Cultivating Students’ Cultural Confidence in Col

Cultivating Students’ Cultural Confidence in College English Watching Listening and Speaking Classroom
Yang Li
Chengdu College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract: In today’s society, as the reform of the university education system continues to advance, the purpose and content of university English teaching is gradually adjusted to improve students’ overall English ability, especially the need to strengthen students’ watching, listening and speaking abilities and skills. Students need to be able to use their English skills proficiently in their studies, work and social life to meet their English needs. An important role of the college English watching, listening and speaking classroom is to improve students’ daily English social skills, and by giving full play to the role of English watching, listening and speaking, students will be able to strengthen their understanding of English and their ability to express themselves orally. Although there has been research on the teaching of English watching, listening and speaking for some time, and the functional and practical areas of English watching, listening and speaking are increasing, there are still many shortcomings. Therefore, there is a need to effectively integrate modern teaching resources, focus on strengthening students’ cultural confidence in the classroom, and coordinate the links between the various components in order to help students improve their overall English language skills. Keywords: College English; Watching; Listening and Speaking Classroom; Cultural Confidence
DOI: 10.47297/wspiedWSP2516-250016.20220602
In the long-term practice of teaching English, it is concluded that closely integrating the essence of Chinese culture with the teaching of English can effectively improve students’ ability to listen, speak, read and write. In this way, while testing students’ basic mastery of English, it can also strengthen students’ Chinese cultural literacy and help develop their self-confidence and sense of achievement in learning English. Chinese culture is significant in strengthening students’ self-confidence. Students can share their understanding of Chinese culture
About the author: Yang Li (1988-07), Female, Sichuan Province, Han nationality, School of International Studies, Teaching Assistant, Master, English Translation & Bilingual Com-munication.
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and inspire a strong sense of patriotic enthusiasm and national pride, which can motivate them to learn English knowledge consciously and actively. Teachers need to improve their teaching effectiveness in the audiovisual classroom, mediate the class rhythm and simplify the teaching steps. Besides, we need to enrich the interaction between teachers and students and enhance the emotion between teachers and students.
1. The Significance of Developing Cultural Confidence in the College English Watching, Listening and Speaking Classroom
The root of the national spirit and the crystallization of the people’s wisdom is culture, the original driving force that embodies the core values of socialism and the spiritual motivation to realize the Chinese dream. Self-confidence is the expression of excellen t personality, and the self-confidence in Chinese traditional culture is expressed as the broad-mindedness and the tenacious and unyielding spirit. Cultural self-confidence can give full play to the national spiritual power, and is the spiritual foundation for the Chinese nation to stand in the world. College students are the future of the country and the successors of socialist modernization. In the process of university education, it is especially necessary to strengthen the cultivation of students’ self-confidence. However, the cultivation of college students’ self-confidence should not only focus on the self-confidence of cultural contents, but also teach students to master the ways and methods of self-confidence, so that they can understand how to face different cultures and different ideas, “take the essence and remove the dross”, promote the national culture and inherit the spirit of China. Therefore, cultivating the cultural self-confidence of college students is of great theoretical and practical significance to enrich students’ character education and build a strong society.
(1) Theoretical significance
Building the cultural confidence of college students is conducive to enriching and improving the teaching system of English watching, listening and speaking speaking. The purpose of teaching English watching, listening and speaking courses is to improve students’ comprehensive ability. Promoting the cultural confidence of college students and integrating the core socialist values into the teaching process can not only promote the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but also enable students to continuously comprehend the essence of Chinese culture and inspire a strong sense of national identity and mission. In addition, cultural self-confidence can broaden students’ horizons so that they can examine and judge the performance of things from a dialectical perspective, comprehend the law of development of things, effectively control themselves and grasp the future.
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(2) Realistic meaning
Firstly, it is conducive to improving the learning outcomes of English audio-visual teaching, regulating the classroom atmosphere and enriching the teaching content. Classroom time for English teaching is limited, while students consolidation and use in daily life is unlimited. Therefore it is necessary to strengthen students’ cultural confidence so that they can actively and consciously strengthen their consolidation and study of English outside the classroom in order to complete the learning tasks assigned by teachers in a quality manner, improve their overall English ability, and meet the demand for English talents from the country and society.
Secondly, it contributes to the scientific and practical nature of character education work. The cultivation of cultural self-confidence in higher education institutions should be based on the current situation of cultural self-confidence of contemporary college students. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately grasp the current situation of college students’ thoughts and effectively analyze as well as solve it. At the same time, the ideological and cultural education activities are actively carried out to strengthen patriotic cultural inculcation.
