An Evaluative Study Of The Cultural Contents In Pep Senior High School English Textbooks(2019) Based On New Curriculum Standards(2020)

With the development of English education,people gradually find that English teaching can not only focus on words,grammar,listening,speaking,reading,writing,but more importantly is the culture carried by the language.As the main material of teaching,the English textbook is also the main source of students’ cultural knowledge.With the proposal of cultural confidence and the promulgation of the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2017 Edition,2020 revision)called New Curriculum Standards(2020)in this paper,the PEP senior high school English textbooks have also been revised.At present,some scholars have studied Chinese culture in English textbooks,some have studied the cultural contents in the compulsory part of the textbooks,and some have focused on the cultural contents presented in the reading section of the textbooks.Researchers have different emphases and different perspectives.But there are few studies on the cultural contents in the compulsory part and the optional compulsory part of the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)from the perspective of the New Curriculum Standards(2020).The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)satisfy the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards(2020)in terms of the cultural contents.By using the text analysis method,this study,adopting the cultural knowledge in the New Curriculum Standards(2020)and the classification of culture by Cortazzi and Jin(1999)as the theoretical framework,sorts out the types and distribution characteristics of cultural contents presented in the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019),and compares them with the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards(2020)on cultural knowledge,trying to answer the following questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the cultural contents in the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)?(2)How can the cultural contents in the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)satisfy the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards(2020)?What problems can be found in the cultural contents?The results show that:(1)The PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)contain diverse and rich cultural contents.All kinds of cultural contents mentioned in the classification of culture in the New Curriculum Standards(2020)are involved,and all regional cultures are also presented.However,there are few cultural contents related to transportation,clothing and history,and there are few types and amounts of international culture and contrastive culture.(2)The cultural contents contained in the PEP senior high school English textbooks(2019)generally satisfy the requirements of the New Curriculum Standards(2020)on cultural knowledge,but there is a big gap in the quantity distribution of the corresponding cultural knowledge required by each item.Cultural contents corresponding to the requirements of the fifth and sixth of compulsory courses,the third,fourth and fifth requirements of the optional compulsory courses are less.In addition,this study makes some suggestions on the use of senior high school English textbooks and the compilation of senior high school English textbooks in the future.