A Study Of Improvement Of Cultural Awareness In English Reading Of Senior School Under The New Curriculum Standard

With the implementation of the new English curriculum, more and morepeople have realized that cultural interpretation has become an inseparablepart of English teaching. As a part of English teaching, reading teaching playsan important role in it. While English textbooks which are the current usedcontain a large number of cultural knowledge, especially in reading and theproportion of cultural knowledge has become larger and larger. It is believedthat cultural interpretation must be integrated with language teaching in orderto successfully realize the goals of English teaching. Therefore, students’cultural awareness and intercultural communicative ability can be improved.This study chose310students and35teachers from three different seniorhigh schools in Guizhou province, which are Guiyang Experimental MiddleSchool, No.1Senior High School of Guanshanhu District Guiyang City andthe No.9high school of Guiyang. This study is aim to investigate the statusquo of cultural interpretation in English reading of senior high school. Thedata is collected from questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation.The study tries to solve the following questions:1) How does the new English curriculum influence cultural interpretationin reading teaching of senior high school?2) What is the actuality of cultural interpretation in English reading classof senior high school? Does it have differences with the new Englishcurriculum standards? If yes, then what are the current problems in culture interpretation?The major findings are reached out. Firstly, with the implementation ofnew English curriculum, most teachers and students have realized theimportance of cultural interpretation and realized cultural knowledge is animportant part in language learning. Secondly, although most English teachersand students have realized the importance of cultural interpretation, it is notwell carried out in actual teaching. For example: lacking of explanation ofcultural connotation of vocabulary, the methods of cultural interpretation issimple, lacking of the evaluation of culture. Thirdly, there still exist manyproblems in current cultural interpretation.1) The time of students andteachers is limited and the stress of college entrance examination is so heavythat they have no more energy to spend on culture.2) College entranceexamination doesn’t evaluate cultural knowledge directly, and many teachersand students have neglected it.3) The final goal to interpret culturalinformation is not well understood.4) Further training or education forteachers is urgently needed. Finally, some suggestions have been put forwardto improve cultural interpretation of English reading teaching in senior highschool.