Cultivating Students’ Intercultural Awareness In The Reading Process Based On The New Curriculum Criteria

The coming of the information era and the frequent international trade and business make English language a significant and universally used language. Meanwhile, it plays a major part in the intercultural communication. Therefore, the English teaching in the senior middle school is strengthened and reformed in every country. Culture, along with reading, is a major part in English study, to which great importance should be attached. Hence we need to investigate how to improve students’ reading ability and cross-culture awareness.Language is the medium of culture. The senior English reading materials perfectly combine the English language knowledge with the culture knowledge. So strengthening the culture teaching in the process of reading course can sharpen students’ ability to use language effectively. In light of foreign language teaching and intercultural communication theories, culture teaching is essential to reading course of Senior Middle School in developing students’ awareness and their intercultural ability. In the teaching process, special attention need to be attached to both linguistic and cultural meaning of English vocabulary, which can help students easily grasp the content of the text and the main idea of the text. By combining the culture knowledge with English reading, it is valuable and significant to enlarge students’scope of knowledge, enhance their cultural awareness and then improve their intercultural communicative competence.