Cultivation Of Students’ Cross-cultural Communication Awareness In English Reading Teaching Of Senior High Schools

Language and culture are deeply related to each other. On one hand, language is the matrix andreflection of culture. On the other hand, culture is the base of language. However, cultural teaching hasbeen neglected in English teaching in senior high schools. As the society develops rapidly and people indifferent countries are in need of communicating and cooperating, cross-cultural communication awarenessappeared in the new English Curriculum Standard. So cultivating students’ cross-cultural communicationcompetence has become the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching. In addition, reading is one of themost important ways to improve students’ English proficiency. This research is to improve students’cross-cultural communication awareness by making full use of reading teaching and helping students toform the corresponding schema.This paper mainly discussed two questions:1) what is the current situation of students’ cross-culturalcommunication awareness in the English reading teaching in senior high schools?2) How to cultivatestudents’ cross-cultural communication awareness in the English reading teaching in senior high schools?The thesis regarded100students in senior grade two of Wuwei No.18middle school as participants, whowere divided into controlled class and experimental class. The controlled class carried out the traditionalreading teaching model while the experimental group applied cultural infiltration strategies. Theinstruments of the experiment are pre-test, post-test, questionnaires, and interview. In order to demonstratethe cultivation of students’ cross-cultural communication awareness，the author used different teachingmethods in different units, provided students with necessary guidance, stimulated their interests, improvedtheir initiatives and creativities in reading teaching. The statistical process was conducted through the SPSS16.0. The results are as follows:(1) The situation of students’ cross-cultural communication awareness in the English reading teachingin senior high schools is far from satisfactory. To meet the needs of the modem society and individual’sdevelopment, cultivating students’ cross-cultural communication awareness in English teaching has becomeemergent.(2) Students’ cross-cultural communication awareness can be improved by integrating culture andlanguage knowledge in English reading teaching.Finally, base on this research, the author proposed some specific teaching methods such ascomparative method, reading and inferring method, classical literature appreciation method, role-playing method and multimedia aided teaching method to cultivate students’ cross-cultural communicationawareness in the English reading teaching in high schools. The author also gave some suggestions toEnglish teachers and students in senior high schools.