Finally, cultural confidence helps college students establish correct values. With the rapid development of science and technology and the high-speed transmission of information, the world has entered the era of “global village”. Contemporary college students are immersed in a vast sea of information every day, among which there is the impact of ideas and culture. Therefore, in the teaching process, it is necessary to cultivate students’ cultural confidence, strengthen their understanding and promotion of traditional culture, “critically inherit” foreign culture and ideas, firmly establish national beliefs and national sentiments.
2. Specific Measures to Cultivate Cultural Confidence in the T eaching of “Watching, Listening and Speaking” in University English
(1) Integrating traditional culture into English “audio-visual speaking” teaching
Chinese traditional culture is profound and has a long history. After students learn about the essence of Chinese traditional culture, they face the problem of how to absorb and master it. In the past, most of the English teaching content was based on Western history, culture, humanities, and society, with the purpose of exposing students to “pure” English knowledge and achieving standard English skills. In the long run, the English classroom has become a cradle for the dissemination and promotion of British and American culture, to the extent that the inculcation of
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traditional Chinese culture has been “neglected”. The reasons for this phenomenon are well illustrated by contemporary students’ love for Western holidays. Many students are familiar with “Christmas” and “Thanksgiving Day”, but know little about “Chongyang Festival” and “Dragon Boat Festival”. This is contrary to the original intention of the country to cultivate talents with socialist core values, and may even encourage students to worship foreigners. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to effectively adjust and improve the content of the college English “watching, listening and speaking” teaching, integrate traditional Chinese cultural ideas into the teaching practice, guide students to look at Western culture and ideas rationally, and improve their ability to learn English comprehensively by avoiding their shortcomings.
For example, when explaining sports and the Olympic spirit, the textbook should not only contain relevant information and personalities from abroad. China also has many athletes and Olympic medalists who have won glory for their country, and in 2008, China hosted the Olympic Games in Beijing. It is not only the national spirit of the Olympic athletes’ perseverance, tenacity and never giving up that has deeply inspired the children of China. During the Beijing Olympic Games, countless outstanding volunteers, security workers, and behind-the-scenes workers emerged. Their glorious deeds and national spirit are also worth learning and carrying forward by college students. Therefore, teachers should make a scientific and reasonable design for the teaching content, so that students can experience the Olympic spirit with Chinese characteristics in a diversified and deeper way, and taste the meaning of fraternity, fairness and justice of Chinese Confucian culture from the Olympic spirit of all people, so that the teaching of English “watching, listening and speaking” will no longer become only a means of spreading Western ideas.
(2) Integrating life elements into English “watching, listening and speaking” teaching
Western countries, represented by the United Kingdom and the United States, have cultures, religious beliefs, ideas, languages, and behavioral logic that are vastly different from those of China, so students will struggle, become anxious, or even resent or resist learning English knowledge, which seriously affects the quality of teaching and learning and makes half the effort. Situational teaching method can be a good solution to this problem. By organically linking many elements in real life with English knowledge, it will present the picture of daily life in students’ brains, deepen their understanding of English knowledge while stimulating their interest in learning, and thus improve their English usage skills.
For example, when teachers test students’ English language organization skills, they can introduce real-life events into the English writing topics, for
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(3) Incorporate patriotic ideas to strengthen students’ cultural confidence
The growth of the student body is crucial to the development of nations and peoples. Nowadays, countries around the world compete fiercely, not only for military, economic, and technological strength, but also for cultural, spiritual, and national cohesion, which has become the main expression of a country’s comprehensive strength. Through patriotic education, it helps to cultivate students’ national sentiments and inspire national cohesion, so that they can better engage in their studies and lives, and gradually develop noble sentiments and firm cultural confidence.
For example, The Encyclopedia of Great Britain contains many historical figures and glorious deeds of China, from which teachers can select typical patriots and their deeds to read aloud to students. In this way, students can learn how foreign minds view typical Chinese historical figures and what their attitudes are towards their deeds. This will enable students to use “transpersonal thinking” to measure what is right and what is wrong, inspire national pride, and build confidence in Chinese culture.
3. Conclusion
To sum up, English teaching should be reformed and innovated in line with the development of the times. Adding Chinese cultural elements to the English watching, listening and speaking classroom can quickly build students’ cultural confidence. The continuous development of cultural confidence will, in turn, improve students’ overall English proficiency and train them to become the high-quality talents needed by the country and society.
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