An Investigation Into The Cross-cultural Awareness Of Students In Junior Middle School Of Northern Shaanxi Province

With the development of the global economy, the communications between countriesare more and more frequent. This phenomenon requires English learners not only studythe skills of the English language but also master its cultural connotation. Junior middleschool students need more opportunities to cultivate their cross-cultural awareness.The purpose of this research is to investigate the present condition of junior middleschools students’ cross-cultural awareness, English teachers’ culture teaching conditionof junior middle school and the reasons that lead to students’ present cross-culturalawareness level in Yulin area. The subjects of the survey research are122middle schoolstudents and20middle school English teachers who come from two middle schools inYulin area of North Shaanxi Province. Research methods are questionnaire survey,interview and classroom observation. SPSS17.0for windows and Microsoft Excel areused to collect and analyze the survey data. The research results are as the follows: 1．The cross-cultural awareness of junior middle school students in Yu Lin areaShaanxi Provence is weak（Mean:3.13）;2. Most of students hold the positive attitudetoward the importance of English culture books in English learning process (Mean:4.07);3. Students lack of knowledge of English countries history, climate, geography andculture (Mean:2.45);4. Students’ cross-culture awareness ability is low (Mean:2.91) andstudents’ cross-cultural awareness ability have not gotten to the requirements of theStandard (Mean: above3.5);5. The culture teaching of Yu Lin area is far from enough,which somehow replaced by vocabulary and grammar teaching;6. There are fivereasons that lead to the present condition: exam orientation, single English learningmotivation, teachers’ weak attention on cross-cultural teaching, limited reading materialon culture and less activities on cross-cultural awareness cultivating.According to the study, the author tries to give students, teachers and schools sometentative suggestions in the basis of the study results. Firstly, students should clear thatEnglish study not equal to vocabulary and grammar study and the purpose of learningEnglish is not “high score” itself. So as an English learner, comprehensive knowledge ismore important. Secondly, students should make best use of modern English studymaterials, instead of single English textbook. Thirdly, teachers should take Englishculture teaching seriously and adopt strategy teaching methods then the class atmospheremay flexible and meaningful. Fourthly, teachers should strengthen professional skilltraining in their whole life, which is essential to cultivate students’ cross-culturalawareness. Fifthly, schools should hold much more activities about English cultures so asto build a beneficial atmosphere for English learning.In a word, the author hopes that this study could provide some references for juniormiddle schools students’ cross-cultural awareness cultivation in Yulin area. Hopefully,the study could give references for future studies and the further studies in depth onjunior middle school students’ cross-cultural awareness can be aroused so as to betterimprove junior middle school students’ cross-cultural awareness ability.