A Study On The Cultivation Of Cultural Awareness In Senior High School Based On TED Talks

With the growth of language teaching theory and the increasing need for cultural communication,it is increasing importance to develop culture teaching.The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School Students(2017)put forward specific requirements and main contents of culture teaching for cultivating students' cultural awareness.In order to better cultivate the cultural awareness of high school students,English teachers have made a lot of attempts to enrich culture teaching resources.Among them,TED(Technology Education and Design)Talks have been used in English culture teaching classes with their rich cultural contents.However,there are few specific studies on how teachers use TED Talks.Therefore,this dissertation investigated the use of TED Talks by teachers and students from the perspective of the culture teaching goals,contents,and principles in senior high school.This research took 102 students in a senior high school in Sichuan Province as the research subjects,then collected and analyzed the data from questionnaires,interviews and classroom observations.It will discuss the following questions:(1)What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards using TED Talks to cultivate cultural awareness?(2)What are the problems of using TED Talks in the process of culture teaching?(3)What are the specific strategies for using TED Talks in cultivating cultural awareness of senior high school students?Based on the questionnaires and interviews,it can be illustrated that high school English teachers and students have a positive attitude towards TED Talks to help students improve cultural awareness,but there are still some difficulties in how to select and use TED Talks.The classroom observations show that most of the TED Talks used by teachers are related to the topics of textbooks.And the contents of the current TED Talks can basically meet the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards for culture teaching in senior high school.Whereas,it is far from the goals in the cultivation of cultural awareness,which because teachers and students are not clear about the cultural awareness cultivation goals and culture teaching principles.What's more,teachers mainly applied TED Talks in the activities of introduction,classroom discussion and presentation,following the moderation principle and the practical principle,while teachers failed to arrange the contents,video time and culture activities in the process of culture teaching by using TED Talks,which mainly because high school English teachers failed to follow the four principles of culture teaching resources.According to the above findings,English teachers are suggested to combine the practical principle and progressive principle in the use of culture teaching resources to select TED Talks that are suitable for students at different culture teaching stages.Meanwhile,it is proposed that teacher design the culture teaching course based on culture teaching principles.Moreover,it is essential for teachers to improve their culture teaching skills by strengthening the understanding of the contents and goals of culture teaching as well as enriching cultural awareness activities.This dissertation researches the contents,methods and principles of TED Talks in cultivating cultural awareness in senior high school based on culture teaching theories.It puts forward some suggestions for teachers to choose and use TED Talks in order to improve the cultivation of cultural awareness in senior high school,and further serves a theoretical basis on the design of English culture teaching courses and the application of culture resources.In addition,there are still some weakness in this dissertation,for example,it just examines the cultural topics in TED Talks.Then,further empirical study should be conducted to examine the relationship among the linguistic knowledge,language ability and culture teaching in the use of the TED Talks,aiming at seeking more efficient culture teaching methods which can improve the cultivation of senior high school students' cultural awareness.