An Investigation On The Current Situation Of English Culture Learning In Primary School Students

Increasing intercultural contact has become the mainstream of the world, and English, as an international language, has been used more and more frequently in the world market, so it is very important to lay stress on intercultural communication in English teaching and learning. Considering such situations,the English Curriculum Standard has put forward the requirement of cultivating students’ intercultural communication awareness even intercultural communication competence in English teaching and learning. When it comes to primary schools, introducing western culture into English class has become an important theme.This thesis aims to find out the current situation of English culture in primary school students and then provide some suggestions to improve their English culture knowledge. There are two main research questions: 1. What is the current situation of English culture in primary school students? 2. From what aspects can teachers help students to better grasp the cultural knowledge? After analyzing and discussing the results, the author finds out that the primary school students have achieved a basic requirement for cultural learning, but they do not have a deep understanding for their lack of awareness of the cultural differences between native and English speaking countries, as well as their understanding of the values of English speaking countries. Students perform better in English culture compared with their previous performance with 20 weeks experiments carried out in the English class. With the findings the author provides some pedagogical implications for primary school English teaching: English teachers can make full use of the textbook to cultivate students’ culture knowledge; and it is better for them to imply suitable teaching approaches and tests for culture cultivation.