Designing a Culture-based College English Reading Class for the Development of Cultural Literacy

This study is aimed at revitalizing the English reading class for college learners to develop the cultural literacy. The study recruits 50 college students and asks them to participate in culturally responsive English reading for 15 weeks. At first, the study evaluated the currently used English coursebooks to measure the appropriateness for teaching culture and suggested supplementary reading materials to extend the culture-based reading. With a set of quasi-experimental instruction, the college English reading class was executed with three stages of culture teaching, which included the cultural input, interaction and language output. In the input stage, culture-based reading was explored by silent and oral readings. In the interaction stage, small group discussion was encouraged to confirm what they read. In the output stage, individually, participants took the intercultural notes, which allowed learners to grasp the unstated implications from the reading. To ascertain the effectiveness of a culture-based reading class, the study asked the participants to complete pre-and post-surveys for the semi-Stephen Multi-group Acculturation and Willingness to Communicate. In the results, the study found the significant increases in participants’ willingness to communicate in English due to the culturally-enriched English reading instructions.