A Study On The Necessity Of And Approaches To English Culture Teaching

It is widely held among English learners that studying English well means knowing the structural rules reflected in linguistic competence, ignoring learning cultural knowledge determined by pragmatic rules and reflected in pragmatic competence. This idea is also shared more or less by some English teachers unconsciously when operating their English classes. Thus, an intention to prove the necessity of equipping the students with cultural knowledge contained in the English structural rules in English classes emerged long ago in my mind.This thesis, which was based on a brief introduction of culture concept, theories, a questionnaire of culture knowledge, requirements of English culture teaching in the new curriculum and English culture knowledge tested in National Matriculation English Test as well as an experimental research, briefly explained the necessity of English culture teaching in English classroom teaching. Besides, the thesis also explained principles on English culture teaching, introduced approaches of culture teaching in the English classroom, and summarized the contents of English culture knowledge contained in the middle school English textbooks. From the qualitative research, it proved that the thesis was worthwhile, and the experimental research proved more that students benefited greatly from the teaching mixed with culture knowledge, such as vocabulary learning accompanied with culture knowledge contained in the each word. The students could not only learn the words by heart easily and keep the words in their mind more effectively, but also they became more interested in learning English, which is of great help for students in learning English well. That the students could get better results in learning English indicated that it is safe as well as necessary to mix English knowledge into language items in the English classrooms. The principles are explored to ensure the English teachers to carry out...