Research on British and American Culture Introduction in College English Teaching

Abstract

Language is a part of culture, which acts as carrier of culture. It not only reflects culture, but also is influenced by culture. Human culture is diversified and varied, which is the same as human language. If learners learn a language only without comprehension on culture as basis of its survival, they can not master and apply language well like water without source and tree without root. Research on relationship between language and culture in foreign language teaching was started in the 1980s, but the theory research is always different from practice teaching of college English to certain extent, thereby it is necessary to reform college English education. Culture is the indispensable part for students in learning English, which is also the most most overlooked aspect in English teaching. The author is involved in college English teaching for more than ten years, and realizes a common phenomenon among students, namely foreign language learning effect is affected due to insufficient comprehension on western culture. Therefore, teachers should train and improve the students' language level on one hand, meanwhile they should pay attention to cultivate students' ability of cross-cultural communication in English consciously on the other hand in English teaching. In the paper, necessity of British and American culture introduction is studied, reasons for Chinese students to make mistakes in British and American culture learning are analyzed, several implementation methods of introducing culture into English teaching as well as requirements on the role of teachers are proposed.