A Study Of Mother Tongue Culture Introduction In The English Teaching In Senior High Schools

According to American linguist E.Sapir, language is correlated with culture and cultural contents are manifested by language. The relationship between language and culture determines the importance of culture in the language teaching. Culture teaching become an indispensable part to cultivate the students' intercultural communicative competence, which requires that not only the students need to master the target language culture, but also they could learn to transmit the mother tongue culture. The intercultural communication occurs between speakers and receivers and it is a two-way route, so the students in senior high schools should master both target language culture and mother tongue culture. However, “Mother Tongue Culture Aphasia” frequently occurs among the students in the real life and unsuccessful intercultural communication makes them feel embarrassed.Therefore, the author conducts a study of mother tongue culture teaching in senior high schools.In this thesis, 45 English teachers from three different senior high schools are chosen in Datong city, Shanxi province and qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis are adopted. The questionnaire and interviews aswell as the observation in the class are involved. Furthermore, in this thesis,the following aspects are analyzed: the sources of getting mother tongue culture expressed in English, teachers' awareness and attitude towards mother tongue culture introduction in the senior English teaching, the present practice of mother tongue culture in the English teaching classes and the reasons for the lack of mother tongue culture introduction in the present teaching practice.Finally, some results are found. Though the teachers are aware of the significance of mother tongue culture introduction, they do not pay due attention to mother tongue culture in the teaching practice and spend a lot of time in language teaching. Meanwhile, they tend to introduce more target language culture than mother tongue culture.On the grounds of the results, the author proposes some teaching suggestions. In terms of teaching strategies, the author points out the adjustment of teachers' teaching concepts, the improvement of teachers' knowledge structure, the exploration of diversified teaching methods and the involvement of teacher training. Concrete teaching methods are included, that is, the involvement of mother tongue culture cluster in the vocabulary teaching, the involvement of audio-visual teaching method in the listening teaching, the involvement of role-play and debate in the speaking teaching,the involvement of comparison method in the reading teaching and the involvement of jigsaw in the writing teaching and so on.As for theoretical significance of this study, according to New Criteriaof Senior High School English Curriculum(Curriculum Criteria, 2015),cultivating the students' intercultural communicative consciousness and competence is one of the teaching goals. Moreover, intercultural communication demands of introducing mother tongue culture to English teaching.As for practical significance of this study, in the process of teaching practice, introducing mother tongue culture to English teaching could help students better understand the target language culture. In addition, permeating mother tongue culture into English teaching could activate students' learning interest and learning motivation. The last but not least, it can cultivate students' appropriate attitude towards culture. The students could realize that there is no superiority in any culture by permeating mother tongue culture into English teaching. They should take pride in mother tongue culture and build up their self-esteem and right culture identity.