4.7) This result shows that all subjects learn English in China and no one contacts real other cultures by themselves before they study abroad.
|
I had some prior visiting or studying experiences in foreign countries before studying abroad |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
strongly disagree |
9 |
18.0 |
18.0 |
18.0 |
|
disagree |
41 |
82.0 |
82.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.7
◆For the statement “My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier.”, 7 strongly agree, taking up 14 percent. 30 agree, which takes up 60 percent. (See Table 4.8) The pros occupy 74% among all subjects, which illustrates that most of overseas-study students agree that English class in China is useful. But there are still 26% students disagree or keep uncertain, which claims that the EFL Teaching is not satisfactory to some extend. We need to change the teaching content and method to make the college English teaching more effective.
|
My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
disagree |
6 |
12.0 |
12.0 |
12.0 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
7 |
14.0 |
14.0 |
26.0 |
|
agree |
30 |
60.0 |
60.0 |
86.0 |
|
strongly agree |
7 |
14.0 |
14.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.8
4.2.2 Analyze and Discuss Data from Part Two
After studying 50 subjects’ responses to five questions in part two of the questionnaire, the author gains the final results about the preference opinion on IC teaching methods, learning methods, textbooks, homework and main resource of information.
Teaching Methods: For this question, 15 students choose “Teacher-Student Interacting” as their preferred EFL Teaching method, which takes up 30 percent. 26 students choose “Teacher Lecturing” as their preferred EFL Teaching method, which takes up 52 percent. 9 students choose Both “Teacher-Student Interacting” and “Teacher Lecturing” as their preferred EFL Teaching method, which takes up 18 percent. Nobody chooses “Neither Teacher-Student Interacting Nor Teacher Lecturing” (See Table 4.9). From the result, we can easily draw the conclusion that more than half of subjects prefer to be the passive role in English class. In almost all Chinese classrooms, the teacher is the center of classroom activities. The lecture method is the most popular way to teach and it has been assumed that students learn best by listening to and talking to the teacher.
|
Which EFL Teaching method do you like? |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
Teacher-Student Interacting |
15 |
30.0 |
30.0 |
30.0 |
|
Teacher Lecturing |
26 |
52.0 |
52.0 |
82.0 |
|
Both Teacher-Student Interacting And Teacher Lecturing |
9 |
18.0 |
18.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.9
Learning Methods: For the question “Which method do you like to learn English?”, 39 students choose “Cooperative Learning” as their preferred learning method, which is 78 percent. 11 students choose “Individual Learning” as their preferred learning method, which is 22 percent. Nobody chooses “Both Cooperative Learning And Individual Learning” or “Neither Cooperative Learning Nor Individual Learning” (See Table 4.10). It is obvious that most of subjects are keen on group learning for English as a language is with the characteristics of communication. Cooperative learning is more convenient in interacting study.
|
Which method do you like to learn English? |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
Cooperative Learning |
39 |
78.0 |
78.0 |
78.0 |
|
Individual Learning |
11 |
22.0 |
22.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.10
Textbook: For the question “Which kind of Intercultural Communication textbook do you like?”, 40 students choose No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Related Books) as their preferred Intercultural Communication textbook, which is up to 80 percent. 8 students choose Fixed Textbooks as their preferred Intercultural Communication textbook, which is 16 percent. Only 2 students choose Both Fixed Textbooks And No Fixed Textbooks, which is 4 percent. (See Table 4.11) This data especially the dominant part of subjects of choice one makes it clear that students are fond of most kinds of culture-related books while the current English textbook in Chinese university falls behind of this.
|
Which kind of Intercultural Communication textbook do you like? |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Related Books) |
40 |
80.0 |
80.0 |
80.0 |
|
Fixed Textbooks |
8 |
16.0 |
16.0 |
96.0 |
|
Both Fixed Textbooks And No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Re |
2 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.11
Assignment: For the question “Which form of homework or assignment do you like best?”, 41 students choose Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper as their preferred homework pattern, which is up to 82 percent. 8 students choose Theory Implication in Forms of Paper as their preferred homework pattern, which is 16 percent. (See Table 4.12) The result indicates that most of subjects prefer practical assignment to theory homework. However, the traditional homework is composition writing or sentence translation which is far away from intercultural knowledge.
