As one of the compulsory courses of general education in College English, this course imparts basic cultural knowledge and explores the spirits embodied in Chinese and foreign thoughts and cultures. Under the principle of "Taking the initiative" and "Equal Exchange", it tends to cultivate your ability of critical thinking to achieve the goal of "fostering virtue through education" via intercultural communication.

Part 1. Aims and Objectives

You are required to obtain the following knowledge and competence by learning the course:

First, Master and skillfully use listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating skills to meet the basic requirements of "development goals" in College English teaching curriculum;

Second, Understand the spirits embodied in the thoughts and cultures;

Third, Cultivate the ability of self-learning and critical thinking;

And the last one is to develop the ability of comparative study and intercultural communication.

Part 2. Teaching Contents

Eight units are included in the course, they are:  

Unit 1 Tracing Mythological Stories. It provides fancy Chinese and Greek stories which will inspire your curiosity to further explore its connotation and influence on modern people’s life.

Unit 2 Understanding World Religions. It shows the variety of religions in the world, which may lead you to explore the origin of religions and the positive significance of those doctrines.

Unit 3 Admiring Ancient Thinkers. This unit introduces some Chinese and Greek philosophers for you to appreciate their profound philosophical thoughts and the influence on their cultures.

Unit 4 Comparing Thinking Patterns. This unit aims to develop intercultural competence to talk about different thinking patterns such as Synthetic Thinking Pattern and Analytical Thinking Pattern, and offer some practical strategies for making comparison.

Unit 5 Celebrating Traditional Festivals. This unit aims to develop intercultural competence to talk about traditional festivals by familiarizing you with some typical festivals and helping you use an appropriate speaking style in discussing festivals.

Unit 6 Enjoying Performing Arts. This unit introduces some typical performing arts, aiming to develop your intercultural competence to talk about performing arts with appropriate expressions.

Unit 7 Discussing Martial Arts. This unit introduces Chinese Kongfu and Western Boxing, aiming to develop your skills to talk about martial arts using an appropriate speaking style.

Unit 8 Surveying Global Architecture. In this unit you will get knowledge on Chinese typical architecture such as Siheyuan and Suzhou Garden, and western typical ones such as Gothic architecture, aiming to develop your intercultural competence to talk about global architecture with some knowledge.

Part 3. Innovative features of the course

3.1 Innovative Curriculum

Based on “cultural confidence”, we have integrated cultivating the intercultural communication competence into curriculum design. Relying on Chinese traditional culture, we incorporate the method of “Comparative Study” into the teaching practices, namely curriculum system design, learning material update, learning method improvement, and so on. Accordingly, we make the course an important platform to form a critical view of foreign cultures and tell Chinese stories and spread good Chinese voices in the world.

3.2 Innovative Teaching Mode

With the help of modern information technology, the course employs the multiple teaching mode of “intelligence + education”------MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and other online platforms to learn the knowledge and related information, and in-class learning to make comparative practice. We will sure promote the optimization of teaching effects through the combination of online and offline courses to cultivate students’ intercultural communication skills.

3.3 Innovative Evaluation

Based on a decision-oriented evaluation model, a multi-dimensional evaluation system has been established for the course. We will evaluate your performance based on your online learning (accounting for 40%) and offline learning (accounting for 60%) results. This evaluation system enhances the reliability and validity of the evaluation, effectively exerts the feedback function of teaching evaluation to promote learning and ensures the effectiveness of the course teaching and learning.

Part 4. Suggested Learning Methods

The first one is Research Orientation; The second one is Team Work and the third one is Comparative Study.    

By combining all of your vocabulary,listening,speaking, reading, writing and translating skills that you acquired in the course, you will learn how language plays an important role in intercultural communication. You will also enhance your intercultural understanding and will be able to use vocabulary, tone and style, and spoken and written communication skills within an intercultural context. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. identify possible intercultural issues and misunderstandings in communication. 2. apply strategies to overcome possible intercultural issues and misunderstandings in communication. 3. deliver a speech with an appropriate style on world thoughts and cultures within an intercultural situation.

That’s all for the introduction. I wish you a happy tour to the splendid world of thoughts and cultures with satisfactory achievements. Good Luck!