Traditional Chinese Culture in Foreign Language Teaching at Colleges

高勝利

Abstract:With the increasing chance of communication with native speakers in this digital and information era，college students have been obtaining more and more of foreign culture and information through various channels and activities.However，quite a lot of college students at present are ill-informed of the traditional Chinese culture，especially in an environment where teachers pay more attention to students’language acquisition and understanding of foreign cultures，and where they were taught mostly the skills of passing important exams during the senior high school years，making it hard for students to remember and love their native culture，let alone to carry it forward in the process of foreign language learning.Therefore，it is urgent that traditional Chinese culture be strengthened in college foreign language teaching with the aid of the advanced technical methods.

Key words:traditional Chinese culture；foreign language teaching；digital and information era

I.Status quo of foreign language teaching at colleges

1.Language-centered classroom teaching

Traditionally，most colleges in China have attached great importance to the“four skills”，namely，listening，speaking，reading and writing in teaching languages while grammar，word memorizing，etc are examined in all kinds of exams.Learners don’t get the deep cultural meanings behind the languages.The reasons may vary.The most realistic one，for most educators，is lack of effective methods and practical conditions.

As a tool of communication，a foreign language serves as a medium for students to access other cultures.It is important for students to realize cultural exchange in acquiring a foreign language，while focusing on some certain cultural themes.However，traditional Chinese culture seems to have been classroom absentwhich is common in a majority of language classes.Having no say in the ceremony of cultural exchanges between traditional Chinese culture and foreign cultures makes it hard for Chinese learners to introduce their own culture in normative foreign languages or achieve cross-cultural exchanges in a true sense.It is true that in Band-4 and Band-6 exams aimed to check Chinese college students’English acquisition levels，traditional-culture-themed writing tasks have been assigned，but most students can find no better ways to fully describe Chinese traditional customs，festivals and architectures，etc when they are trying to fulfill the tasks.This reflects the worrisome phenomenon of lack of traditional Chinese culture in foreign language teaching and learning，which results in“dumb English”or“language nerd”.Such“aphasia”of traditional Chinese culture should be paid great attention to in college language teaching in order to truly transfer the present language teaching at colleges to a correct path of culture-centered language teaching.

2.Traditional classroom-pattern-dominated teaching

Diversified and flexible as it is，teaching patterns at colleges have been teacher-centered as far.In the course of curriculum revolution，college classroom teaching has witnessed certain achievements with the aid of the information technology.However，it cannot be ignored that modern language teaching classrooms are still at“network outage”of the Internet era.Although computer-aided teaching has been adopted by college teachers，who are doing nothing but teach students to correctly spell certain words，use grammatical rules，etc，with much of the work PPT-related basic functions of computers.It can rarely be seen that the Internet has been positively used in helping students better understand foreign cultures and traditional Chinese cultures.Meanwhile，the students become“cans”that passively receive anything the teachers“instilled”in their minds with very little communication with their teachers.The many possibilities of the Internet technology have yet to be explored in college foreign language teaching.

3.Guidance that fell behind the time

Where the whole world is making real-time communication by means of the network，the cultural influence and soft power serve as symbols of nationhood as well.And contemporary college students are important forces to disseminate our cultures to foreign countries.It has been part of the“four self-confidence”in following the trend of actively pushing forward the dissemination and innovation of traditional Chinese culture by making the most of it while voicing its significance in various occasions and documents，leaving impact on more people in vigorously realizing the beauty in traditional Chinese culture and strengthening cultural confidence.Nevertheless，in reviewing the present foreign language teaching process at colleges，one can easily find that，more often than not，the importance of traditional Chinese culture has been overlooked and in curriculum construction and textbook compilation，traditional Chinese culture covers only a very small portion in linguistic textbooks.On the contrary，the young generations are actively taking in foreign cultures，with foreign films，entertainment，game cultures at their fingertips.However，when speaking of traditional Chinese culture，they are at a loss how and where to start -which is seriously backward against the guidance of actively expanding the worldwide influence of Chinese culture of our country.

II.Measures for combining college foreign language teaching and traditional Chinese culture

Change language teaching to cultural education

In transforming college language teaching from language teaching to cultural education，improvements must be made in the whole teaching system to achieve cross-cultural communication in college language teaching by raising the rate of appearance of traditional Chinese culture.Cultural educational reformation can be made as follows：

First，teaching staff at colleges should strengthen their own cultural quality.At present，most college foreign language teachers are native Chinese speakers without relevant foreign cultural environment and life experience or sufficient ability to make deeplevel cultural exchanges by using foreign languages to introduce traditional Chinese culture.Therefore，the present-day foreign language teachers at colleges should actively improve their own teaching ability by making relevant research on cross-cultural exchanges applying traditional culture，making use of traditional Chinese culture in their practical teaching process while bringing students along to spread traditional Chinese culture in foreign languages.

Second，innovation of textbook compilation.To change the present situation of traditional cultural shortage in college foreign language teaching，textbooks used in classrooms must be innovated on the basis of the present college curriculum reform standard by including excellent traditional culture in the textbooks in a rational way.Such textbooks should have excellent Chinese and foreign cultures included so as to develop students’abilities in speaking，reading，listening and writing by focusing on different cultural themes，enabling students to transform and integrate traditional culture and standard foreign languages while developing higher cultural literacy in students.

Third，more attention should be attached to cultural education in foreign language course offering.In the language teaching process，colleges and teachers should actively develop and innovate language cultural courses，conduct various cultural exchanges exhibition activities in public courses and encourage students to seek common points while reserving differences and better assimilate all kinds of cultures by making comparisons and understanding the differences between foreign and traditional Chinese cultures.Meanwhile，the arrangement of elective courses should have students’ interests and teachers’ competency integrated，such as foreign and Chinese literature appreciation，traditional culture adaptions and other courses，which enable students to apply foreign languages more flexibly while spreading Chinese cultural works in foreign languages.Thus such curriculum provision，combining language teaching and cultural education，enables students to construct a good ecological environment of language learning，infusing traditional cultural into college foreign language teaching.

III.Conclusion

College foreign language teaching should be taken as an important cross-cultural exchange platform to bring out new vitality in traditional Chinese culture by making use of the rapid development of the Internet technology.Only by enhancing the say of traditional culture in the teaching of foreign languages can our younger generations better understand differences and similarities between different cultures and become pracitioners of cultural transmission while harvesting more fun.