A Study On Cultural Cultivation In Primary School English Teaching

There is an inseparable relation between language and culture. Students should learn both language skills and English culture and nurture their cross-cultural competence in order to communicate effectively and successfully in real communicative environment. Based on the notion as above, this thesis mainly studies cultural cultivation in primary school English teaching with the aim of exploring a culture cultivating system suitable to the reality of primary school. It is aimed at improving the quality of primary English teaching.This thesis is divided into seven parts. The first part is the introduction which explains the reason for the choice of the topic, the theoretical basis, the aim, significance and approaches and in the mean time reviews the current research situation which lays a basis for the following study. The second part discusses some important definitions related to this thesis, and the relations between language and culture and the relations between linguistic teaching and cultural cultivation. The third part is a questionnaire study. This thesis conducts a questionnaire and interview research with 40 teachers from three primary schools in hope of gathering data about the consciousness, attitude, methods and strategies of teachers in culture cultivating. In addition, this thesis conducts a questionnaire with 200 primary school students with the aim of gathering the data about their cultural knowledge. The result shows that culture cultivating is not ideal in real teaching environment though most teachers admit the significance of culture cultivating. Moreover, students’ foundation of cultural knowledge is not solid on the whole. Therefore, culture cultivating should be enhanced at primary school. The fourth part discusses the principles, contents and several effective and practical teaching strategies and methods and provides one specific example for teachers. The fifth part discusses culture test. Testing is closely related to teaching, so it is necessary in a comprehensive English teaching process. The contents of culture test can be conducted in cultural knowledge, cultural understanding and cultural behavior. Meanwhile, this part discusses the ratio of culture test in one examination paper and several common types. The sixth part is the conclusion. This part gives a summary of the whole thesis. The seventh part is the suggestion part which gives some advice on compilation of primary English textbook, the contents of culture test and the teaching modes.