From Duality to Unity: Integrating
Language and Culture in Chinese Classrooms
Chen Zu-yan (陈祖言)
Although Chinese language
teaching
has admittedly always contained a cultural dimension, and Chinese language teachers make admirable efforts to
stimulate student interest in Chinese culture, language
and culture often blend in relatively divergent ways. If some
exciting cultural activities are not supported by a curriculum with an
excellent cultural pedagogy, they may create the impression that culture in
language learning is merely a bonus or hors
d’oeuvre, an expendable fifth skill tacked on to the teaching of speaking,
listening, reading and writing. How can we move
from incorporating cultural activities
to integrating cultural knowledge with
language curriculum? Can we provide students with a curriculum
focusing on both linguistic and cultural competencies? To these operative
questions, this paper attempts
to provide answers by presenting a new approach to cultural integration and
immersion. It
will demonstrate how Chinese culture
manifests itself or is couched in linguistic forms. Culture thus becomes the
very core of language learning in this approach, transitioning its role from context to text, and its relation with language
from duality to unity.