The Implementation of Ideological and Political Education in Listening Courses for Foreign Language Majors

Abstract

Universities and colleges in China are committed to applying ideological and political education into the training objectives of each major and each course. It advocates that university and college students should be guided by correct value while imparted knowledge. A large number of foreign audio and video materials not only help foreign language majors obtain information about the target country, but also have a certain influence on the formation of their “three outlooks”, that is outlook on value, outlook on life and outlook on the world. In order to combine the foreign language professional knowledge system with value system, and broaden the ideas and vision of foreign language majors in colleges and universitiesthis paper discusses the significance of ideological and political education in listening courses for foreign language majors, and analyzes the implementation path of ideological and political education on this basis to achieve the goal of ideological and political education in professional courses, when reforming in teaching models.

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Wu, Q. and Liu, Y. (2022) The Implementation of Ideological and Political Education in Listening Courses for Foreign Language Majors. Creative Education, 13, 1682-1688. doi: 10.4236/ce.2022.135106.

1. Introduction

In the year of 2020, the Ministry of Education issued Guidelines for Ideological and Political Construction of Courses in Institutions of Higher Learning, which emphasizes “ideological and political education” is the responsibility of every teacher (The Ministry of Education, 2020). Professor Wen Qiufang from Beijing Foreign Language University interpreted the connotation of ideological and political education in foreign language courses as follows: foreign language teachers play a leading role to foster integrity and promote rounded development of people in every link of classroom teaching through teaching content of foreign language, classroom management, evaluation system, teachers’ words and deeds, etc. which is committed to shape students’ correct world outlook, outlook on life, values (Wen, 2021). The ideological and political education in foreign language majors should be integrated with professional knowledge teaching based on the curriculum. The listening course, which ranks first in five language skills “listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation”, plays a pivotal role in both skill training and practical application, and its teaching effect even directly affects the quality of talent training. Under the policy of ideological and political education, we should not only pay attention to the cultivation of students’ comprehensive language ability and intercultural communication ability, but also emphasize value guidance and education orientation in the whole process of listening teaching for foreign language majors. This paper will discuss the significance of ideological and political education in listening courses for foreign language majors, and analyzes the implementation path of ideological and political education on this basis to achieve the goal of ideological and political education in professional courses.

2. Characteristics of Listening Courses for Foreign Language Majors

As we all know, foreign language learning is a process from input to output. Language learning refers to the training of basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. Listening, which ranks first, is one of the main ways of language input and also an important means for students to perceive and learn a foreign language.

The listening course of foreign language major is an important course for professional skill. Through a large number of practice activities in class, it enables students to understand and master the vocabulary and grammar knowledge they have learned, and to accurately understand what they are listening to in the specific process of listening and interpreting. Therefore, the course aims to improve students’ listening ability, more focusing on students’ thorough understanding on current political news and the social culture. It also cultivates students’ comprehensive abilities in the process of language use and communication, such as vocabulary, syntax and culture, so as to better meet the needs of the social development trend and the international exchange (Li & Fu, 2020).

In the network era of “Internet plus”, in order to ensure the “original” language expression in the teaching process of foreign language listening, foreign language students are inevitably exposed to more original audio and video of target countries. The diversity of world outlook and values and multiculturalism, to a certain extent, impact on the way of college students’ thinking whose values have not been fully formed, and even lead to some students’ blind worship of foreign culture. Facing such new challenges, it is more and more urgent to carry out ideological and political education of foreign language listening courses in a silent way.

3. Significance of Ideological and Political Education in Listening Courses for Foreign Language Majors

In addition to teaching materials, teachers in listening courses choose various audio and video materials from domestic and foreign media as auxiliary teaching contents. As a “portal-type” course for students to know and understand the world, ideological and political education in the teaching process has the following important meanings:

First, listening materials are the fundamental teaching resources in listening course in foreign language teaching, which is conducive to guiding students to establish a correct “three outlooks”. Foreign language learners inevitably face cultural conflicts between China and foreign countries in the process of learning, so guidance should be given in the teaching process to help students dialectically view the differences between Chinese and foreign cultures and systems, cultivate their critical thinking ability, improve their sensitivity and discrimination to cultural differences, and establish a correct outlook on world (Institution of Higher Learning of the Ministry of Education, 2007). In addition, according to the listening and audiovisual materials, teachers can preset ideological and political education point, selecting the meaning of life, interview, employment and other related topics, so that students realize the value of life and establish a correct view on employment.

