A Study Of The Cultivation Of Students’ Chinese Cultural Identity In Junior High School English Teaching

At present,with the deepening of English education in China,the values of Chinese students are impacted by the English culture.There will possibly be some conflicts between English learners’ mother tongue culture and English culture,which will probably result in problems of English learners’ cultural identity such as Chinese cultural identity.Chinese cultural identity is an individual’s sense of belonging to Chinese culture.It is the behavior and way of thinking of Chinese people displayed in a large social group.English education should focus on students’ Chinese cultural identity.Only by maintaining the identity of Chinese culture can students spread Chinese culture with a more confident attitude.Therefore,in English teaching,we should strengthen the cultivation of students’ Chinese cultural identity.This thesis attempts to make study of the cultivation of students’ Chinese cultural identity in junior middle school English teaching,with the theory of cultural identity and language-culture relationship as the theoretical foundations.A total of 565 students and 17 English teachers in WOVES were selected as the subjects.Questionnaires,interviews and class observations were the tools to collect data.The study mainly focus on the following questions:(1)What is the current situation of the cultivation of Chinese cultural identity in junior high school English Teaching?(2)Are there any problems in the cultivation of students’ Chinese cultural identity in junior high school English teaching? If so,what are the problems?(3)How to better cultivating the students’ Chinese cultural identity in junior high school English teaching?Major findings of this study are as follows.(1)The students’ Chinese cultural identity is high.Detailed differences exist in different dimensions: In terms of Chinese cultural identity,students have the highest degree of identity with “language(Chinese)”,followed by “value”,then “cultural behavior”,and finally "social norm".In addition,there were no differences in students’ cultural identities in terms of gender,study abroad experience,and grade in which they started learning English.However,in grades,students of Grade 7 are more identified with Chinese culture in terms of social customs and cultural behaviors.In terms of students’ English scores,students with low English scores are more identified with Chinese culture.(2)There are some problems in the cultivation of Chinese cultural identity in actual English teaching.The main problems are: first,the cultural teaching objectives are not specific.Second,the teaching contents lack appropriate teaching resources.Third,teaching lacks appropriate teaching approaches.Finally,the evaluation criteria are simplistic.Based on the above findings,some suggestions were proposed for better cultivating students’ Chinese cultural identity in junior high school English teaching,including: First,teachers can improve teaching skills and enhance the awareness of teaching Chinese cultural identity.Second,we also can some cultural teaching materials.Third,the school could offer courses of Chinese culture in English.At last,the government could improving the evaluation system of English achievement.Because the research object is only Grade 7 and Grade 8 students,this study also has shortcomings.In the future research,the research subject can be expanded.It is expected that the results of this study will be of value to the junior high school English teaching reform and the cultivation of junior high school students’ Chinese cultural identity.