A Case Study Of The Representation Of Chinese Culture In Go For It

Intercultural communicative competence is widely acknowledged as essential to second language competence in the academic community.This is particularly the case when English has increasingly become a lingua franca,a trend that has won the recognition of linguists as well as EFL teachers.Essential to the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence is the representation of cultural knowledge in EFL materials.There has been extensive research home and abroad,revealing the rules and implications of cultural representation.However,it seems that insufficient attention has been given to locally developed EFL materials at the junior high school level.To narrow the gap,the current study addressed the following questions:(1).How Chinese cultural elements are presented in Go for it?(2).How do teachers and students perceive the inclusion of Chinese culture in the textbook?This study was based on the English textbook Go for it and used the 13 requirements for cultural knowledge in the Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standard(2022 edition)as the basic standards.The author did an internal analysis on the frequency of the Chinese cultural elements in the textbook,their types of presentation and distribution characteristics.The author also conducted an external analysis through interviews and questionnaires on the popularity of Go for it.The study found that the Chinese cultural elements were accepted by teachers and students.The rich content of the Chinese cultural elements in Go for it was able to combine the cultural elements and English language knowledge in a natural way,which promoted students’ language learning and developed their cultural awareness.However,the author also found some minor shortcomings of the Chinese cultural elements in the textbook: the elements are unevenly distributed across the units;some Chinese cultural elements are not fully covered;and the form of presenting Chinese cultural elements in the textbook is quite simple,which is not beneficial to inspire students’ interest and enthusiasm about Chinese culture in English.Based on these findings,this study offered some suggestions for textbook writers to pay more attention to the balance,variety and pertinence of Chinese cultural content in textbooks.It also hoped that teachers should pay more attention to the teaching of cultural knowledge in their textbooks.There are some shortcomings in this study: Firstly,the author’s theoretical research were inadequate and not deep enough;Secondly,the results of the internal analysis of the teaching materials might be inadequate;Thirdly,sample size of the questionnaire were small and the inability to control students’ attitudes towards filling in the questionnaire might have an impact on the results of the study.