A Study On Culture Introduction In English Vocabulary Teaching In Secondary School

This thesis is to study the culture introduction in the English vocabulary teaching in secondary school. Language is not only a part of culture, but also the carrier of culture. Words, as the basic and most active elements in language, convey great amount of cultural-specific information and embody people’s values, thinking style, social life, religious belief and so on. Therefore, it can be said that vocabulary teaching can’t go without culture teaching.However, to the knowledge of the author of the present thesis, the current English vocabulary teaching in some secondary schools is still mainly based on pronunciation,form,and meaning, and quite a few teachers fail to pay enough attention to cultural factors in vocabulary teaching. Thus, it is absolutely necessary for secondary school teachers to realize the importance of culture introduction in vocabulary teaching with the development of the times and more and more frequent exchanges between Chinese culture and Western culture.This thesis firstly expounds the necessity and significance of culture introduction in English vocabulary teaching in secondary school. Secondly, it briefly introduces the related concepts of culture, the relationship between language and culture, the relevant theoretical basis, and the studies of culture introduction at home and abroad. At the experimental stage, the author first carried out a questionnaire to the classes and the same grade teachers, in order to know their cultural awareness and cultural teaching status. According to the results of the questionnaire, the author carries on the culture introduction from five aspects both inside and outside the classroom. In the experimental class, the author follows the principles of practicality, moderation, interest, and development to guide students to understand the differences between Chinese and Western values and ways of thinking, to let them really know the important festivals in the Western countries, to lead to English and Chinese different associative features, and to develop the second classroom for more culture learning. At the later stage of the experiment, the students of the two classes were compared with a vocabulary test. The test results have been significantly improved among the students in the experimental class after a semester of culture introduction. Their vocabulary has been enlarged, and they can master the cultural connotation of the words in the teaching material much better. Besides, their interests in learning English are raised dramatically. The experimental results show that it is necessary to carry on culture introduction in vocabulary teaching.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction, which mainly introduces the subject, the background, the necessity and purpose of the study, and the structure of the thesis. The second chapter is the literature review, which introduces some related terms first, elaborates the theoretical basis of the study, and then summarizes the history and current situation of culture introduction in language teaching in China and abroad. The third chapter is the research design. In this part, the research questions are confirmed, and the research objects, research tools and the data processing are explained. In the fourth chapter, the experimental results of the research are analyzed and discussed. The fifth chapter is the conclusion, which summarizes the research findings as well as the enlightenment to the English language teaching in the future, and finally points out the insufficiencies of the thesis and suggestions for further studies.