Study on cross-cultural communication in college English teaching

Due to the rapid development of China’s social economy and the firm implementation of the policy of opening up to the outside world, China has begun to develop more and more talents with high level and high quality to go abroad to participate in the cultural exchange in the context of globalization. Therefore, the university teaching mode, especially the College English Teaching in the academic community and the society has become more important. How to effectively cultivate more specialized personnel to participate in the international communication has been becoming the focus of people’s study now. Based on cross-cultural communication, this paper will discuss the teaching mode of College English in China, so as to train more cross-cultural communication talents with this kind of teaching mode.

Analysis of the essential connotation of cross-cultural communication.

Cross-cultural communication actually is the exchange between native and alien languages, seen from the essentially, it is the communication under the two different cultural and linguistic environment through an intermediary language. In the process of communication, the user of the two languages is not only to exchange information through such a platform, but also to form a cultural exchange by this kind of communication. This cross-cultural communication involves many aspects, including the social and cultural aspects informed by the religious beliefs, social environment and cultural knowledge of different ethnic groups. There are a lot of national language expressions and habits among them, so as to present the different meanings. However, the expression habits of different cultures are different, and it is easy to cause distortion of the language in the process of cross-cultural communication by using meta language. There will be specific problems of misunderstanding and failure in the process of cross-cultural communication.

The design level of cross-cultural communication ability is complex, seeing from the whole knowledge frame people can know thatit not only contains the specific grammar and vocabulary, but also includes the situation of mastering the culture and specific social situation of the intermediate language in the practice. Therefore, in the process of English teaching, the teaching staff should not only broaden the vision in the specific grammar knowledge and related vocabulary content, but also take into account whether this knowledge can play an important part in the real communication process, which has a decisive impact on the actual cross-cultural communication. According to the research by the communicationscholars, the effective communication should include behavior, emotion and cognition. It should also contain the plot structure on this basis. Therefore, in the process of English teaching, the teachers should help the learners avoid misunderstanding in the daily communication as more as possible, and finally achieve the purpose of communication.

Current situation of college English cross -cultural teaching in China.

The traditional English Teaching in Chinese colleges and universities has been developed for manyyears, however, the students have difficulty in communicating with foreigners in the aspects of intercultural communication, which has been aware by the vast number of educators and researchers. For a long time, the colleges and universities still insist on paying focus on words learning, sentences analysis, and content understanding. The aim of English curriculumemphasizes students’ ability to master and use the language without pay much attention to the target culture. As a result, most students learning English knowledge in college devote alltheir energy to the mechanical imitation of English sentences, words, writing, grammar and vocabulary training. The defect sources of this teaching method mainly include the following three levels:

Traditional examination oriented teaching method.

The main purpose of the English teaching in Colleges and universities is still dealing with daily examination, such an examination oriented education means to pay attention to master the way of answering questions, grammar and vocabulary accumulation for students.But when turns to their oral ability and other sectors,they are relatively weak, which finally affect students’ English communicative competence. Although students have mastered the grammar structure, and can communicate in English, there are a variety of problems in language communication because of the lack of the culture.

The level of teachers’ cross-cultural knowledge.

Chinese English teachers are also learning through the traditional way, they are accustomed to make «language ability» as the main teaching objective, such teaching model has been accepted widely in the daily teaching process of College English. Therefore, it is impossible to integrate English cultural background knowledge into such a teaching method effectively in the daily teaching process. In this case, English cultural knowledge and communication skills become empty, and can not play a role in the daily English courses.

Language is the carrier of culture, whose formation and development is indispensable to its culture. Language is the platform of cultural communication, andthe main support to guarantee its development. Both culture and language are related to each other, and there is the maintenance of the complementary relationship between culture and language. Therefore, in order to make the students more clearly understand the cultural connotation of English expressions, it is necessary to analyze the meaning of English culture in the process of teaching and learning. However, most of collegeand university teachers in China do not realize the importance of the relationship between culture and language education. Teachers in the teaching process mainly focus on theoretical teaching now, rarelyintroducing the traditional culture of English speaking countries, which causes students not to thoroughly understand the connotation of the expressions even though theyknow in what way the expression can be used. This teaching method restricts the competence cultivation of students, affecting the improvement of their integrated ability of English.

