Research On The Cultivation Of Cultural Awareness As Part Of The EFL Classroom Teaching

It is generally acknowledged that culture plays a very important role in English teaching. Many scholars have given different definitions to culture and explored its contents from different ways. Hymes (1972:281) thinks that among the four parameters of possessing communicative competence, the essence of the fitness and appropriateness is the language users' socio-cultural ability. Many scholars, both at home and abroad, have done a lot of research on cultural teaching. But so far no systematic research has been done on present middle school English cultural teaching. This thesis probes into cultural teaching in middle schools, which takes the new Junior and Senior English for China as its source materials, the new English Course Standards as its foundation and middle school students as its specific objects.This thesis consists of five parts:In Chapter One, we discuss the necessity of cultural teaching. Language and culture are inseparable. Teaching culture is one of the five goals of the new English Course Standards and the contents of culture are very rich in English textbooks for middle school students, thus cultural teaching should be carried out in middle schools together with language teaching.In Chapter Two, we briefly discuss the denotation and connotation of culture. The culture in this thesis refers to the history and geography, local conditions and customs, patterns of living and thinking, values and beliefs of the main English-speaking countries.In Chapter Three, we analyze the cultural aspects in middle school English textbooks including the verbal and nonverbal differences, linguistic differences, figures and famous places.In Chapter Four, we propose some approaches in cultural teaching, such as the audio-visual approach, the comparative approach and the task-oriented approach to make middle school students understand...