The Introduction Of Cultural Knowledge Into English Teaching In A Secondary Vocational School

With the globalization of the world economy and the popularization of the international exchange, China is in desperate need of people who are familiar with foreign cultures and capable of communicating accurately and appropriately in intercultural situation. English teaching should focus not only on the language forms but also on their cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence as well.Language and culture are interdependent and they influence each other. Being an intrinsic part of culture, language carries culture, mirrors culture, spreads culture and helps develop culture. And every culture must attach certain cultural connotations to its language. Hence one can see that learning a language can not be separated from the culture which the language reflects. Twenty years ago, foreign language teachers who were engaged in research on the relationship between culture and language began to recognize that cultivating intercultural awareness played an important role in foreign language teaching. With the rapid development of economy and technology, intercultural communication between China and the world becomes more and more frequent, and more and more linguists and educational experts show great concerns about and interests in this field. Many educational experts in universities and middle schools have begun to introduce cultural knowledge in foreign language teaching, and have published many related works. However, for secondary vocational schools, culture teaching is a new concept, and it has never got its due attention. Since vocational education has its own typical characteristics, the majority of secondary vocational schools focus only on cultivating students'vocational skills while neglecting their English teaching. As for the English teachers, they only explain English words, phrases and grammar in the course of teaching instead of introducing cultural information; the students, on the other hand, gradually lose their interest in English learning. As a result, English teaching in secondary vocational school becomes a vicious cycle. The aim of English teaching in secondary vocational schools can not be achieved; therefore, it is high time that English teaching in secondary vocational schools were to be reformed.Being an English teacher in a secondary vocational school, the author of the thesis is fully aware of the necessity of introducing cultural knowledge into English teaching in secondary vocational schools. Based on the teaching experience gained from working in the secondary vocational school and students'English proficiency, the author of this paper makes the practice and research of cultural introduction in the EFLT of secondary vocational schools. One experimental class and one controlled class are chosen to do the comparative study. In one class, traditional teaching method is used. In another class, the teacher reforms English teaching by introducing cultural knowledge into English teaching and using some aids such as multimedia computer, pictures, videos and so on to stimulate students'motivation. Cochran-Cox's testing method has been employed to deal with the data and the results of this cultural introduction are summarized too.The experiment demonstrates that the introduction of cultural knowledge in secondary vocational school English teaching can, in a way, play an active role in stimulating students'interest in English, and improving students'linguistic ability and intercultural communicative competence. In the long run, it can further improve English teaching quality in secondary vocational schools.