A Study On The Culture Teaching In Senior High School English Reading Class

Language and culture are indispensable,so teaching English involves teaching the culture of English-speaking countries.The English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School stresses the importance of culture teaching based on the discourse in each module or unit.In fact,reading comprehension accounts for a large proportion in the textbooks,which cover a lot of topics,genres and information.Based on the above,it is feasible and significant for English teachers to do culture teaching in reading class.Taking the Middle School Attached to Sichuan Normal University as a case,this research is going to uncover the teachers’ attitudes to culture teaching in reading class and to find out the major hindrances to culture teaching by questionnaire.And then,the culture teaching methods and activities mainly employed by teachers are going to be investigated by questionnaire and classroom observation.The results of the questionnaire show that most of the senior high English teachers value culture teaching in reading class.With regard to the role of teachers in culture teaching,“collaborator” and “informant” are more favoured by most of the teachers.And the questionnaire also indicates that the major hindrances are: some of the reading passages being outdated,the tightly scheduled class period,teachers’ limited time and energy,and pressure from the national matriculation examination.As for the culture teaching methods,many teachers just sometimes mention the connotations of some words,dig further into the culture in the reading passages,and recommend some reading materials to students.Besides,on the basis of classroom observation,as with the culture teaching methods,it is found that teachers prefer using pictures,videos,audios,and verbal interaction much more than other methods.In addition,in terms of making comparison between Chinese culture and English-speaking countries,although it is employed in a lower frequency,it does exist in culture teaching,which goes the same with the results in the questionnaire.Meanwhile,methods,like creating situation and enlightening are used in lower frequency.When it comes to the students’ activities,students are required to listen,discuss,answer,view and appreciate in a higher frequency than do presentation,do role play,recall and read extra material.