On Culture-Teaching In High Schools

For quite a long time, high school English teaching in China's mainland has been based on structuralism, which considers a language as a closed system and makes a point of the perception and recognition of the internal linguistic mechanism in teaching which enable learners to judge grammatical correctness of sentences. However, in the teaching practice it is found that with the knowledge of phonemic, syntactic and semantic rules of the target language, it is possible to create sentences without grammatical or lexical mistakes. But one still is incapable of communicating successfully in English-speaking contexts due to their failure to comprehend sociolinguistic rules. It is necessary to learn how to understand and create language that is appropriate to the situations in which one is functioning, employing the proper illocutionary patterns in accordance with the sociocultural parameters of the specific situation, because failure to do so may cause users to miss key points that are being communicated in either written or oral language and have their messages be misunderstood. Worse yet is the possibility of a total communication breakdown and the stereotypical labeling of the foreign language users as people who are insensitive, rude, or inept. Therefore the ignorance of culture in learning and teaching has not only affected students' abilities of learning a foreign language, but also set up misunderstanding at communication level. In the Criteria of English Course for National Elementary Education issued in 2001, it's illustrated that teachers should broaden students' cultural visions and develop their awareness of inter-cultural communications. Language is an important vehicle of culture and closely related to cultures. Teachers should treat well the relationship between them. This will help students understand foreign cultures, especially cultures and social customs in English-speaking countries. It will also help them enhance their abilities to understand and use English, to broaden cultural visions, and to get a further understanding about national cultures and to form awareness of inter-cultural communications. The thesis mainly discusses a most important problem about culture factors in the language education. With the methods of integrating theories into practice the thesis presents the necessity and importance ofculture-teaching and the implement of it in the practical teaching. It comes to the conclusion that cultural awareness is necessary in cultivating students' abilities to use a language properly.