Research On Intercultural English Teaching In Senior High Schools

Language communication is seen as a shaper of cultural identity. Individual success in today's global environment requires a high level of intercultural competence and effectiveness in communication. Intercultural communication teaching aims to strengthen the competence of effective communication among people from different cultural backgrounds, and to establish and maintain constructive relationships with them. For the first time cultural awareness, cultural understanding and intercultural communicative competence have been prescribed in the new English Curriculum Standard. At the same time, the new teaching materials that senior English teachers are using now contain more cultural elements. Accordingly, senior English teachers are faced with the challenge of proper means of cultural teaching in their teaching context.This thesis intends to prepare teachers for a successful transition to the new English Curriculum Standard by stimulating critical reflective teaching. It analyses the characteristics of new teaching materials of the SEFCSB (Senior English for China Student's Book) in high school and attempts to better understand teachers' and learners' views of cultural instruction and their practices through empirical enquiries. The survey shows that the new teaching materials contain more cultural elements compared with old ones and that both teachers and students have reached a consensus on the importance of carrying out culture teaching. However, most teachers still adopt a knowledge-based addictive approach in English teaching. The survey also reveals that the teachers have failed to pay attention to the importance of body languages in intercultural communications, and mostteachers deal with plays on "efferent" level. The survey shows that most teachers have failed to realize the cultural embodiment in the new teaching materials and culture teaching hasn't gained its due place in English teaching. It is a challenge to most English teachers. This paper explores the approaches to culture teaching from a comprehensive, multidimensional perspective. It claims that teachers can carry out culture teaching through words, sentences and texts in class and also out of class in many ways. In this process learners are expected to increase their cultural awareness and develop their cultural communicative competence. The ultimate goal of culture teaching in senior high schools is to bring about learners' internal changes and benefit their all-round development.