A Survey on Freshmen’s Perception of Biblical Knowledge in Intercultural Communication

Fengjuan Zhang

doi:10.5539/ijel.v2n6p31

Abstract

To date, research on the Bible is mainly confined to literature review or argumentation. This article attempts to get a general idea of learners’ conception of biblical culture in developing intercultural communicative competence (hereafter referred to as ICC), as well as the current situation of their biblical knowledge. Data analyses in the survey have reported evidence for the positive and upward tendency among the respondents, indicating much interest and willingness to spend more extracurricular time in learning English. This survey also shows that most respondents agreed to the important role of western culture, but they did not fully perceive the important role of biblical knowledge in learning the English language. In addition, data analysis has led to the conclusion that respondents had grasped less biblical knowledge than expected. This explains the possibility and necessity to promote this positive situation. Then, some pedagogical improvements were addressed on how to affect teaching practice by integrating biblical knowledge into teaching materials.

Highlights

IntroductionThe proportion of empirical research articles on intercultural communication (hereafter referred to as IC) in academic journals has reached no more than 1%, let alone the topic of integrating biblical knowledge into English language teaching (hereafter referred to as ELT)
The proportion of empirical research articles on intercultural communication in academic journals has reached no more than 1%, let alone the topic of integrating biblical knowledge into English language teaching
Data analyses in the survey have reported evidence for the positive and upward tendency among the respondents, indicating much interest and willingness to spend more extracurricular time in learning English. This survey shows that most respondents agreed to the important role of western culture, but they did not fully perceive the important role of biblical knowledge in learning the English language

Summary

Introduction

The proportion of empirical research articles on intercultural communication (hereafter referred to as IC) in academic journals has reached no more than 1%, let alone the topic of integrating biblical knowledge into English language teaching (hereafter referred to as ELT). Research on the Bible is mainly confined to literature review or argumentation, covering domains of religion, law, architecture, arts, literature, language, etc. What’s worse, the disciplinary orientation of research on IC remained confusing in the past two decades of IC research (Zhang, 2010). Researchers attending the 2010 Chinese Intercultural Disciplinary Development Conference further advocated versatile research methods on IC, by switching to deductive research, empirical research and quantitative research (Zhang, 2010)

Methods

Results

Conclusion