A Research On Cultivating Intercultural Awareness In The Outset-stage EnglishTeaching Of Primary School

According to the New English Curriculum Standards (2011), the overall objective of English teaching for primary school students is to cultivate learners’ comprehensive language competence. English is not only a language tool, but also an effective means for students to understand culture and enhance their cultural awareness. In the initial stage of English learning in primary schools, the cultivation of intercultural awareness is often ignored. Many games, songs and chants are used by teachers in most English classes, but the cultivation of intercultural awareness is ignored. When cultivating the intercultural awareness, some obstacles occur:Some teachers themselves lack cultural awareness; some teachers know little about cultural knowledge; some teachers lack communication skills.In view of the above situation, the author holds that although English teaching in the outset-stage of primary school starts from the very basic words and sentence patterns, it cannot be assumed that students can only express simple and naive ideas which are far behind their cognitive levels. English teaching in primary schools needs to be changed from laying excessive emphasis on grammar explanation and spelling of words and sentences to paying attention to cultivating students’ intercultural awareness. Therefore, how to strengthen students’ intercultural awareness in primary school English teaching is a topic worth considering.Through the statistical analysis of the questionnaire survey conducted at the beginning of the term, the author finds that students’ intercultural awareness is rather weak. To cultivate students’intercultural awareness in the outset-stage English teaching of primary schools and make students realize the importance of culture teaching, the author has researched strategies of cultivating intercultural awareness. The strategies are discussed from five aspects:cultural awareness cultivation in "Let’s talk" class; cultural awareness cultivation in "Let’s learn" class; cultural awareness cultivation in "start-to-read" class; cultural awareness cultivation in "letters and sounds" learning and cultural awareness cultivation in extracurricular activities. After a theoretical exploration, an experiment was conducted on four classes of third-grade students in Hangzhou Xuejun Primary School. After the teaching practice, the results of the test and survey on the experimental classes and control classes were analyzed and compared. The results show that, by using a variety of strategies in class to cultivate students’intercultural awareness, the students’intercultural awareness has improved significantly, which is of significance to primary school English teaching. Based on the previous research, the author comes up with some practical implications of international cultural awareness, in the hope of providing references for primary school English teachers.