An Investigation On Cultural Awareness Cultivation In Junior Middle School English Teaching In The Context Of New Curriculum Reform

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 version)proposes that the core competence of the English subject consists of four aspects: language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality,and learning ability.Among them,cultural awareness,as a value orientation,is not only an important factor in promoting students’ understanding of Chinese and western cultural knowledge,developing their cross-cultural communication skills,and forming correct values,but also an important reflection of the humanistic nature of the English subject.With the increasingly frequent international exchanges,it is crucial to cultivate students’ intercultural communication skills.This study investigated the current situation of cultural awareness cultivation in junior middle school English teaching in the context of new curriculum standards in order to provide theoretical references and practical ideas for those who are engaged in compulsory foreign language education.This study takes teachers and students in a public middle school in a provincial capital city in East China as the participants.334 students and 15 teachers were surveyed by questionnaires,15 lessons of 6 teachers were observed,and 6 students and 6 teachers were interviewed respectively,with the intention of solving the following two research questions:(1)What is the current situation of cultural awareness development in middle school English teaching?(2)What are the factors affecting the cultivation of cultural awareness? The study found that(1)Teachers are not well prepared for cultivating students’ cultural awareness cognitively.They generally attach importance to the cultivation of cultural awareness mainly in the cultural introduction stage in classroom teaching and homework assignments,but the implementation is not optimistic.There exist some problems in the cultivation of cultural awareness in English teaching in terms of teaching objectives,teaching contents,teaching strategies and teaching assessment.(2)Students have a slightly lower level of cross-cultural cognition,a higher level of cross-cultural attitude,and an average level of cross-cultural behavioral choice.There are significant differences in students’ levels of cultural awareness by grade level,and the three dimensions of cultural awareness,cognition,attitude,and behavioral choice are significantly correlated.(3)The implementation of cultural awareness development in English language teaching is inadequate due to teachers’ perception and competence,students’ attitudes and understanding of culture,the content and arrangement of textbook and the way English language teaching is evaluated.Based on the analysis of the above data,this study proposes corresponding cultivation suggestions for schools,teachers and students.Firstly,schools should develop appropriate school-based curricula to meet students’ developmental needs,create a cultural atmosphere to improve the school English education environment and use a variety of assessment methods to enrich teaching evaluation methods.Secondly,teachers should improve their personal cultural literacy,broaden the ways of learning cultural knowledge and explore the cultural connotation in teaching materials.Thirdly,students should establish a correct view of language learning and give full play to their subjective initiative and strengthen their learning of cultural knowledge.