1 IntroductionCultivation of cultural consciousness became a part of foreign language education. More and more college English teachers have come to realize its critical role in college English teaching. Efforts have been made to integrate culture elements into language classes. However, despite the blossoming development in culture teaching in college English teaching in China, there seems a big discrepancy between theoretical researches and the actual practice. Both college teachers and students are not satisfied with the current culture education in universities. Worst of all, the current culture education in college English teaching makes negative contribution to students’ personality development. Due to the perennial practice of test-oriented education in China, they are good at memorizing and imitating; on the other hand, they suffer from poor logic thinking and cultural quality. This teaching model is characterized by learner centeredness and learning-centeredness. By learning-centeredness, it means the idea that teaching process is as important as teaching content; therefore, teachers are supposed to create or adopt various teaching methods that stimulate learners’ enthusiasm and creativity in college English class activities. In China, the goal of tertiary English teaching is to ensure linguistic competence. The theory of language, grammar and vocabulary are very thoroughly presented while the English culture is deliberately avoided for fears of cultural imperialism. The consequence is low motivation among undergraduates and memorizing without understanding. It is common understanding of researchers and professionals that language is inseparable from culture. If learners intend to master a linguistic system, they have to grasp first its culture, of which language is a major carrier and medium; if learners want to use a foreign language, they have to learn to communicate with other individuals in a new cultural context. However, there are still some policy-makers and administrators who either ignore the concept or deny its validity. Without access to a general picture of the English—speaking world, students have little perceptual knowledge of English and hence low motivation in college English learning. In effect, cultural ineptitude can affect detrimentally both students’ capacity for successful language acquisition as well as their personal and general educational growth.
2 The Relationship between Language and Culture
2.1 Language-and-Culture
In the culture, the language is literally everywhere. Anyone immersed in the culture sees and hears the language all around. In this context language and culture are clearly fused: one reflects the other. Recently, language educators have attempted to coin new words to reflect this fusion: linguaculture (Krarnsch 1989；Fantini, 1995), languaculture(Agar,1994) or language-and-culture (Byram and Morgan, 1994). The latter one is the term the paper will use. Language-and-culture conveys both unification and separation. It acknowledges that we can deal with each separately and both together. To state the obvious, language embodies the products, practices, perspectives, communities, and person of a culture. To fully reveal the culture, we must examine the language. Language is a product of the culture, as any other, but it also plays a distinct role. Members of the culture have created the language to carry out all their cultural practices, to identify and organize all their cultural products, and to name the underlying cultural perspectives in all the various communities that comprise their cultures. The words of the language, its expressions, structures, sounds, and scripts reflect the culture, just as the cultural products and practices reflect the language. Language, therefore, is a window to the culture. To practice the culture, we also need language. We need to be able to express ourselves and to communicate with members of the culture as we engage with them in the myriad practices and products that make up their way of life. Moreover, we need to do this appropriately, using the right language in the right way, according to the expectations of the members of the culture. This is the language of self-expressions, communication, and social interaction. It is based on direct experience in the culture and interactions with members of the culture, in all the complexity this entails.
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