ABSTRACT
One of the most fundamental ideas of this chapter is that learning a foreign language is beyond the mere command of words and phrases. The author views behavioral culture as a significant aspect of foreign language education and an effective means to expose students to a foreign language. The chapter introduces a college Freshman-level cross-cultural humanities course titled “Americans & Chinese: Case Studies of Cross-cultural Communication.” The course is designed to help students better understand cross-cultural diversity, learn complex cultural behaviors, develop a discourse that facilitates global communication, and encourage their research and learning curiosities in foreign languages and culture studies. The theoretical framework of the course is introduced along with a detailed discussion of curriculum design and examples of interactive classroom activities. The chapter concludes that fostering an understanding of how people behave in a foreign culture motivates students to explore further the language and other facets of the culture.
