Research on English Teaching Based on Non-verbal Cross-cultural Communication

Lei Yu, Zhenguo Qi
2016 Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Education, E-learning and Management Technology   unpublished
The purpose of integrating non-verbal cross-cultural communication into the English teaching is to understand the behaviors and methods of non-verbal communication in the multi-cultural environment so as to resolve the differences and conflicts between the English culture and the mother tongue, overcome the cultural barriers and promote the English teaching overall. In China, non-verbal cross-cultural communication has been ignored for a long time in English teaching, while the aim of English
more » ... aching is to accurately use verbal and non-verbal behaviors to carry out the cross-cultural communication. To achieve it, the English teachers should improve their own cross-cultural awareness and realize the importance of cultivating the students' abilities in non-verbal cross-cultural communication. This essay starts from the current teaching situation of linguistic communication and illustrates the importance of laying stress on the behaviors, methods and functions in non-verbal communication and advocates integrating non-verbal cross-cultural communication into the English teaching in order to cultivate the students' overall abilities in non-verbal cross-cultural communication. Introduction Rapid development of science and technology, economic globalization and increasingly opening up in China make us communicate with the external world more and more widely and frequently. Whether the cultural exchange, business cooperation or folk correspondence developed or not, we all inevitably encounter some cultural issues: different customs, different standard of behaviors, different languages, different values, different religious beliefs and different taboos, which would become the external communicative barriers for us. When peace and development are the theme of the current society, learning how to get along the foreigners harmoniously and how to understand their culture have become the key to the smooth exchanges and co-operations [1] . In this era, we have more opportunities to communicating with foreigners. If we do not have sufficient cross-cultural knowledge and flexible cross-cultural communicative skills, it is difficult to start the interpersonal communication and also difficult to engage in the international economic and trade exchanges. Therefore, it is significant to cultivate the cross-cultural awareness. The significance of cultivating the cross-cultural awareness The cultivation of cross-cultural awareness is the demand of social development in the 21st century. The economic globalization and information integration gradually make the economy in our country become one important part in the economic world. With the expansion of all kinds of communication in depth and breadth, the foreign language education in China has faced new challenges and all kinds of talents who are not only able to use the foreign language fluently, but also know about the foreign cultures are needed in the 21st century, which put forward new requirements and goals for us. The education for foreign language is not only to cultivate the students' ability of applying language, but also to train students to use appropriate linguistic ability in the cross-cultural communication [2] .
doi:10.2991/iceemt-16.2016.74 fatcat:xd6t246oove4nc7h227m4z4w2y