An Investigation Of Cultivating Students’ Cultural Awareness Of Senior High School From The Perspective Of The English Key Competencies

With the publication of the General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition,2020 Revision),the importance of cultural awareness in English language teaching has gradually been noticed by scholars and teachers,and it has been listed as one of the four key competencies of the English subject that are as important as learning ability,thinking capability and language ability.Cultural awareness from the perspective of the English key competencies emphasizes the need to develop students into talents who can understand and appreciate excellent Chinese and foreign cultures and have cultural confidence,international perspective and cross-cultural communication skills.English classroom teaching,as the main channel for spreading our excellent traditional culture and foreign diversified culture,plays a crucial role in establishing and cultivating students’ cultural awareness.However,due to the influence of exam-oriented education,there has been a phenomenon that high school English teaching emphasizes language knowledge but neglects cultural knowledge.Four years have passed since the publication of the General Senior High School Curriculum Standards,and it is worth investigating how cultural awareness is being developed in senior high schools today.The purpose of this investigation is to understand the current situation of cultural awareness cultivation among senior high school students.229 students and 24 English teachers in the second grade of two high schools in Liuzhou are surveyed by means of questionnaires and interviews.The teachers’ questionnaire contains two dimensions:teachers’ understanding of cultural awareness and the ways teachers use to develop cultural awareness.The students’ questionnaire contains three dimensions: students’ mastery of cultural knowledge,students’ understanding and cognition of culture,and students’ attitudes and behavioral orientation toward culture.The data collected from the questionnaires is analyzed and processed by SPSS 25,and six students and four English teachers are randomly selected for interviews based on the analysis of the questionnaire results.This study is expected to solve the following questions:(1)What is the current situation of cultural awareness cultivation in senior high school?(2)What are the main reasons affecting the cultivation of cultural awareness in senior high school?The results show that:(1)The current situation of cultivating cultural awareness in senior high school is slightly above-average.At present,most teachers and students have realized the significance of cultural awareness,but there are still some deficiencies: from the students’ point of view,the students’ cultural knowledge foundation is not solid and their mastery of cultural knowledge is not optimistic.From the teachers’ point of view,teachers’ own cultural knowledge is not comprehensive enough,and the proportion of language knowledge and cultural knowledge in English classes is imbalanced as well as the monotonous and repetitive method of cultural teaching.(2)The main reasons affecting the cultivation of cultural awareness in senior high school are listed as follows: students’ and teachers’ insufficient accumulation in cultural knowledge,the limited teaching content of cultural knowledge in English classes under the pressure of college entrance examinations,limited cultural experience in English classes,few channels for teachers and students to acquire cultural information and no certain evaluation system to test students’ mastery of cultural knowledge.Based on the analysis and discussion of the above two questions,the author puts forward some suggestions for the cultivation of English cultural awareness in senior high schools from three aspects: schools,teachers and students respectively.Suggestions for schools:(1)Organizing more campus cultural activities.(2)Enriching cultural teaching resources.Suggestions for teachers:(1)Improving their own cultural literacy.(2)Increasing the amount of cultural knowledge content in English classes.(3)Strengthening the evaluation of students’ cultural awareness development.Suggestions for students:(1)Improving their own cultural knowledge accumulation.(2)Developing a proper motivation for cultural learning.(3)Expanding channels for acquiring cultural knowledge.It is hoped that this investigation can play a certain role in improving the cultivation of senior high school English cultural awareness.However,due to the small sample size of this study,there are still some deficiencies in this study.The author hopes that future research can be further improved.