On CCTV

Dear Wang and All

I went through the website http://www.cctv.com (China Central Television) which you used for your teaching. I went through the videos of different Chinese cultures and arts. They are wonderful! Thank you for sharing your ideas and making us know about the Chinese culture and arts.

I agree with your ideas to introduce the Chinese culture listening texts to the Chinese students. There are many advantages of using local cultures in English language teaching. First, the use of local cultural texts in the classroom motivates students to learn English as it reflects their values and beliefs. When we talk about motivation, it should be defined as a value-based drive rather than traditional achievement-based one. I have also used the Nepalese cultural texts (videos and passages) in my classroom. What I have found is my students interacted more in the group and pair work activities related to the local culture. Since they get chance to listen to or read the texts from their own culture and society, it gives a sense of relevance of learning English.

Another important point is that since the texts represent diverse cultural backgrounds, such listening or reading texts also help maintaining intercultural communication. Such texts also encourage students to share their own culture in the post-listening stage. This process integrates the listening and speaking skills at the same time.

However, while adapting such cultural texts teachers need training on how to handle multicultural texts. Moreover, there is always a question of authenticity in using local cultural texts. Whether the language used to interpret such cultural texts represents the culture is another issue to discuss.

With regards
Prem