Comment on “Impact of college English education thoughts on enhancing national cultural identity”
Ning Wang[1]
Commented article: LIANG, T. Impact of College English Education Thoughts on Enhancing National Cultural Identity. Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp, v. 47, n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e0240065, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/14624.
Economic globalization has made the relationship between China and other civilizations more and more close. But at the same time, there are inevitably contradictory values between Chinese and Western cultures. Given this context, it is worthwhile to think about how to lead a healthy cultural identity education. English education can be used as a good resource to enhance the building of cultural identity. Liang (2024) discussed how to cultivate national cultural identity in the process of college English teaching, enhancing the importance of philosophy and culture teaching, to build students’ cultural identity and national sentiment.
Firstly, it analyzes the cultural identity issues in the current university English education, such as the importance of philosophy and culture teaching. So, it is necessary to integrate cultural identity education into college English teaching by cultivating students’ cross-cultural awareness. But when talking about the topic of cross-cultural awareness, one can use the theory of Geert Hofstede (2001), and his theory places cultural dimensions on a continuum that ranges from high to low including five dimensions: power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, long-term orientation, indulgence. This model is very useful for understanding differences and similarities in cross-cultural communication.
Secondly, it enhances the impact of philosophical culture on English learning. On one hand, teachers need to strengthen philosophical education by providing not only input talents but also the output of national culture. However, since teaching philosophy may be a little dull, in this instance, it can make use of more contemporary techniques, like AIGC tools, to make the topic more engaging for students. However, the use of VR or AI tools might make the class more engaging for the learners.
Then it points out the problems in the technology of philosophical and cultural identity. Such as the lack of relevant English education policy guidance, and attaching more importance to the instrumental nature of language. It means that, in the process of teaching, not only language skills but also cultural elements are of the same importance. However, Liang does not give efficient ways to help students to enhance the culture of teaching. In this case, it can use Culturally Responsive Teaching as a pedagogy to embrace students’ cultural experiences. This approach fosters a learning environment by allowing students to freely express their ideas, recognizing their individual learning needs, and modelling an instruction style that is relevant to their culture. For the teaching of culture and philosophy, alternative approaches include project-based learning, experiential learning, and active learning practices.
The second part of the article talks about the significance of enhancing cultural identity, such as it can help students to understand philosophical culture. But in this part, it only cited ancient beliefs, referring to Confucius’ benevolence. It should involve the modern philosophical cultural content of China that is needed in today’s society. For example, they falsify Neo-Confucianism (Bol, 2008) with the representatives of Fung Yulan, Carson Chang, Xiong Shili, and so on. Because we need to keep up with the trend of the times in the field of education, especially in English culture education and philosophy education.
In addition, cultural teaching should be a system that includes many elements of excellent Chinese traditional culture, not only Chinese philosophy but also history, religion, literature, art, and other aspects. The article overemphasizes philosophy teaching, but cultural teaching should be regarded as a whole and a system and various cultural elements should be integrated into it. Social customs in English teaching have important practical significance for college English teaching. In this regard, the article can add the “cultural triangle” theory (Wu, 2013, p. 159),
[...] which includes cultural products, cultural activities, and cultural concepts to form a complete cultural form. Therefore, in cultural teaching, teachers can present cultural products, show cultural activities, and explain cultural concepts, thus forming a complete cultural teaching loop to help students form a more complete cultural cognition.”
Furthermore, it is suggested that students’ cross-cultural communication skills can be improved, but no specific cross-cultural communication skills are mentioned. Effective cross-cultural communication skills, including accepting empathy to build a bridge of understanding learning the power of nonverbal cues through active listening, developing an open mind and appreciating the beauty of diversity, communicating effectively by using a common language looking out for opportunities for cultural exchange to celebrate diversity and foster connections.
Liang (2024) provides some ways to implement cultural identity education in the process of English teaching syllabus development, teaching material reform, Curriculum, and reform of the teaching system. In the case of English learning resources, it only refers to English TV shows, English picture books, English songs, etc, which is a little outdated. When the article mentioned textbook reform, it also failed to notice the use of the latest digital textbooks. In recent years, with the widespread application of digital technology in the field of education, learning resources have been further enriched, and the form of textbooks has also changed. Textbooks have changed from a single paper presentation to a static digital form, and then to a dynamic and interactive digital form. “Universities are trending towards electronic books (e-books) as instructional materials, displacing traditional printed books” (Lim; Liu; Hou et al 2020, p. 78) points that. Students’ digital literacy is continuously developing in light of the digital age and the quick advancement of information technology, and there is a growing need for new instructional resources. Therefore, when the article focuses on the topic of cultural teaching, it needs to pay attention to the development and application of information technology. Through big data technology to increase the liveliness and fun of the classroom, improve students’ participation, and improve students’ learning enthusiasm, while also cultivating their logical thinking ability and teamwork ability.
Finally, Liang (2024) mentioned the use of multi-angle strategies to promote cultural and philosophical teaching, that is, colleges and universities, teachers, and students should take action to promote English cultural and philosophical teaching through multiple subjects and improve students’ cultural cognition and national confidence. Therefore, the translation teaching method is very effective for cultural teaching, since this approach can give learners an essential foundation to build their communicative skills (Bowen, 2021) and it involves language and non-language abilities in interlingual conversion. Furthermore, it was said that educators and students should work together to further cultural education and the development of national consciousness, with students taking on leadership roles.
To conclude, the present work aims to emphasize the importance of English education for cultural identity. It discussed how to cultivate national cultural identity in the process of college English teaching, highlighting philosophy and culture education, to build students’ cultural identity and national sentiment. Therefore, as Liang (2024) emphasizes, universities, teachers and students should act together to integrate cultural education into all aspects of university education, cultivate cultural confidence and national consciousness, strengthen exchanges with other countries, improve cross-cultural communication skills, and thus promote cultural exchanges and mutual learning among different cultures.
References
BOL, P. K. Neo-Confucianism in History. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center-Harvard University Press, 2008.
BOWEN, T. Teaching approaches the grammar-translation method. Onestopenglish, 2021. Available in: https://www.onestopenglish.com/methodology-the-world-of-elt/teaching-approaches-the-grammar-translation-method/146493.article. Accessed on May, 16th, 2024.
HOFSTEDE, G. Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviours, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001.
LIANG, T. Impact of College English Education Thoughts on Enhancing National Cultural Identity. Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp, v. 47, n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e0240065, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/14624.
LIM, B.; LIU, L.; HOU, C. Investigating the Effects of Interactive E-Books towards Academic Achievement. Asian Journal of University Education, v. 16, n. 3, p. 78, 2020.
WU, J. Accumulated choices, cultural triangle and economic growth. The Journal of Socio-Economics, v. 47, p. 158-169, 2013.
Received: 10/08/2024 – Approved: 15/08/2024 – Published: 30/09/2024
[1]Associate Professor. School of Foreign Languages, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001 - China. ORCID: 0009-0007-8931-918X. E-mail: wangning2005@hrbeu.edu.cn.