|
Which form of homework or assignment do you like best? |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper |
41 |
82.0 |
82.0 |
82.0 |
|
Theory Implication in Forms of Paper |
8 |
16.0 |
16.0 |
98.0 |
|
Neither Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper Nor Theory Implication in Forms of Paper |
1 |
2.0 |
2.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.12
Information Resource: For the question “What mass media do you mainly use to gain Intercultural Communication information?”, 46 students choose Internet, which is up to 92 percent. 4 students choose TV, which is 8 percent. (See Table 4.13) It is not difficult to understand subjects’ choice in this item for we are in modern era in which internet and TV are indispensable. How to make full use of these two kinds of mass media gives our EFL instructors suggestions in future teaching.
|
What mass media do you mainly use to gain Intercultural Communication information? |
|
|
|
Frequency |
Percent |
Valid Percent |
Cumulative Percent |
|
Valid |
Internet |
46 |
92.0 |
92.0 |
92.0 |
|
TV |
4 |
8.0 |
8.0 |
100.0 |
|
Total |
50 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
|
Table 4.13
Chapter Five Implications and Recommendations
5.1 Pedagogical Implications for EFL Teaching
How can we incorporate culture into the English language curriculum, with a view to fostering cultural awareness and communicating insight into the target civilization? In the past, this has been attempted by dint of discoursing upon the geographical environment and historical or political development of the foreign culture, its institutions and customs, its literary achievements, even the minute details of the everyday life of its members. At other times, insight into the target community has taken the form of small lectures on such issues as marriage customs and ceremonies, festivals, Sunday excursions, and so forth. To each culture more efficiently, we should take more elements into consideration:
►Culture teaching must be commensurate with the dynamic aspects of culture. Students' knowledge of and about the L2 / FL culture through receptive channel is not sufficient. Learners will also need to master some skills in culturally appropriate communication and behavior for the target culture.
►Cultural awareness is necessary if students are to develop an understanding of the dynamic nature of the target culture, and this calls for culture teaching in a systematic and structured way.
►Evaluation of culture learning is a necessary component of the foreign culture curriculum, providing students with feedback and keeping teachers accountable in their teaching.
5.2 Recommendation on EFL Teaching
There is no better preparation for intercultural communication than learning about the other culture. Fortunately, there are numerous sources to draw on to instruct EFL Teaching like one-one instruction, on-line lessons, original textbooks, tutor of spoken English and resource from all over the world. (See Figure 5.1)
Figure 5.1: The Effective Model of EFL Teaching
5.2.1 Improving the Teaching Method
In the past few decades，language teaching has shifted the emphasis from the mastery of language structure to the mastery of language the strategy works like this: teachers present a structure, drill it, practice it in context…then move to the next structure. In this way, teachers build up the inventory of structural items that students can handle. For the evaluation of language learning the examination is the only judgment. As a result，many students，especially non-English majors，can neither use English to communicate with foreigners nor make themselves understood by others. What students have learned only classroom English or Transmission English.
Figure 5.2 below shows the ‘Transmission’ model, which is standard in English language classes in China--students' mastery of knowledge is the center of learning, which is on the basis of teacher, textbook, grammar and vocabulary. Figure 5.3 illustrates the ‘Acquisition’ model (Jin & Cortazzi, 1998, pp102-103), which is standard in English EFL classes.
Figure 5.2 A Chinese Cultural Model of Learning English
Figure 5.3 A Western Cultural Model of Foreign Language Learning
5.2.2 Choosing Updated Culture-relevant Teaching Materials
Starting from the 1960s, college English textbooks have undergone four phases in all. In the course of teaching and learning textbooks have played a very important role, for they are the main basis on which teachers conduct their teaching and the main content on which students focus their learning. Textbooks, while keeping a constant supply of language materials, introduce students the cultures of foreign countries and regions, thus making it convenient for students to be familiarized with the cultures of the world and exerting a relatively remarkable influence on the fostering of students’ awareness and competence of intercultural communication. Though an increasing number of scholars are interested in the research in intercultural communication and EFL Teaching and learning, it seems that so far no serious attempt has been made to explore textbook development on the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence, and the empirical research is extremely scarce.
