A Comparative Study Of Directives For Cultural Awareness Activities In Junior High School English Textbooks And Teacher’s Books

Cultural awareness(CA)is one of the four core qualities proposed in the 2017 High School English Curriculum Standards.Textbooks and teacher’s books are important tools and materials for teaching.Therefore,it is necessary to study the CA cultivation activities in textbooks and teacher’s books.This study selects two editions of the junior high school English textbooks and teacher’s books of the People’s Education version of Go for it Grade 8(hereinafter referred to as “GFI”)and the Cambridge version of English in Mind 2(hereinafter referred to as “EIM”)for analysis,aiming to investigate the CA cultivation situation in junior high school English textbooks and teacher’s books,reveal some useful practices through case analysis,and put forward some useful suggestions for deficiencies.Based on the CAB(cognitive-affective-behavioral)model of intercultural communication competence(ICC),this study specifically explores three research questions as follows: 1)what is the situation of directives in cultivating students’ cognitive ability of CA in GFI and EIM? 2)What is the situation of directives in cultivating students’ affective ability of CA in GFI and EIM? 3)What is the situation of directives in cultivating students’ behavioral ability of CA in GFI and EIM?Directives analyzed in the study not only include the directives itself,but include the text related to the directives.Based on the three dimensionality of the CAB model of ICC,the study adopts the method of text analysis to analyze the directives of CA activities in the textbook one by one.To be specific,cognitive abilities of CA are subdivided into cultural region,cultural content and meta-knowledge of ICC,affective abilities are subdivided into emotional affective and awareness,and behavioral skills are subdivided into skills of elaboration and correlation,skills of discovery,skills of interaction and skills of spreading Chinese culture.The analysis found that in terms of the overall distribution of CA activities,both cognitive and behavioral activities in the two editions of textbooks account for a relatively high proportion,exceeding 40%.The cognitive activities in GFI teacher’s book accounts for as high as 68%,indicating that GFI teacher’s book have supplemented comparatively more cultural knowledge.In contrast,the behavioral ability activities in EIM teacher’s book account for 65%,indicating that it is more likely to help cultivate students’ behavioral ability of CA.GFI and EIM has a small proportion of affective activities(5% for GFI textbook and 4% for GFI teacher’s book;15% for EIM textbook and 7% for EIM teacher’s book),and the number is also small(6 in both GFI textbook and teacher’s book;25 in EIM textbook and 8 in EIM teacher’s book).There is a serious shortage of attention to affective activities in textbook.The cognitive ability activities of CA cultivation: 1)From the perspective of region,similar to other research findings,except for GFI teacher’s book,the target-language culture involved in CA cultivation activities in GFI textbook,EIM textbook and EIM teacher’s book accounts for the highest proportion(about 40%),indicating that the culture of mainstream countries such as Britain and the United States still prevails in teaching materials.International-language culture involved in CA activities in GFI textbook and GFI teacher’s book accounts for 6% and 10%respectively,while international-language culture involved in CA activities in EIM textbook and teacher’s book accounts for 24% and 19% respectively.EIM seems to pay more attention to cultivating students’ global awareness than GFI.The proportion of Chinese culture involved in relevant activities in both GFI textbook and teacher’s book is relatively high(38% and 48% respectively),which conforms to the requirements of the times.The proportion of Chinese culture in EIM textbook and EIM teacher’s book is 15% and 5% respectively.The reason might be that EIM is an international English textbook,not specifically designed for Chinese market.Different from other studies,the research proposed a category of mixed culture activities,which refers to activities including two or more regional culture.Both GFI and EIM occupy a certain proportion of mixed culture activities(about 15%),which is conducive to cultivating students’ cultural comparison ability.2)From the perspective of content: except for GFI teacher’s book,the proportion of big culture and small culture is similar,covering a wide scope.3)From the perspective of meta-knowledge of ICC,neither GFI nor EIM has the activities of it(skills and strategic knowledge of ICC),which is not conducive to the improvement of students’ intercultural skills,particularly in a situation that English teachers in junior high schools generally have no adequate such knowledge.The affective ability activities of CA cultivation: the number of emotional affective activities and awareness activities in GFI and EIM is small.But EIM textbook presents relatively more such activities,and emotional affective activities and awareness activities usually appear one after another with clear and explicit directives.Affective ability is the starting point of intercultural communication,lacking of which is not conducive to the cultivation of CA.The behavioral ability activities of CA cultivation: the proportion of skills of spreading Chinese culture in GFI textbook and GFI teacher’s book is 35% and 46%respectively,making a distinguished feature of GFI.EIM textbook and EIM teacher’s book pay more attention to students’ discovery skills in CA cultivation activities(34%and 48% respectively).Interactive skills activities in GFI and EIM both exceed 35%.But in terms of teaching methods,GFI usually uses discussion,dialogue,role-play,writing and games,while EIM has more diversified and exploratory teaching methods,such as Q and A,classroom quizzes,songs,after-class survey and research,survey results reporting and debates,etc..By contrast,GFI is still inadequate in the design of activities for help cultivate student’ high-level CA and behavior ability.The analysis also found that the teaching methods used by GFI and EIM in cultivating students’ cognitive and affective abilities are roughly the same.That is,students’ cognitive abilities are cultivated through activities like reading,listening and teachers’ supplementary of cultural background knowledge,while students’ affective abilities are cultivated through activities like discussion.However,there is a big difference between GFI and EIM in activities to help enhance students’ behavioral ability.Finally,this study provides the following suggestions for textbooks compilation:1)to increase the proportion of affective activities in the cultivation of CA and the content of meta-knowledge of ICC;2)By referring to EIM,GFI can further enriches the types of CA cultivation activities and give CA directives more clearly.