A Study Of English Cultural Awareness Of Senior High School Students In The Context Of Key Competencies

The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2017 edition)proposes to cultivate students’ key competencies of English discipline,including language competence,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.Cultural awareness refers to students’ understanding of Chinese and foreign cultures and their identification of excellent cultures.It refers to students’ cross-cultural cognition,attitude and behavioral orientation under the background of globalization.That is also called cross-cultural awareness,which is also referred to as English cultural awareness in this thesis.Therefore,it is very important to cultivate and improve students’ English cultural awareness in English teaching in senior high schools.Literature review shows,there are relatively few investigations on the English cultural awareness of senior high school students in the context of key competencies.Therefore,this thesis,based on the theory of cultural dimensions,cross-cultural communication and theories of sociolinguistics,made a survey in this respect by using test paper,questionnaire and interview.The research participants are 120 senior high school students and six English teachers from a senior high school in Yantai.The thesis mainly tries to address the following questions:(1)What is the current situation of senior high school students’ English cultural awareness in terms of English cultural knowledge,English cultural understanding,cross-cultural communicative awareness and cross-cultural communicative competence?(2)What is the attitude of senior high school students towards English cultural awareness?(3)What are the factors that affect the cultivation of senior high school students’ English cultural awareness?Through data analysis,the following main findings are obtained:(1)In the30-point test paper,students’ average score is only 14 points.Among them,the average score of students’ English cultural knowledge is 7.61 points,and the average of cross-cultural communicative competence is 6.5 points,which are all below the normal average level.This indicates that senior high school students’ overall level of Englishcultural awareness is relatively weak.At the same time,according to the questionnaire,students’ abilities in English cultural understanding and cross-cultural communicative awareness are also relatively low,and the current situation is not optimistic.(2)Most senior high school students have a positive attitude towards English cultural awareness.In terms of interest,more than half of the students are more interested in English songs.In terms of importance,nearly eighty percent of students have realized the importance of English cultural awareness,and they believe that the cultivation of English cultural awareness is conducive to English learning.In terms of motivation,over half of students’ motivation of learning is to increase their language knowledge.However,it is a pity that students are not enthusiastic.Only a third of students will actively seek ways to learn English cultural knowledge and cultivate their English cultural awareness.(3)The factors affecting the cultivation of senior high school students’ English cultural awareness are divided into three aspects.From the perspective of English teachers,half of teachers pay more attention to the grades on the test paper instead of the cultivation of English cultural awareness in English class,and over half of teachers will not take the initiative to teach English cultural knowledge in English class.Teachers have limited knowledge of English culture.From the perspective of students,first of all,students do not pay enough attention to English cultural awareness.Nearly half of students still focus on pure language knowledge.Secondly,students have limited access to English cultural knowledge and they still regard textbooks as a single channel to gain English cultural knowledge.In addition,current students are under great academic pressure,and60.8% of them think their free time is very limited.From the perspective of the school,the school has not paid enough attention to the construction of campus English cultural atmosphere and the cultivation of English cultural awareness has not been implemented into the school teaching task.