A Study Of Cultivating Cross-culture Awareness In Senior High School English Class Under The New Curriculum Standards

Language is the sign of the communication and the carrier of culture. Language, as well as communication and culture are considered as an integral whole. Learning language is to communicate, while the ultimate aim of English teaching is to cultivate students'cross-cultural communicative competence.In April2003, China's Ministry of Education has issued new Senior High School English Curriculum Standards (Tests), in which the cultural awareness is first clearly set as one of the goals of the English curriculum. What's more, the New Curriculum Standards further subdivides the "cultural awareness" into "cultural knowledge, cultural understanding, cross-cultural awareness and communication skills" and more specific goals. With the cross-cultural communication increasingly frequent, the cultivating of the students'cross-cultural awareness in high school English class not only can better make students understand English, improve their culture self-restraint, still broaden the students'international horizon and the global consciousness and strengthen their actual communication competence. Besides, it can stimulate the students'interest in English learning and improve their English proficiency and results.In order to improve students'the passing rate of the college entrance exam, a lot of English teachers in the senior high school emphasizes only on some basic language knowledge and skills training mainly including grammar and vocabulary, while they do not pay attention to cultural teaching, so that the students lack cultural consciousness. Therefore, the paper aims to ascertain the present situation of cross-cultural teaching in senior high school English class under the New Curriculum Requirements, by means of theoretical analysis, quotation, questionnaire method, literature method and experimental method and combining the questionnaire survey. Aiming at the investigated problems, the author puts forward some constructive methods and suggestions on cultural teaching. Furthermore, the author conducts the experiment of cross-cultural teaching in senior high school English class, which will try to improve the situation of cross-cultural teaching in senior high school English class and enhance the students'cross-cultural awareness. The experiment has proved:the cultural teaching mode constructed by the author aiming at cultivating the students'cross-cultural awareness in senior high school is operable, scientific, and has a practical significance. Moreover, the mode has certain enlightenment in cross-cultural teaching in the current senior high school English.The paper consists of six parts:The first chapter is introduction, which briefly offers the research background, problems, purpose, significance, methods and the main frame of the paper. The second chapter is the literature review. This part mainly reviews the related development and achievements of the research in cross-cultural teaching home and abroad. The third chapter is about the questionnaire survey research and analysis which the author does about the present situation of cross-cultural teaching in the senior high school English class. Part Four is about the improving methods and suggestions put forward by the author, aiming at the investigated question of cross-cultural teaching in the senior high school English class. Part Five is experimental study. First, the author introduces the purpose, object and the teaching material of the experiment, and puts forward the experimental hypothesis, methods and steps. And then, the author determines the experimental measures and conducts the experiment in cross-cultural teaching. After the experiment, the author analyzes the experimental results and the data, and verifies the hypothesis which is put forward by the author before the experiment. The last chapter is the conclusion, which serves as a summary of this paper, draws a conclusion that this experiment can improve the students'cross-cultural awareness in the senior high school. Moreover, it points out the deficiencies of the study and the research direction of the paper in the future.