A Study On English Culture Teaching In Senior High Schools

As globalization further develops the international communication becomes more andmore frequent. English as one of the most commonly used languages is getting more andmore important in international communication. However, having a good command ofEnglish cannot assure the success of intercultural communication for we have to know thecommunication partner’s culture and to know when and where to say what.In a long term, in China, teachers place more emphasis on vocabulary and grammarteaching. However, culture teaching doesn’t get due attention and it is even neglected inforeign language teaching in senior high schools. The situation is not changed until theMinistry of Education issued The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools in2003. The “new English curriculum standards” clearly states that cultural awareness objectiveis one part of general curriculum objectives in senior high schools. The cultural awarenessobjectives consist of cultural knowledge, culture understanding, intercultural communicativeawareness and intercultural communicative competence. Meanwhile, it has specific contentsstandards for different bands. The putting forward of cultural awareness objective marks theforeign language teaching in China begins a new era. However, how to conduct cultureteaching and how to develop students’ intercultural communicative competence are also bigchallenges for teachers of English.This year is the fourth year that the “new curriculum reform” was implemented in HenanProvince. In order to find out the current situation of English culture teaching in senior highschools, students’ competence in expressing Chinese culture in English and students’intercultural communicative competence, the author made a survey on them based on theSenior High English published by BNU Press in No.1High School of Xiuwu County, HenanProvince. The survey consists of two parts: one is a questionnaire and tests for students andthe other is a questionnaire and an interview for teachers. The results of the survey for students show that: first, most of students realize the close relationship between language andculture, the importance of cultural knowledge in language learning and the significance toimprove Chinese learners’ competence in expressing Chinese culture in English; second, mostof students know few about the cultural awareness objectives in The English CurriculumStandards for Senior High Schools; third, the cultural contents in the textbook are notinteresting enough and the cultural input is insufficient in English language teaching; fourth,teachers of English don’t pay much attention to culture teaching and their culture teachingmethods are monotonous; fifth, students don’t have much interest toward culture learning;sixth, students’ competence in expressing Chinese culture in English and their interculturalcommunicative competence are both very poor. The results of the survey for teachers showthat: first, most of teachers realize the close relationship between language and culture, theimportance of culture teaching in improving students’ comprehensive language competenceand the importance to improve Chinese learners’ competence in expressing Chinese culture inEnglish; second, most of teachers don’t know many about the cultural awareness objectives,the intercultural communicative knowledge and the English culture teaching methods; third,more than half of teachers think there are few questions concerning cultural contents in theexercises and test papers; fourth, teachers think they have difficulties to conduct cultureteaching such as their poor cultural knowledge, the lack of culture teaching materials and so on.Finally, this research puts forward some suggestions for improving English cultureteaching in senior high schools from the perspective of variables concerning culture teaching(setting, teachers, learners, textbook and assessment) on the basis of quantitative study andqualitative study. These suggestions include: first, creating a helpful environment for culturelearning; second, improving teachers’ culture teaching skills; third, arousing learners’ interesttoward culture learning; fourth, enriching the cultural contents in the textbook; fifth,increasing cultural contents in the assessment.