A Study On The Cultivation Of Culture Awareness In Senior High School In English Reading Teaching From The Perspective Of Core Competencies

The concept of core competencies is introduced in the General Senior High School Curriculum Standards English 2017 Edition Revised in 2020,promulgated in 2020.The four core competencies include language ability,cultural awareness,thinking capacity,and learning capacity.Among them,cultural awareness consists of an understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures,recognition of excellent cultures,and cross-cultural cognition,attitudes,and behaviors which students demonstrate in the context of globalization.Cultural awareness reflects the value orientation of the English subject core competencies.The development of cultural awareness helps students enhance their national identity and patriotism,increase their cultural confidence,cultivate a sense of community with a shared future for mankind,and thus become educated and responsible people.Reading is a quick and easy way to acquire knowledge and provides sufficient and important information for language input.Using reading materials as a vehicle to enrich cultural knowledge is key to developing students’ cultural awareness.Therefore,this study takes the core competencies of the English subject as the background,based on the theory of Cross-cultural Communication and Acculturation Model,315 students and 30 English teachers in a senior high school in Hohhot as the research subjects,and adopts three research methods,namely questionnaire survey,classroom observation and interview,to study the following three questions:(1)What is the current status of cultivating cultural awareness in English reading teaching in senior high schools?(2)What are the factors that affect the cultivation of cultural awareness in English reading teaching in senior high schools?(3)What possible suggestions can be made to solve the problems in the process of cultivating the cultural awareness in English reading teaching in senior high schools?According to the results of the study,the cultivation of cultural awareness in English reading teaching in senior high school is manifested in the following ways: students’ ability of cross-cultural communication is weak,and they do not correctly recognize the importance of cultural awareness in reading teaching;teachers do not dig deep enough into the cultural knowledge in the teaching materials,and they do not accumulate their own cultural knowledge,and they do not provide proper feedback and supplement after class.The main factors affecting the cultivation of cultural awareness include: teachers’ own lack of implementation of the requirements for cultivating cultural awareness;students’ weak foundation of cultural knowledge and insufficient attention to cultural knowledge;teachers have a poor grasp of the balance between a heavy teaching load and cultural teaching.Combining the theoretical and practical situations,the author proposes solutions from three perspectives:teachers,students and schools.Teachers should change the traditional concept of English reading teaching,pay attention to the important position of cultural awareness in English reading teaching,fully explore the cultural background knowledge of teaching materials and reading materials,improve their own cultural literacy,and pay attention to the learning and accumulation of Chinese and foreign cultural knowledge.Students should correctly view the role of cultural awareness in reading teaching,and establish a correct understanding of the role of cultural awareness.Schools should increase investment in cultural resources,provide teachers and students with rich cultural teaching resources,organize regular English cultural exchange activities,provide a platform for teachers and students to exchange English culture,and provide teachers with regular training and learning opportunities.