Second, reinforcing the charm of Chinese and foreign cultures can help spread Chinese culture abroad. By touching all kinds of audio and video data from foreign language, listening course gives students the opportunity to contact different pronunciation and intonation, which present a world of diversity to the student, so that the students strengthen the understanding of Chinese traditional culture, adhere to cultural consciousness of equality, increase their self-confidence while learning culture outside at the same time. With the rapid development of China’s economy and the continuous improvement of its world status, telling Chinese stories well in a foreign language will help foreign language students fulfill the important mission of spreading China’s excellent traditional culture and values to the world (Liu & Yue, 2020).

Third, the comparison and contrast between Chinese and foreign cultures helps to broaden students’ international vision and enhance their sense of social responsibility. The listening teaching content of foreign language is rich, involving history, culture, local customs and other aspects of the knowledge system in humanities. Through the selection of audio and video materials of different topics, students can increase their vocabulary, carry out multi-angle, multi-topic discussion and improve listening and interpretation and communication skills at the same time. Through this way their understanding of foreign culture is strengthened. It provides a good foundation and condition for ideological and political elements to be integrated into the course. On the basis of comparing Chinese and foreign cultures, students comprehensively and objectively understand the differences between different cultures and broaden their international horizon. With the help of teaching design, students’ attention and understanding of socialist construction in the new era can be enhanced, which is helpful to guide students to establish correct socialist core values and patriotism, and stimulate students’ sense of social responsibility.

In a word, listening courses for foreign language majors can improve students’ foreign language skills and cultivate compound and applied foreign language talents. At the same time, the ideological and political construction is an important front of foreign language courses, which can improve students’ international vision and cognitive ability, guide foreign language majors to make comparative analysis of political, economic, social and cultural issues between China and foreign countries, so as to improve their critical thinking ability and political and ideological literacy, and guard the ideological front (The Ministry of Education, 2020).

4. Implementation of Ideological and Political Teaching in Listening Courses for Foreign Language Majors

With the continuous advancement of ideological and political education in college curriculum, the task of foreign language teachers has changed to the organic integration of language knowledge and skills training and ideological and political education. The most important task for teachers in foreign language listening courses is to rely on listening materials, set ideological and political goals, stimulate various ideological and political elements in reasonable teaching methods, and realize ideological and political education. This paper explores the specific teaching implementation path of ideological and political education in listening courses for foreign language majors from the following aspects:

Firstly, from the perspective of language knowledge, teachers excavate the implicit ideological and political elements to realize the shaping of values. Foreign language learning cannot be separated from language elements such as phonetics, vocabulary, grammar. Moreover, in the process of listening teaching teachers apply each target of ideological education into every teaching process, choose suitable teaching methods, and process basic language knowledge deeply, striving to quiet, ideological instruction.

All kinds of audio and video materials, as the main carrier of listening courses, provide students with the opportunity to contact different pronunciation and expression ways of target countries. A large number of original listening materials can reproduce the real language scene and stimulate students’ hearing and vision with sound and pictures, so that students can master the correct pronunciation and intonation through listening, imitating and dictating in a relaxed and active learning atmosphere, and naturally develop a series of pronunciation habits. In the process of repeated training and continuous sound correction, students’ language ability is improved, consciously enhancing students’ willpower, and cultivating the good quality of perseverance and self-confidence.

In addition, difficult vocabulary, grammar in listening materials often appear in the listening materials, which results in incomplete acceptance of contextual information of listening materials by some students, which seriously affects the smooth progress of listening comprehension. In the teaching process, teachers should guide students to practice repeatedly, summarize listening skills, improve their understanding ability and fault-tolerant consciousness, strengthen their ability to think and solve problems, and cultivate students’ perseverance.

Secondly, students’ critical thinking ability can be improved, combining the current political hot spots. There are a lot of teaching materials in listening courses for foreign language majors, which cover all aspects of the target countries. However, due to the compilation and publication of teaching materials and other objective reasons, some teaching materials are not timely enough. In today’s society with the rapid development of the Internet, the Internet provides a good platform for foreign language learning and teaching, so that students can timely grasp the domestic and foreign situation and social dynamics.

