A Research On The Cultivation Of Primary School Students’ Cross-cultural Awareness By English Picture Books

With the continuous development of the reform of English curriculum,cross-cultural awareness which is put forward in the English Curriculum Standards becomes gradually well-known.Therefore,schools start to explore the strategies and methods to cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness.Many schools find that textbooks could not meet the needs of students’ comprehensive development,so they begin to introduce excellent English picture books as reading materials to cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness.However,due to limited related studies and the lack of teaching practices for the primary students’ cross-cultural awareness,the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness by English picture books is faced with many difficulties.Based on the schema theory,this research aims to explore the influences on the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness by English picture books,and provide certain theoretical and practical references for the later researches.This paper puts forward the following three research questions according to research purposes.Firstly,what are the problems for the cultivation of primary school students’ cross-cultural awareness before learning English picture books? Secondly,what are the influences of English picture books on the cultivation of primary school students’ cross-cultural awareness? Thirdly,what are the strategies to effectively improve primary school students’ cross-cultural awareness by English picture books?This research takes primary school students of Grade 3 in Xi’an Hi-tech International School as the research participants.100 students and 2 English teachers have been surveyed by questionnaires and interviews.Then,the texts from English picture books adopted by the participants were analyzed by this research.The collected data were analyzed by the SPSS and EXCEL.From the analysis of data,it is found that students of Grade 3 from Xi’an High-tech International School have some basic cross-cultural knowledge.But,due to the influences of the traditional culture and the lack of authentic language environment,students have less knowledge about the social etiquette,living habits and taboos of western countries,which leads to the low awareness of cross-culture.After learning English picture books for one semester,students can basically master some cross-cultural knowledge,such as social etiquette and taboos.It can be seen that students gradually develop some abilities to distinguish different cultures by learning English picture books,which is conducive to the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness.From the results of this research,there are some positive influences on the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness by English picture books.Meanwhile,this paper raises some effective strategies to improve students’ cross-cultural awareness by English picture books.More attention on the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness should be attached by teachers.And,some scientific teaching methods and evaluation systems should be advocated in class to cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness step by step.