A Study On Culture Teaching In English Teaching In Junior Middle Schools

Cross-cultural communicative competence has become one of the basic abilities of talents in 21st century,and culture teaching becomes more and more important in English teaching.Nevertheless,it is an undeniable fact that English teachers in junior middle schools are used to paying too much emphasis on the teaching of language knowledge,language skills or test skills while neglecting culture teaching for a long time.In view of this problem,English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011 version)clearly defines students' culture teaching objectives at different educational stages.However,there is still some gap between the actual situation of culture teaching in English classes and English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011).This thesis takes Nanning S Middle School as the subject of case study and intends to survey the current situation of culture teaching in junior middle schools' English classes by questionnaire and interview,and then to put forward some useful suggestions to improve culture teaching.The research mainly focuses on three questions:(1)What is the current presentation situation of cultural contents involved in junior English textbooks?(2)What is the current implementation situation of culture teaching in actual English classes?(3)What are the main factors influencing culture teaching?Both quantitative and qualitative researches are used to facilitate the research,such as text analysis,questionnaire and interview.The major findings are listed as follows:(1)The current presentation situation of cultural knowledge involved in junior English textbooks basically meets the requirements of English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011).(2)Most students and teachers in Nanning S Middle School have realized the importance of culture teaching.A large number of students show great interests in culture teaching,but the actual implementation situation of culture teaching in English classes is not really satisfactory.(3)The main factors influencing culture teaching include the limited time and energy of students and teachers,the inadequate culture teaching atmosphere provided by schools and students' pressure of Senior High School Entrance Examination.Culture teaching faces some problems in actual English classes' teaching materials,teaching methods and teaching environment.(4)Although students have many ways to learn about cultural knowledge,most of them tend to rely on their teachers' direct culture teaching in class.Finally,the research puts forward some teaching implications and suggestions,such as English textbooks' being added more interesting cultural contents,students' cultivating autonomous learning ability and building up cultural schema,teachers' learning advanced language teaching theories to perfect their use of teaching materials and creating more effective culture teaching methods,and the school's emphasizing on culture teaching atmosphere and developing teaching materials of local culture.