In the teaching of listening course for foreign languages, teachers should not be limited to fixed teaching materials, but possess keen perception. They should make effort to dig out educational points according to the teaching contents and select international and domestic hot news as far as possible when introducing ideological and political elements so that the listening courses is not divorced from reality, closer to life and more targeted. At the same time, students are actively guided to make a comparison between China and foreign countries, and the socialist core values are integrated into the process of analyzing audio and video materials, so that students can maintain the high consciousness of Chinese cultural subject. Efforts should be made to guide students to think and analyze problems with critical thinking while improving their listening skills, strengthen their rational discrimination of network information, consciously resist one-sided and distorted reports and other wrong remarks, improve students’ sensitivity and discrimination of cultural differences, and establish correct values.

Thirdly, teachers of listening courses should refine the ideological and political elements of traditional Chinese culture contained in the textbook. With the deepening of economic globalization, social development has entered a diversified era. According to the survey, professional courses in colleges and universities account for a high proportion of the overall curriculum, and the proportion of students’ extracurricular professional learning time is also at a high level. Therefore, it can be said that professional courses and professional teachers have a deep impact on the growth of students. The change of external environment and the particularity of foreign language majors lead to the lack of understanding and recognition on politics, economy, society, culture for some students and even in the process of cross-cultural communication, they are unable to fully express their own history, culture and customs.

Aiming at this problem, in order to avoid the negative impact of its one-sidedness, teachers should not only emphasize the mastery of the original language, but also insist on the connection and comparison between traditional Chinese culture and its relevant content so as to establish an international vision and cultural confidence when the teaching content involves the history and culture of the target country. Through the study, students can not only master the official standard expression of Chinese politics, economy, culture and other aspects, but also enhance their cultural belonging and identity, stimulating students to use the knowledge to spread Chinese thought to the world and to spread Chinese excellent culture.

Fourthly, the ideological and political courses are extended beyond the classroom to educate students all the time. Due to the continuous reduction of professional class hours in colleges and universities, the teaching time of listening courses is limited, which to some extent affects the depth and breadth of ideological and political courses. Combined with the growing frequency of using mobile phone for college students in their spare time, teachers should guide students to focus on some official media platform and official accounts from foreign countries. According to the teaching, teachers of listening courses regularly push relevant national policies and educational material, which can consciously be changed into extracurricular reading, naturally improving students’ ideological quality and taking a firm political stand.

With the continuous application of information technology in foreign language teaching, some online-teaching platforms have been rapidly developed and widely used. Therefore, in order to save precious teaching time in classroom and not to affect the effect of professional knowledge presentation and ideological and political elements into teaching, teachers should combine in-class teaching with out-of-class teaching and on-line teaching with off-line teaching to carry out ideological and political education in the listening course according to specific teaching content and educational objectives. According to reasonable teaching design, teachers make full use of software such as Xuexitong, Rain Classroom etc., to guide students to conduct independent learning, adjust the proportion of teaching content inside and outside class, improve students’ participation in teaching, mobilize students’ enthusiasm for ideological and political elements of learning, and achieve the effect of education in all spaces and time. At the same time, teachers grasp of students’ ideological trends timely and accurately, and actively carry out education after class through QQ group, wechat group and other communication methods.

To sum up, in the process of comprehensively promoting ideological and political education in colleges and universities, professional teachers are the main body of planning and implementation in ideological and political education and directly affect the effect of curriculum ideological and political education. Under the new teaching idea of ideological and political education, professional teachers in foreign language majors should enhance professional knowledge, strengthen the ideological and political consciousness, make good use of advantages in cross-cultural communication cross-cultural comparison in foreign language courses, making efforts to achieve the seamless joint between professional knowledge and education teaching elements so as to lead the thoughts of the foreign language skills and ideological and political education.

5. Conclusion

In the course of classroom teaching in the future, students’ ideological and political education should be given prominence and teachers’ ideological and political work should play a leading role, focusing on cultivating international talents who can “know the language”, “know the country” and can serve the national construction. The main channel of classroom teaching combines knowledge of language with training of skills. Through natural and reasonable teaching design, classroom activities achieve the goal of ideological and political education naturally as to make students not only expand the international vision, improve the professional knowledge and skills, and also accept ideological and political education and internalize their own actions and values while participating in the activities in class. Starting from the ideological and political connotation of the curriculum, teachers should promote the integration of foreign language teaching and ideological and political education systematically and continuously, so as to achieve the goal of establishing morality and cultivating talents, and cultivating talents of foreign language, who can truly shoulder the mission of socialist construction with Chinese characteristics in the new era.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

References

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