A Study On English Culture Teaching In Senior High Schools

English culture teaching is an extension of language teaching. In addition, it is an important way to understand different countries’ cultural traditions, local custo ms, festivals as well as history for students. English culture teaching plays an important part in English teaching in senior high schools. Culture teaching meets the increasing needs of intercultural comm unication in today’s society. Understanding dif ferent countries’ cultures can help students understand text s, analyze situati ons, enhance m utual understanding, promote tolerance, seek common ground and create harm onious and compatible atmosphere. Since Chinese st udents in senior high schools are under the pressure of heavy study especially student s in Grade th ree who ha ve to face the challenge of the college entrance ex amination. Therefore, English classroom teaching has become the main approach for students to acquire cultural knowledge and develop intercultural communicative abilities. With the deepening of the reform of English teaching and the development of basic education, the importance of cultural awareness has become increasingly prom inent. The Ministry of Ed ucation promulgated the Criteria for Senior High School English Curriculum in 2003 which pays attention to cultural knowledge, cultural understanding, cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence. For the first time, cultural awareness is regarded as one of the teaching goals. The teaching goals also include language knowledge, language skills, learning strategies as well as emotional attitudes. It is widely acknowledged that English culture teaching and language teaching are cl osely related to each other in th e basic education field. Culture teaching has been gr adually introduced into foreign language teaching in senior high schools. Therefore, according to the level of students’ English culture learning that is required in the criteria as well as the teaching m aterials, English teachers in senior high schools should pay m ore attention to the importance of English culture teaching. They are supposed to take measures to carry ou t culture teaching to improve students’ intercultural communicative abilities.This research is based on Sapir-Whorf Hypotheses, Hym es’ Theory of Communicative Competence and other relative cultural theories. The present situation of English culture teaching in senior high schools has been studied. This study aim s to answer the following three questions:(1) What are teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards English culture teaching in senior high schools?(2) How is the current situation of English culture teaching in senior high schools?(3) What are the main problems existing in English culture teaching in senior high schools?In order to investigate t eachers’ and students’ attitudes towards English culture teaching in senior high schools, the researcher makes an investigation and data analysis for the 30 English teachers and 210 student s who are selected from Grade one and Grade two of Y antai No. 1 Senior High Scho ol with research approaches, such as consulting literature, questionn aire survey and interview. In addition, the researcher invites 10 English teachers to take part in an intervie w that aim s to understand the present situation and p roblems of English cu lture teaching in senior high schools. The research instruments include Questionnaire for Teachers and Questionnaire for Students, which are about their attitudes towards E nglish culture teaching. In addition, the interview is also used to study the current situation of English culture teaching in senior high schools as well as problem s that exist in the process of English culture teaching. The researcher summ arizes the problem s and limitations in the implem entation of English culture teaching in senior high sc hools to m otivate teachers to take English culture teaching seriously.Through the research on the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview data, this paper draws the following conclusi ons:(1) teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards English culture teaching are as follows : most English teachers in senior high schools have already realized that Englis h culture teaching and the cultiv ation of students’ intercultural communicative co mpetence are important. Besides, m any students have already realized the im portance of English cult ure teaching.(2) the current situation of English culture teaching in senior high school is presented as follows: many teachers lack the un derstanding of culture; Besides, m any teachers are affected by traditional teaching methods; some English teachers ar e not aware of the connotation of culture teaching; English teachers haven’t taken English culture teaching seriously. English culture teaching hasn’t been paid sufficient attention to. S tudents in senior high schools haven’t realized the importance of English culture learning. In order to get higher scores in English exam s, they spend too much tim e on vocabulary, grammar as well as skills of how to get hi gh scores in English exam s. Furthermore, students in senior high sc hools lack intercultural comm unicative competence. They don’t know how to judg e foreign cultures. In addition, students in senior high schools are eager to learn foreign cultures.(4) the m ain problems existing in English culture teaching are shown as follows: both teachers and students lack the un derstanding of different cultures. Besides, teachers and stude nts used to express in Chinese way that they are m ore familiar with. In addition, s ince English-speaking countries are so far away from China, both English teachers and students lack the authentic language environment. What’s more, m any English teachers’ cultural awareness has to be improved. Then the culture teaching reference books are in great need.It is hoped that th is study will promote English teachers in senior high schools to attach importance to English culture teaching, and s trive to im prove their cultural quality as well as stu dents’ cultural awareness. Meanwhile, stud ents’ intercultural communicative competence needs to be improved.