Promotion of Local Culture in College English Education Under the EIL Perspective

EIL, viz. English as an international language, emphasizes the importance of local culture in international communication and opposes the hegemony of the native speaker and its culture when using English. With the development of the economy and the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, there are more and more opportunities for cultural exchanges between China and non-English-speaking countries. Thus, the status of EIL has become increasingly prominent, and the interactions between Chinese native culture and international culture have become more frequent. However, local culture and English, as the main body and the important media to tell the story of Chinese culture respectively, have not been effectively integrated into education. The local culture has not been fully promulgated and promoted with the use of English as an international language. Integrating and promoting local culture through college English courses can not only improve college students’ English learning and intercultural communicative competence, but also break the hegemony of English language and culture, and at the same time resist the negative impact of western ideology and transmit Chinese culture to the whole world. Suggestions are given on how to carry out the program in order to improve more efficiently college students’ local cultural literacy, intercultural communicative competence and the ability “to tell Chinese stories in English”.