A Study On Cultural Awareness Cultivation In Junior Middle School English Reading Teaching From The Perspective Of Key Competencies

The new curriculum standards suggest that teachers should deepen students’ recognition of cultural identity and strengthen their sensitivity and discriminability to the cultural contrast,so as to cultivate students’ international awareness,cultural awareness and intercultural communication competence through innovative teaching design,effective classroom activities and other teaching methods.As a medium of conveying information and communicating ideas,English reading carries extremely rich cultural connotations,which has an important meaning to cultivate students’ cultural awareness.With the guidance of schema theory,intercultural communication theory and culture teaching,this research applies textbook analysis method,classroom observation,questionnaire with interview,and tests on cultural awareness,taking the current English textbooks,PEP,as the main research material and is scheduled to answer the following three questions:(1)What is the current situation of cultural awareness cultivation during English reading teaching and students’ level of cultural awareness in junior middle schools?(2)What has contributed to the current situation in cultivating students’ cultural awareness?(3)How can we improve and enhance students’ cultural awareness in English reading teaching?The main findings are as follows: firstly,teachers and students pay high attention to English reading and the cultivation of cultural awareness;however,the level of students’ cultural awareness is still low,which does not meet the corresponding requirement made by the new curriculum standards.Secondly,teachers’ cultural literacy and ability to conduct text analysis and the imbalanced proportion of carrying contents,carrying types and text format of cultural awareness in texts are responsible for students’ culture awareness cultivation.Thirdly,in order to improve students’ cultural awareness,teachers could enhance their cultural literacy and text analysis ability and creatively redevelop English reading texts of PEP based on the intercultural communication teaching and cultural teaching.