Work

Students’ Attitudes towards Cultural Learning in the English Classroom: A Case Study of Non-English Major Students in a Chinese University

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: The aim of this paper was to investigate Chinese non-English major university students’ interest in learning about Big “C” and little “c” cultural themes of different countries. A questionnaire was randomly distributed to 69 students in a university in China. Research findings revealed that the respondents were in favor of learning mostly about their own culture, followed by target and international target culture. Regarding cultural themes, they seemed to show a slightly stronger preference towards Big “C” over little “c” culture. With respect to Chinese (source) culture, students were interested in learning about “History”, “Food”, and “Holidays”; for international target culture (i.e. the cultures of France, Egypt, Japan, Brazil, and Iran), the respondents were curious to learn about the cultural themes of “Geography”, “Food”, and “Holidays”; and for the target culture (i.e. America and Australia), the cultural themes of Science” and “Geography” were favored by the respondents. Pedagogical implications of training learners to improve their ICC are offered.

Source: International Journal of English Language Education

DOI: 10.5296/ijele.v1i3.3508

Authors: Songmei Liu, Chonlada Laohawiriyanon

Institution: Prince of Songkla University

Language: English

Topic: EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Yunnan Normal University