Textbooks provide students with language materials, simultaneously immersing them into the atmosphere of foreign cultures, which will help them to understand better the world culture and develop intercultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence. As far as non-English majors are concerned, their English courses are designed differently from English majors’, and furthermore they have no textbooks on intercultural background specially designed for them and are less favored with target language atmosphere. Generally speaking, learners have few or no opportunities to interact with native speakers, thus having no possibility of “acquiring” or “picking up” English naturally. Most Chinese students learn a foreign language simply by attending school. This state of affairs implies that acquisition of foreign culture knowledge is to a large extent determined by textbooks.
Currently, the textbooks of EFL Teaching in China are College English-Integrated Course (CE) and New Horizon College English (NHCE) which cover some culture knowledge but the content is mainly not realistic. What the native speakers talk about in their daily life is not adequately represented, e.g. You bet vs. You are right. Another example is most of Chinese students know that America has traditionally been referred to as a “melting pot” , welcoming people from many different countries, races, and religions, all hoping to find freedom, new opportunities, and a better way of life. While, today the trend is toward multiculturalism, not assimilation. The old “melting pot” metaphor is giving way to new metaphors such as “salad bowl” and “mosaic”, mixtures of various ingredients that keep their individual characteristics. Immigrant populations within the United States are not being blended together in one “pot”, but rather they are transforming American Society into a truly multicultural mosaic. If we still use “melting pot” to define American culture, it is not appropriate or advances with the times.
5.2.3 Changing Traditional Classroom Learning Environment
The traditional approach to teaching in a college puts students and teachers together in a classroom where learning takes place which was called Classroom Learning Environment. (See Figure 5.4) In the Classroom Learning Environment, teachers explain new ideas and concepts and students may but seldom get the opportunity to question the teacher. Table 5.2 shows some of the advantages and disadvantages of the classroom learning environment.
Figure 5.4 The Classroom Learning Environment
|
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Classroom Learning Environment |
|
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|
Clear-cut time allocated to teacher |
Difficult to get feedback from students |
|
Large amount of knowledge are inculcated |
Few chance for students to use knowledge |
|
Teacher can charge the pace of class |
Students accept knowledge passively |
Table 5.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of the Classroom Learning Environment
5.2.4 Making Good Use of the Internet
Intercultural communication happens more often than before in today’s world, because of the Internet. The Internet has provided a new concept and new form to intercultural communication, compared with the traditional mass media. With regard to its impact on teaching and resultant student learning, many educators point to evidence that the internet can result in enhanced presentations and in the development of students’ motivation.
Figure 5.5 The Components of the Internet Learning Environment
5.2.5 Encouraging Students to Recognize and Face Their Own Fears
For example, the students may fear for their self-esteem. They may become anxious about their ability to control the intercultural situation or they may worry about their own level of discomfort. They may fear saying something that will be considered politically incorrect or culturally insensitive and thereby losing face. This is the biggest problem of Chinese students. Those students who are sanguine and have a large scale of friends can learn more in English class. (See Table 5.2) As a teacher, we should know how to encourage students to get rid of this kind of fear.
|
Case Processing Summary |
|
|
|
Cases |
|
|
|
Valid |
Missing |
Total |
|
|
|
N |
Percent |
N |
Percent |
N |
Percent |
|
|
I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad * My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier |
50 |
100.0% |
0 |
.0% |
50 |
100.0% |
|
|
I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad * My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier Cross tabulation |
|
Count |
|
|
|
My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier |
Total |
|
|
|
disagree |
uncertain/
neutral |
agree |
strongly agree |
|
I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad |
disagree |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
|
uncertain/neutral |
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
|
agree |
2 |
10 |
15 |
4 |
31 |
|
strongly agree |
1 |
1 |
5 |
0 |
7 |
|
Total |
6 |
13 |
24 |
7 |
50 |
Table 5.2 Cross tabulation
5.2.6 Cultivating Students’ Interest
We always say that interest is the best teacher. If students are interested in learning English, they will get twice the result with half the effort.
