Cultivation of Chinese Students’ Cultural Awareness in College English Teaching

Abstract

Language and culture are always closely mingled together and sophisticatedly interact with each other. Language is a main expression of culture; meanwhile language is a carrier of culture. There is no language without the influence of culture. Therefore, it is imperative to integrate culture education with language teaching, have students understand different culture through the introduction of cultural knowledge, comparison of cultural phenomenon and cultivation of students’ cultural awareness from the aspects of typical cultural difference including value, national psychological characteristics, thought pattern and connotation of vocabulary and idioms. When carrying out language teaching, teachers should provide students more materials and references related to western culture at the same time of exploring cultural points in textbooks, and designing more class activities, such as role-play and mini drama, comparison and contrast, holding parties on western festivals, etc. to widen students’ cultural horizon and thereby develop students’ cross-cultural communicative competence in order to get acclimatized to the new world that is increasingly globalized and internationalized.

Key words: Culture; Language; Cultural awareness; Cultural difference; Cross-cultural communicative competence