An Analysis Of Culture Teaching Materials In Oxford English (Shanghai Edition)

The rapid development of globalization enhances intercultural communication,which makes it an imperative for students to acquire both the linguistic knowledge and the cultural awareness in order to interact effectively across cultures.The new Curriculum Standards for Senior English(2003)issued by the ministry of education places emphasis on cultural awareness in foreign language learning.Although researches of cultural awareness have been done at home and abroad,the analyses of cultural distribution in the textbooks are far from adequate.This thesis focuses on Oxford English(Shanghai Edition)to investigate its culture learning materials,and explores the possible way to improve the problem so that students' intercultural competence can be cultivated.This thesis utilizes textual analysis method,questionnaire,and interview to do research.The research results of textual analysis show that Oxford English's distribution of the cultural content is basically consistent with the requirements of the new CSSE(2003).Most of the categories of culture required by CSSE haven been covered by the textbooks.The questionnaire result shows that the majority of the students are very interested in the culture of English speaking countries,but they still need to improve their cultural awareness.The interview investigates how teachers conduct culture teaching in high schools,and identifies its deeper reasons for the unsatisfactory development of students' intercultural awareness.The present research reveals that high school English teaching should not merely centered on vocabulary,pronunciation and grammar,especially for students who have already acquired the basic linguistic skills.Teachers and the school should pay more attention to the culture teaching through different pedagogical ways and take full advantage of the cultural content in the set of textbooks.