Construction of college English teaching mode based on cross-cultural communication theory.

Teaching objectives and principles.

In the teaching of College English, people should introduce the concept of intercultural communication into teaching, so as to enhance the students’ practical ability to use English, and deepen their understanding of teaching principles; taking the teaching goal as the important reference to the design of principles; taking deep consideration of the overall teaching goal on the basis of the requirement of «College English Curriculum Standard», at the same time, setting diversified teaching goal according to the students’ actual ability, adjusting timeto meet the requirements of personal training. When determining the teaching content and scope, syllabus should be worked out as analysis reference basis, so as to ensure that the chosen language content has the certain cultural background knowledge. Besides, under the premise of reducing the burden of students, it’s important to select typical course content, making sure that the focus are prominent. When determining the content of culture teaching, it is necessary to select the language content as the reference basis, select the typical case to build an open teaching system, and introduce different cultural values into the concept of teaching, thus helping students form a diversified cultural experience. The culture and language content selected and chosen must have correct value guidance, and fosterthe validity of the cultivation of the emotion value. For the selection of teaching materials, it is necessary to follow the principles of «real» and «optimal», and select advanced, excellent domestic materials at the same time.

In addition, in the classroom teaching, teachers need to follow the principles of the combination of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and follow the students’ cognitive rules of language, finally build a meaningful teaching situation. Making the students as the center of teaching activities, teachers should take the role of teaching and guidance to build a lively and harmonious classroom atmosphere, emphasizing the interaction of teaching, mobilizing the enthusiasm of students, so that each student is clear about the goal and role of classroom teaching, and obtains different learning experience and cognition through appropriate reflection. In the formulation of teaching strategies, teachers should give full consideration to each student’s actual learning situation, make diversified, different, and flexible teaching methods, andencourage the students to participate in the classroom activities.

Project of teaching content and mode.

The purpose ofteaching goal based on intercultural communication of College English teaching should start with enhancing students’ English application skills, and strengthening their comprehensive ability of using English. It shouldmake emphasis on the construction of their overall communicationlevels, and the cultivation of students’ ability to communicate in the target language, combine Chinese and foreigncultural perspective, thus locating the teaching mode settings.

First, cultivate students’ comprehensive ability in English, including listening comprehension, oral expression, reading comprehension, writing, translation,etc., deepen their language ability, and exercise their skills. Secondly, make the intercultural communicative competence training throughout the whole process of classroom teaching, pay more attention to the students’ cognition, emotion and behavior, which can help the students to fully understand the cultural differences between nativeand target language, and fully understand the cultural background of the target language based on the explicitly different from our traditional customs, cultural characteristics, value and thinking mode. The teachers should understand the differences and similarities between the two, understand the reference system, and then help the students adjust their individual behavior in the context, and make good preparation through predicting the value orientation of communication object. In addition, it is also necessary to cultivate students’ intercultural competence, including empathy ability and self adjustment ability, which will be the important goal of College English teaching. At the same time, the students’ ability of cross-cultural behavior, including the correct use of language, language information exchange, communication strategy, etc.Students’ intercultural communicative action is an important external manifestation of their cultural communicative competence. Therefore, in the teaching activities, teachers need to cultivate the students’ ability of speech, intercultural communication, as well as non-verbal behavior.

Conclusion.

In summary, with the continuous development of human society, the international trade is becoming more and more frequent, and the demand for English majors with the rapid development of the country is increasing. Under the background of multi-culture, English teaching has some special characteristics, it has certain complexity, that is, the translation of the same sentence is different in different context or different culture. Therefore, it is important to study cross-cultural communication in college English teaching model, which provides a solid foundation for English teachers to develop English teaching activities, and provides important basis and information for teachers to innovate teaching methods and construct a new teaching model.

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