Figure 5.6 Study Process
Then how to cultivate students’ interest in English learning is a thorny problem. According to Nigel Paine’s opinion, learning can be reached by reading, hearing, seeing, saying and doing. (See Figure5.7) The present best way is mixing different teaching methods like organizing discussion on hot issues, playing a movie, assigning a drama play, using pictures and audio materials, etc.
Figure 5.7 Cone of Learning -- idea from Nigel Paine's blog
5.2.7 Encouraging Students to Listen Actively
Listening is not the same as hearing which involves five steps: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding (See Figure 5.8). The process of active listening is a listener expresses his or her understanding of the speaker’s total message, including the verbal and nonverbal, the thoughts and feelings. Listen actively by paraphrasing the speaker’s meanings, expressing an understanding of and an acceptance of the speaker’s feelings, and asking questions to check the accuracy of your understanding, thereby encourage the speaker to explore further his or her feelings and thoughts and increase meaningful sharing. (Joseph A. Devito 2004:52)
Figure 5.8 A Five-Stage Model of Listening
5.2.8 Teachers’ Development.
In the IC teaching process, teachers play a significant role. There are two aspects: 1) EFL teachers are not properly trained before and after they became teachers. Some administrators are more concerned about the teacher’s foreign language proficiency than their knowledge and skill of teaching methodology. They follow the textbook rigidly without attempt to enrich their teaching; 2) many EFL teachers are lack of overseas-study experience. Seeing is believing. If the EFL teachers don’t know what the real cultural environment is, how could they teach the students the latest culture information? Hence, giving specific train and sending the teachers abroad for some time is necessary for improving the EFL Teaching in China.
5.3 Limitations of Research
Firstly，due to the limitation of conditions，only 60 overseas-study students from Shandong University at Weihai took part in the students’ survey, which only occupies 12% of all overseas-study students that may affect the result of the research.
Secondly，because the author is inexperienced，the design of the questionnaire maybe flawed. A more thoughtful plan should be prepared for the research.
Thirdly, this research should be focused on in a long time to catch the developing tendency and put forward the more effective suggestions.
5.4 Suggestions for Further Study
Due to the limitation of length of the thesis，there are a lot of things which are not deeply elaborated. There are still other works about the study that can be explored further. In the future study，the initiative of students can be investigated and examined because students are the subject of learning. Also，more effective culture teaching methods can be designed and tested in the class to give culture teaching more vitality.
Chapter Six: Conclusion
Currently, in China’s EFL Teaching, great importance has been attached to the teaching of culture. However, the present situation of IC teaching in EFL is not satisfying. There are still some problems in the teaching practice. The thesis discusses these problems and proposes several tentative solutions.
The whole process of teaching and learning another language is a process of meaning negotiation and construction between the learners’ native language and culture and the target language and culture. With EFL Teaching placed into a general framework of intercultural education, we propose a paradigm shift from communicative language teaching to intercultural communicative language teaching. It has been argued that the ultimate goal of EFL Teaching is to develop learners’ intercultural communicative competence, which involves not just skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in English, but more importantly the intercultural literacy education that enables the learner t, o cross boundaries and transcend cultural differences in and through the English he or she has learned. A model of intercultural communication competence and a framework for an intercultural communicative approach to EFL Teaching in China have been constructed based on the above understandings.
It is well-known that the teaching of culture and learning is a long-term and successive process, in which both teachers and students are expected to make great efforts. Through the IC teaching, teachers should help students gain a better understanding of the significance of culture in learning English; teachers ought to foster students’ culture awareness, enrich their culture knowledge, enlarge their insights into the world and develop their cultural communicative abilities. In short, the teaching of culture helps a lot in achieving the utmost goal of the foreign language teaching, that is to say, it’s helpful to the intercultural communicative competence. The teaching of culture, a relatively new field of research, requires a great deal of endeavor of researchers and teachers in the future.
