A Study Of Cultural Contents In High School English Textbooks(2019) Of PEP

English textbooks are important tools for English teachers and students,as well as the main medium to transmit culture.Scholars’ researches on the cultural content of textbooks have different emphases and angles,and the researches on the cultural content of textbooks mainly focus on the regional differences of culture,and only a few studies have investigated the users of textbooks..Based on the current situation of analyzing the cultural content of English textbooks,this study adopts text analysis method,questionnaire survey and interview to answer the following two questions:(1)What types of cultural contents are presented in New Senior English For China(NSEFC)(2019)and what are the distribution characteristics of the presented cultural contents?(2)What are the attitudes of teachers and students toward cultural contents in NSEFC?Based on the cultural classification model proposed by Zou Weicheng(2017),this study classifies and counts the text of cultural contents of the Compulsory textbooks of NSEFC(2019)and further analyzes them according to the definition and requirements of cultural knowledge in General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2020),the sources of cultural confidence,and the distribution of topic.After that,questionnaire surveys are conducted on teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the cultural content.At last,teachers are interviewed about textbooks and cultural confidence.The results show that:(1)The textbook contains more Source Cultures than other cultures,reflecting the tendency of “give priority to Source Culture”,but lacks presentative excellent traditional cultures.At the same time,it highlights the multi-cultural perspective with rich content of Source Culture,Target Culture and Neutral Culture,and reflects the idea of “inclusive”.There is no revolutionary culture in the Source Culture;The Target Culture lacks descriptions of politicians and their achievements,and there are insufficient texts on Food,Clothing,Architecture,Transportation&travel and other material aspects.The selection of International Culture is typical and representative.Neutral Culture mainly focuses on spiritual culture.(2)Most teachers and students have positive attitudes about the cultural content of the textbooks,but lack the mastery and understanding of interpersonal knowledge and cultural teaching and learning strategies,and the teachers rarely combined cultural confidence with teaching in the past.Based on the above results,the following suggestions are put forward for teachers and textbook editors.For teachers,the first is to enhance the teacher’s cultural competence and timely update their own cultural knowledge thus enhancing the students’ sense of identity and self-confidence in Source Culture.Secondly,teachers should pay attention to the actual knowledge of the cultural content of the textbook,and pay attention to the output skills of students.Thirdly,apply various cultural teaching strategies.Fourth,integrate language point teaching with culture teaching.Finally,instead of treating English as a single subject,teachers can try to integrate English with Music,History,Geography,Art,Politics and other subjects.For the text editors,first,add the appropriate excellent revolutionary culture contents.Second,increase the typical traditional culture of China.Third,according to the region,add local culture or issue local culture English readers.Finally,cultural teaching can be guaranteed by adding cultural teaching evaluation mechanism.