An Empirical Study Of Cultural Teaching In Classrooms Of Senior Middle School

The popular view of foreign language teaching is to teach the language, teachers should also equip the students with necessary cultural knowledge. But culture is such a complex synthesis, it is only natural that different definitions are made by different scholars. To meet the practical demand in English teaching in senior middle schools, the present author chooses the following definition, which is in the New Curriculum Standard for English Language Teaching, "In English teaching, culture refers to the total patterns of history, geography, traditions, customs, ways of life, arts, verbal and nonverbal beliefs and values that characterize the life of the English-speaking countries." Such an all-inclusive definition is the one upon which this study is based. It is also stated in the New Curriculum that on the basis of developing the students' language competence, language teachers should pay attention to developing not only students' ability to think and express in English, but also their cultural awareness and fundamental ability in cross-communication. In addition, for the first time, it is clarified in the New Curriculum the teaching goals of cultural awareness for different levels.As the New Curriculum becomes widely accepted, more and more English teachers in senior middle schools realize that their job is not only to teach students English as a compulsory subject, but to equip them with necessary cultural knowledge to help them use the language correctly and appropriately. But in some senior middle schools, due to various reasons, culture teaching has not been really integrated into English language teaching. Students cultivated in this way may possess some language skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing in the short term. But in the long run, they may find difficulty in practical cross-culture communication because they are not interested in the learning content, lacking in motivation and above all, not familiar with the culture behind the language.As to study, psychologists put forward the theories of "self-actualizing learners" and "significant learning" in Humanism and "meaningful construct" in Constructivism separately. The empirical study, which is designed on the above theoretical basis, is done by integrating culture teaching into English language teaching in a class of a senior middle school, for the period of as long as one semester. Based on the data from the study and analyzed by SPSS, the present author concludes: Culture teaching can, to some degree, be integrated into English language teaching in senior middle schools. The reasons are as following: 1) Culture teaching can, to some degree, enhance students' motivation and their interest in English learning. 2) Culture teaching can, to some degree, help students understand their mother culture and thus form the proper values. 3) Culture teaching can, to some degree, help to develop students' cultural awareness. 4) Culture teaching can, to some degree, help to further develop those students' language competence, which is strong in itself.