A Survey On The Status Quo Of Cultural Introduction In Senior High School English Reading Teaching From The Perspective Of The New Curriculum Standards

Language and culture are closely related.Language is a part of culture and a carrier of culture.Language learning process will inevitably come into contact with the relevant cultural knowledge.The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017 Edition,2020Revision)(hereinafter referred to as the “New Curriculum Standards”)not only puts forward relevant requirements for the content and measures of cultural knowledge teaching,but also emphasizes the importance of cultural background knowledge learning in reading teaching.The significance of reading teaching in foreign language education is self-evident.A large number of experimental studies have shown that students’ English reading obstacles not only exist in vocabulary and grammar,but also lack of cultural background knowledge.If students lack an understanding of Chinese and Western cultures and ignore the differences between Chinese and Western cultures,they will have misunderstandings and cross-cultural obstacles in the process of learning and communication.Therefore,incorporating cultural introduction in senior high school English reading teaching is of utmost importance.In recent years,research on the incorporation of culture in English reading teaching has primarily shown that teaching cultural background knowledge helps improve students’ reading comprehension abilities.After the revision of the New Curriculum Standards in 2020,new requirements have been established for English teachers to cultivate students’ cultural awareness,which further refines the specific content and methods of cultural introduction in English teaching.However,there are few investigations and studies based on the specific content and measures proposed by the New Curriculum Standards in the current relevant research.Although some studies focus on the New Curriculum Standards,their research content is not well integrated with the requirements of cultural introduction in the New Curriculum Standards.Therefore,this study selects 270 senior two students and 89 English teachers from three schools in Hohhot as the research objects.Based on cultural schema theory and intercultural communication theory,combined with questionnaires,classroom observation and interviews,this study investigates the current situation of cultural introduction in English reading teaching in senior high school through the following three dimensions: 1.What are the attitudes of senior high school English teachers and students towards cultural introduction in English reading teaching? 2.What is the current situation of cultural introduction in senior high school English reading teaching practice? 3.What are the factors that affect the cultural introduction in senior high school English reading teaching?Based on the analysis of the survey results,this study draws the following conclusions: 1.Teachers and students hold a positive attitude towards cultural introduction in senior high school English reading teaching,and both teachers and students are aware of the importance of cultural introduction in reading teaching.2.The content of cultural introduction in senior high school English reading teaching primarily encompasses knowledge culture and communicative culture,with less emphasis on word culture and conceptual culture.The content of cultural introduction is relatively simplistic and not sufficiently in-depth.There are various methods of cultural introduction.Teachers will use videos,pictures and other demonstration methods in reading class,and also use cultural extension,cultural comparison and other methods for teaching.However,overall,teacher-led direct explanation still dominates,with students passively accepting the information.This approach fails to stimulate students’ active engagement in cultural understanding and does not foster critical thinking about cross-cultural matters.Classroom communicative activities and post-class cultural productive activities are lacking.3.Factors that affect teachers’ cultural introduction in reading class include their insufficient systematic study of content and measures of cultural knowledge teaching in the New Curriculum Standards,heavy teaching tasks,inadequate reserve of teachers’ cultural knowledge,lack of timely update of existing teaching materials,and limited resources of cultural introduction.Finally,based on the above research results,the author puts forward some feasible suggestions for high school English reading teaching from the perspective of cultural introduction,in order to provide some reference for the cultural introduction in high school English reading teaching.In addition,the author discusses the shortcomings of this study and makes a prospect for future research.