Application Of Cultural Schema Theory In English Cultural Teaching In Senior High School

Language is a carrier of culture.So speakers must be familiar with cultural norms about English-speaking countries in English communication.Students' cultural awareness cultivation is stressed in “The opinion on deepening the curriculum reform to carry out the comprehensive fundamental task” issued by Ministry of Education in 2014.The New English Curriculum Standards for Senior School states students' integrated competence includes linguistic knowledge,linguistic skills,affection and attitudes,learning strategy,and cultural awareness.One of goals is to cultivate students' cultural awareness.Therefore,it is vital to cultivate students' cultural awareness in English cultural teaching.However,in reality,the English cultural teaching is not satisfactory.Many teachers don't conduct English cultural teaching well in practice and students' cultural awareness remains to be improved.Because of those facts,it is necessary and urgent to cultivate students' cultural awareness in English cultural teaching.In recent years,many researches about English teaching abroad and at home mainly focus on vocabulary and English teaching,reading and English cultural teaching,or schema and English teaching,etc.The author has found although there are many researches about cultural teaching or schemas,the research combining English cultural teaching with cultural schema theory is few.Therefore,this research aims to explore whether English cultural teaching guided by cultural schema theory can be helpful to cultivate students' cultural awareness.Cultural schema in schema theory refers to cultural knowledge structures stored in brain.English cultural teaching in this research includes English cultural teaching in speaking,listening,reading,and writing steps in senior English class and covers the extra English cultural teaching out of class.Three questions will be studied in this research.First,can the application of cultural schema theory in English cultural teaching affectively increase students' cultural knowledge?Second,can the application of cultural schema theory in English cultural teaching affectively improve students' cultural understanding?Third,can the application of cultural schema theory in English cultural teaching affectively promote students' intercultural awareness and communicative competence?The research takes 96 senior students in Grade two in Qianwei No.1 Senior High School as an example.Literature analysis,tests,questionnaires and observation are employed to test the effect of application of cultural schema theory in English cultural teaching to cultivate students' cultural awareness.The results show teachers can cultivate students' cultural awareness according to students' cultural schema overlaps,cultural schema conflicts and cultural schema deficiency in English cultural teaching,that's to say,teachers can increase students' cultural knowledge,improve students' cultural understanding and promote students' intercultural awareness and communicative competence in English cultural teaching.According to the conclusion,some practical teaching implications for teachers and students in theory and some suggestions about practical English cultural teaching methods are summarized.Finally,the limitations and suggestions for further study are listed.