Research On The Cultivation Strategies Of Cross-cultural Awareness In English Reading Teaching In Senior Primary School

With the development of social economy,globalization continues to deepen.Exchanges and communication between countries are becoming more and more frequent.Cultural differences have become one of the main factors hindering people’s proper communication.The inseparable relationship between language and culture determines that cultural knowledge must be integrated into language teaching to consciously cultivate students’ cultural awareness and their ability to use the language appropriately.National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011)has clearly set cultural awareness as one of the five overall curriculum goals.But in practice,neither teachers nor students pay enough attention to cross-cultural awareness.At the stage of primary school,pupils’ worldview and values have not yet formed.So focusing on cultivating their cross-cultural awareness in English teaching can not only lay a good foundation for their future English learning,but also help them broaden their perspectives,form correct worldview and values.Reading class is one of the important courses in English for understanding cultural issues and cultural differences.Therefore,this study mainly explored the strategies of cultivating students’ cross-cultural awareness in English reading for senior students in primary schools.This study analyzed the cross-cultural content of English reading teaching in primary schools based on the English textbooks for grades five and six published by the People’s Education Press.In the light of the relationship between language and culture,schema theory,a five-month study was conducted to explore strategies for cultivating students’ cross-cultural awareness in the English reading teaching at primary schools.Tests and questionnaire were used to assess the effectiveness of the strategies and improvement of the students in terms of cultural awareness.This research indicates that:(1)The cross-cultural content of English reading teaching in elementary school could be classified from the perspective of cultural knowledge and communicative aspect.The cross-cultural content at knowledge level mainly includes: festival customs,food culture,customs,lifestyle,geography and climate,literature and art,cultural norms of English-speaking countries.The cross-cultural content at communicative level mainly includes: address terms,greetings,farewells,introductions,and appropriate responses to general requests,compliments and apologies.(2)The effective strategies for cultivating senior students’ cross-cultural awareness at primary schools mainly includes: cultural background knowledge introduction strategy,cultural content supplement strategy,comparative strategy for cultural phenomena,cultural scenario creation strategy,cultural activity practice strategy and cultural content expansion strategy.(3)Data analysis proved that the cross-cultural awareness of primary school students could be improved through the use of relevant strategies in English reading teaching,which was embodied in three aspects of more cross-cultural knowledge,improved cross-cultural communication skills,and more tolerant attitudes towards foreign cultures.In general,this study has reached the expected goals.However,due to the limitation of objective conditions,there are some deficiencies.Some suggestions are made for cultural teaching and future research.It is hoped that the findings of this study can provide some reference for English teachers and researchers at this aspect.