Based on the six years of teaching experience, the author discusses some teaching approaches or activities which may be helpful to the IC teaching. Meanwhile, the author offers some advice on being qualified EFL teachers through improving their own IC competence. This thesis is a theoretical exploration of the dynamics within the process of English language education with a particular focus on the construction of a conceptual framework of an intercultural communicative approach to ELT in China. Nevertheless, owing to the limited time and the insufficient knowledge, the present thesis is far from satisfying. Some problems are not solved well. For instance, there exist some weaknesses in the interview and questionnaire such as there are only 60 overseas-study students from Shandong University at Weihai being chosen as the subjects, so the sample size is relatively small. If the research were carried out on a larger scale, the results would have been more effective.
To sum up, with the proposal for an intercultural communicative approach, the author wishes to call for the interculturalization of EFL Teaching in China: Teaching English for IC, of IC and as IC. Teaching English for IC requires that the goal of EFL Teaching be set for the development of learners’ intercultural communication competence. Any ideas and practices that are against this goal should be rejected. Proximity to native speaker norms will no longer be held as the sole criteria for good teaching and learning. What is emphasized in the EFL Teaching is not just the grammatical usage, but how English as an international language can be used by people from different cultural backgrounds as an instrument for constructing meanings, relationships and identities. Learners are expected to become intercultural speakers through English rather than mere proficient speakers of the target language.
Teaching English of IC means all teaching activities should be related to intercultural communication, from goals to content, to methods, and to assessment. To bring out the full value of the selected resources for intercultural communicative teaching and learning, class activities that engage learners in intercultural communication are encouraged. And the evaluation should be made on progress of intercultural learning instead of exclusively on linguistic knowledge and skills.
Teaching English as IC is to view the teaching and learning process as a process of intercultural communication. Intercultural interaction characterizes the EFL Teaching classroom and at the same time effectuates productive learning and teaching. Recognizing the ongoing intercultural interactions at different levels and between different subjects will help the teacher to understand the nature of EFL Teaching and find out the most effective way to ensure intercultural teaching and learning.
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Appendix I
Interview Questions
1. Do you still remember the feelings of first arriving in the host country? What kind of feelings are they? How long do they last?
2. Have you met any intercultural communication difficulties or problems in your daily study and non-study life since you arrived in the host country? What kind of difficulties or problems are they? Please give an example.
3. What do you think of the intercultural communication knowledge in your English class in China? Is it helpful to your overseas study?
4. Do you think you have adapted to the culture of the host country up till now?
5. How do you think of your location in both home culture and host culture?
深度访谈
1. 你是否记得初到留学国家的感受？那都是一些什么样的感受？那些感受持续了多久？
2. 自从来到现在学习的国家之后，日常学习和生活中你是否遇到过文化障碍方面的困难？请举出实例。
3. 你认为在中国的英语课上学到的跨文化交际方面的知识是否有限？对你的留学生活是否有所帮助？
4. 你认为自己现在是否已经适应了留学国家的文化？
5. 你现在如何定位自己与两种文化的关系？
Appendix II
Questionnaire
First-checking： NO.：
Second-checking： Code：
Type-in： Check：
Dear student,
Thanks for your reply to this questionnaire, while you are busy with your daily life. Your personal information is only used for academic purpose and will be taken as strictly confidential.
Start : ___ End: _____ Way of Interview: ____
Part I
This part is designed on the purpose of investigating how important and what is the current situation of the IC teaching for Chinese overseas students.
The following questions should be answered by circling one number which presents your comment on the statements.
1. strongly disagree 2. disagree 3. uncertain/neutral 4. agree 5.strongly agree.
1. I am open-minded, optimistic and confident. 1 2 3 4 5
2. I am brave enough to take risks to try new challenges. 1 2 3 4 5
3. I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad. 1 2 3 4 5
4. I persist in resolving problems rather than giving them up. 1 2 3 4 5
5. I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad.
1 2 3 4 5
6. I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I had a lot of communication with the nationals from my arrival country before studying abroad. 1 2 3 4 5
8. I had some prior visiting or studying experiences in foreign countries before studying abroad. 1 2 3 4 5
9. My arrival country is ethnically heterogeneous and culturally plural.
1 2 3 4 5
10. My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier. 1 2 3 4 5
Part II
This part is designed on the purpose of investigating what kind of IC teaching method that Chinese overseas-study Students are interested in. Two perspectives will be taken into consideration,Tteacher-centered or Student-centered.
