Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 554 Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2021) Disposition and Practice of Bi-culture Input in Teaching Integrated Course of New College English Ling He1 Xiaobo Zhang2,* 1School of Humanities & Education Science, Foshan University 2Faculty of Foreign Languages, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, China *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT The western culture has been attached much importance in textbook-compiling whereas Chinese culture as well as the comparison between Chinese and western culture has been neglected to some extent in college English teaching for a long time. As one of the most popular textbooks, the Integrated Course of New College English (2nd Edition) contains rich cultural topics, but it still focuses too much on the western culture. Based on the notion of “Bi-culture Input”, college English teaching can be fulfilled by the following two steps: first, combing the cultural themes according to Byram’s evaluation model of cultural contents in textbooks; second, teaching different kinds of themes with different focuses under James’ analytical framework of culture in ESL instruction, that is to say, balance in the focus on the learners’ culture with a focus on the second language culture, developing culture awareness and empowering learners. The study attempts to construct a college English class model integrating the development of language skills and culture literacy, which aims to cultivate the students’ culture awareness, culture self-confidence and their ability to convey Chinese culture in English. Keywords: Integrated Course of New College English (2nd Edition), “Bi-culture Input”, cultural themes, analytical framework of culture in ESL instruction New College English (second edition) (hereinafter 1. INTRODUCTION referred to as "Integrated Course") as the research object, under the guidance of "Bi-culture input" concept, first of In the past several decades, college English teaching all, combs the cultural themes in Integrated Course based has put more emphases on cultivating students’ language on the classification of cultural themes in textbooks posed skills instead of their cultural literacy. Consequently, in by Byram, and then explores the approaches of teaching the compilation of college English textbooks, the content cultural knowledge. We aim to nurture students' cultural of Chinese and foreign cultures was downplayed and the awareness, enhance their output capability and evoke profound influence of Chinese and foreign cultures was their confidence in Chinese culture, by combining the ignored, which failed to keep the combination of cultivation of language capacity and that of cultural language and culture in foreign language teaching. To literacy in in-class teaching. improve this situation, fostering college students’ cultural literacy has been accordingly added into College English 2. LITERATURE REVIEW OF Teaching Objectives and curricular standards in recent INTEGRATED COURSE years. For example, The College English Teaching Guide (2017) puts forward the goals of "enhancing students’ Integrated Course is recommended by the Ministry of intercultural communication awareness and Education as one of the college English textbooks, and it communicative competence" and "improving students’ is also one of the most widely-used college English comprehensive cultural literacy"; The College English textbooks in China. Since it came into use, many scholars Teaching Curriculum Requirements take "the ability to have carried out a lot of research on it. As early as the end translate articles reflecting China's national conditions or of the last century, the necessity and importance of culture" as a higher requirement for college students' culture introduction to college English teaching have English ability. This paper, with Integrated Course of attracted much attention in China[1][2], and the cultural Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 157 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 554 contents in college English textbooks are also of great culture in cross-cultural communication, and fail to carry concern. The research on the cultural knowledge in forward the Chinese excellent traditional culture. Integrated Course mainly focuses on the following two Cong(2020) also points out the fundamental reason of aspects: (1) the analysis of its cultural content, such as: this phenomenon. “At all levels of English teaching in Zheng Xiaohong[3] (2009) studies the cultural value China, the reform of increasing cultural content in orientation and the characteristics of the texts, and Yu teaching tends to introduce the custom and convention, Ran[4] (2016) categorizes and analyzes the cultural material culture, system culture and spiritual culture of themes in textbooks according to the six classifications of the English world. However, the Chinese culture, as the general education ; (2) the approaches of teaching cultural background of Chinese students, is almost cultural knowledge, such as: Zhang Ye[5] (2013) neglected in English classes” [10].A large number of discusses the application of Integrated Course to the studies (e.g., Xiao Longfu, Xiao Di, Li Lan, Song Yiwen, cross-culture communication teaching, and Wu 2010; Zhu Min, Xie Hua, Gao Xiaoxi, 2016) [11][12] show Xianyun[6] (2012) explores the strategies of culture input that "Chinese cultural aphasia" is a very common in teaching vocabulary, reading, listening and speaking in problem in college English teaching. According to the New College English. These studies are of great guidance questionnaire[13], it is found that college students and for taking full advantage of textbooks to cultivate college English teachers in China have great expectations students' cultural literacy. for appropriately and adequately adding Chinese cultural knowledge into English classes, and they hope to With the deepening of the research on culture input, overcome the problem of ‘Chinese cultural aphasia’ in the integration of Chinese culture into foreign language English teaching through their joint efforts. teaching has been widely recognized and highly valued (Zhang Weimin and Zhu Hongmei, 2002; Yuan Fang, Therefore, increasing the input and reserve of Chinese 2006; Zhou Xueting, Xue Shuli, 2019; Etc.) [7][8][9]. cultural knowledge in English classes and forming the However, there is still some lack in the studies on the mode of "bi-culture input" can help students pick up the cultivation of Chinese cultural literacy in teaching ability to express Chinese culture fluently and correctly Integrated Course. This paper attempts to provide a new in English and solve the problem of “Chinese cultural route and method for the introduction of Chinese culture aphasia” among college students. in college English classes and the cultivation of students’ cultural literacy (both the Chinese culture and the western 3.2. To Enhance Students’ Intercultural culture). Communication Competence 3. THEORETICAL GROUND OF THE “Intercultural communicative competence is the SHIFT FROM “MONO-CULTURE INPUT” ability to properly use language and cultural knowledge to make effective and appropriate communication with TO “BI-CULTURE INPUT” IN COLLEGE members of different cultures, and it is the decisive factor ENGLISH TEACHING in intercultural communication activities”[14]. It requires Under the background of globalization, in order to communicators to acquire bi-cultural competence of the achieve China’s strategic goal of building a cultural mother tongue and the target language, instead of the power, college English teaching should be shifted from mono-cultural competence. To some extent, “intercultural communicative competence is the ultimate the sole input of English language skills and culture to [15] “bi-culture input” that adds contents of Chinese culture. goal of foreign language education” . However, the This measure will be helpful to solve “Chinese culture English teaching in China fails to achieve this goal. aphasia” in foreign language teaching, foster students' English Teachers in junior and senior middle school give intercultural communication competence, and cultivate priority to students’ acquisition of English language students’ cultural awareness and cultural self-confidence. knowledge and skills. College English teachers In this way can we build up cultural self-confidence occasionally touch on western culture, but cultural among diverse cultures in the world, spread the splendid knowledge isn’t one of the teaching focuses, but just the traditional Chinese culture in the world and tell Chinese complement and extension of teaching contents, not to stories well. mention the input of Chinese cultural classics and splendid culture. Consequently, our classes cannot foster 3.1. To Solve the Problem of “Chinese Cultural students’ cognition of our Chinese culture, which is one Aphasia” in College English Teaching in China aspect of the intercultural communication competence, and in many cases the students cannot conduct successful “Chinese cultural aphasia” is a concept put forward intercultural communication. Therefore, it’s necessary to by Cong Cong in the article published in Guangming execute "bi-culture input" in college English teaching to Daily in 2000. It refers to