On Cultivating Of Students' Cultural Awareness In High School English Teaching Based On New Curriculum Standards

Language and culture interact with each other, that is, language is an integral part of culture, while culture reflects language. Therefore, the aim of English learning is not just to make students master the linguistic form. The students should also understand and learn the background culture hiding in the language.The New English Curriculum Standards came up with"culture awareness"and made it as one of integrated language capabilities. However, how the teachers put the theory into practice is still unknown. To know the condition of students'culture awareness, the author takes Leiyang Number 2 Middle School and Leiyang Zhengyuan School as objects of survey. By the methods of test, questionnaire and interview, the survey indicates that some achievements have been made in English curriculum reform but there still exist some problems in cultivating culture awareness, such as : 1).Students spend so little time in expand their culture knowledge that they frequently make negative-transfer.2). The cultural atmosphere in school is bad and students are not interested in culture learning. 3). Because of some objective factors, it is very hard for teachers to carry out the New English curriculum standards. 4). Incapacity of teachers is also an obstacle in putting the theory into practice. Based on the findings of these surveys, the author of this paper puts forward some measures.The study of this paper reflects the importance of cultural awareness in the high school English teaching. It helps teachers and students attach importance to cultural awareness and communicative competence. The strategies and methods put forward in the paper have directive significance in developing teachers and students cultural awareness.