1. Which EFL Teaching method do you like?
A. Teacher-Student Interacting
B. Teacher Lecturing
C. Both Teacher-Student Interacting And Teacher Lecturing
D. Neither Teacher-Student Interacting Nor Teacher Lecturing
2. With which method do you like to learn English?
A. Cooperative Learning
B. Individual Learning
C. Both Cooperative Learning And Individual Learning
D. Neither Cooperative Learning Nor Individual Learning
3. Which kind of Intercultural Communication textbook do you like?
A. No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Related Books)
B. Fixed Textbooks
C. Both Fixed Textbooks And No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Related Books)
D. Neither Fixed Textbooks Nor No Fixed Textbooks (Wide-Ranging Related Books)
4. Which form of homework or assignment do you like best?
A. Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper
B. Theory Implication in Forms of Paper
C. Both Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper And Theory Implication in Forms of Paper
D. Neither Investigation or Experiment in Forms of Paper Nor Theory Implication in Forms of Paper
5. What kind of mass media do you mainly use to gain Intercultural Communication information?
A. Internet
B. TV
C. Newspaper
D. Radio
Background
Name: _____________________
Age: _______________________
Gender: A. Male B. Female
Arrival Country: _________________
Length of Stay Abroad: ________________
Foreign Language Level Before Arrival Abroad: A. High B. Intermediate C. Low
How many years have you learned English before you study abroad? __________
THE END
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE
调查问卷
一审： 编号：
二审： 编码：
录入： 复核：
亲爱的同学：
你好！我是山东大学威海分校2007级英语专业硕士研究生，正在进行一项有关跨文化交际与大学英语教学的调查，需要您的配合。您的回答正确与否无关紧要，请客观陈述您的观点。我保证对您的个人资料完全保密，敬请放心。非常感谢！
开始时间: 结束时间: 访问方式:
第一部分
该部分旨在调查我国大学英语教学中跨文化交际知识的重要性及其现状。
为了合理判断作者给出的陈述，你可用下划线方式从以下五个级别中做出选择，并将你的答案圈出来。
1 完全不同意 2 不同意 3 不确定或中立 4 同意 5 完全同意
1.我是一个开朗、乐观、自信的人。 1 2 3 4 5
2. 我能够勇敢冒险并积极尝试新鲜事物。 1 2 3 4 5
3. 无论在国内还是国外我都有非常广泛的朋友圈。 1 2 3 4 5
4.我做事情总是持之以恒解决问题，而并非中途放弃。 1 2 3 4 5
5.出国前很长一段时间，我一直在学习外语。 1 2 3 4 5
6.出国学习前我已经非常了解留学国的各方面。 1 2 3 4 5
7.出国学习前我经常同在中国的留学国人民交流。 1 2 3 4 5
8.来留学国学习之前，我就有或多或少的国外旅行或学习经历。 1 2 3 4 5
9.现在留学的国家是一个民族多样性、文化多元化的国家。 1 2 3 4 5
10.国内的英语课给我提供了许多便于生活和学习的支持和帮助。1 2 3 4 5
第二部分
该部分旨在从学习和生活两方面研究应采取何种教学方法教授跨文化交际知识。
1. 你喜欢什么样的英语教学方法？
A. 教师—学生互动型
B. 教师传授型
C. 教师—学生互动型和教师传授型都喜欢
D. 教师—学生互动型和教师传授型都不喜欢
2. 你喜欢采取什么样的方法学习英语？
A. 合作学习（小组合作）
B. 独立学习
C. 合作学习（小组合作）和独立学习都喜欢
D. 合作学习（小组合作）和独立学习都不喜欢
3. 你喜欢什么类型的跨文化交际教材？
A. 无固定教材 （广泛阅读相关书目）
B. 有固定教材
C. 无固定教材 （广泛阅读相关书目）和有固定教材都喜欢
D. 无固定教材 （广泛阅读相关书目）和有固定教材都不喜欢
4. 你喜欢什么形式的课后作业？
A. 论文形式的调查或实验
B. 论文形式的理论反思
C. 论文形式的调查或实验和论文形式的理论反思都喜欢
D. 论文形式的调查或实验和论文形式的理论反思都不喜欢
5. 日常生活中你主要通过哪些大众传媒获取跨文化交际的信息？
A. 互联网
B. 电视
C. 报纸
D. 广播
背景资料
姓名：________________
年龄：________________
性别： A. 男 B. 女
留学国家：_______________
在国外（至今）总共学习的时间：____________________
出国前的外语水平：A. 高级 B. 中级 C. 低级
出国前学习英语的年限：_______________________
访问至此结束，再次感谢您的帮助！
Appendix III
|
Descriptive Statistics |
|
|
N |
Minimum |
Maximum |
Mean |
Std. Deviation |
|
Questionaire |
50 |
1.00 |
50.00 |
25.5000 |
14.57738 |
|
I am open-minded, extroverted, optimistic, confident, strong, flexible and responsible |
50 |
2.00 |
5.00 |
4.0000 |
.67006 |
|
I am brave enough to take risks to try new challenges |
50 |
3.00 |
5.00 |
4.0400 |
.63760 |
|
I have a large circle of friends wherever I am, home or abroad |
50 |
2.00 |
5.00 |
3.9200 |
.72393 |
|
I persist in resolving problems rather than giving them up |
50 |
2.00 |
5.00 |
3.7200 |
.70102 |
|
I had learned the host language for a long time before studying abroad |
50 |
3.00 |
5.00 |
4.2000 |
.49487 |
|
I had an overall knowledge about the arrival country before studying abroad |
50 |
2.00 |
4.00 |
2.9400 |
.58589 |
|
I had a lot of communication with nationals from my arrival country before studying abroad |
50 |
1.00 |
4.00 |
2.4200 |
.75835 |
|
I had some prior visiting or studying experiences in foreign countries before studying abroad |
50 |
1.00 |
2.00 |
1.8200 |
.38809 |
|
My arrival country is ethnically heterogeneous and culturally plural |
50 |
2.00 |
5.00 |
4.0000 |
.60609 |
|
My English class in China provided me with supports and helps to make life easier |
50 |
2.00 |
5.00 |
3.6400 |
.87505 |
|
Which EFL Teaching method do you like? |
50 |
1.00 |
3.00 |
2.1200 |
.84853 |
|
Which method do you like to learn English? |
50 |
1.00 |
2.00 |
1.2400 |
.43142 |
|
Which kind of Intercultural Communication textbook do you like? |
50 |
1.00 |
3.00 |
1.2600 |
.52722 |
|
Which form of homework or assignment do you like best? |
50 |
1.00 |
4.00 |
1.2200 |
.54548 |
|
What mass media do you mainly use to gain Intercultural Communication information? |
50 |
1.00 |
2.00 |
1.0800 |
.27405 |
|
Valid N (listwise) |
50 |
|
|
|
|
Acknowledgement
Five months’ hard work has finally put this thesis into shape. My heart is full of gratitude for those who have ever helped and encouraged me; otherwise my thesis would not have been so smoothly fulfilled.
First, I would like to thank my respected supervisor, Professor Chang Xiaomei for leading me into the door of intercultural communication which has broadened my horizons and enriched my life. Thank you for being so patient and supportive whenever I turn to you for help.
Professor Finnie A. Murray, thank you for your friendship and encouragement all the time. Thank you for inviting me to your house and tell me a lot about intercultural communication which molds my own entertaining and enlightening intercultural communication culture.
Bruce and Edward, it is very kind of you to offer relevant materials to me and spend a lot of time reading my thesis carefully, giving detailed suggestion for improvement and correcting my mistake.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents and all my friends for their help and support. They always light up my world and give me strength to strive for my goals.
Thank you all so much!
List of Published Papers
1.广告英语的词汇和句法欣赏,《科学时代》2008年第7期，第31-32页，第二作者
2. Religious and Cultural Factors Affecting Word Meaning, 《高等教育与学术研究》2008年第8期，第119-124页，第一作者
