English And American Cultures In Senior High School English Teaching—a Study Based On The Acculturation Theory

Language is a sign to reflect thoughts and an important medium for information transmission and communication.Culture is the material and spiritual wealth created in the historical development of human society.Language and culture are inseparable.The language itself is a cultural phenomenon,and reflects the material and spiritual civilization of the nation.Through language,culture can be recorded and circulated.Without culture,language is lifeless.Without language,culture loses the medium for recording,storing,and spreading.Therefore,when we learn a language,we must understand its cultural contents.In order to understand English and American cultures,it is necessary for teachers to infiltrate cultural factors in English teaching.The English Curriculum Standard of General Senior High School points out that the goal of English teaching in senior high school is to cultivate students' scientific and cultural literacy and lifelong learning capacities.This requires schools to further improve students' comprehensive,intercultural communicative capabilities,and to provide them with international visions.English and American cultural infiltration plays an important role in cultivating students' cross-cultural communicative capabilities and has become a hot topic in the academic research.This study is based on John Schumann theory of acculturation.We take three classes in the first Middle School of Xiamen(Fujian Province)as the object of study.Using quantitative and qualitative research methods(the literature method,questionnaire,interview,teaching material analysis and classroom observation)to explore the phenomenon of English and American cultural infiltration in English teaching in senior high school.Taking the reading module of NSEFC(1-7)as an example,this paper analyzes the distribution of English and American cultural factors.In addition,it analyzes three different kinds of English classes: normal class,open class and network excellent class.This study is meant to answer the following three questions:(1)How do English and American cultural factors distribute in English textbooks.(2)Based on the theory of cultural convergence,how do teachers infiltrate cultures in the classroom?(3)Do teachers and students have the cross-cultural awareness.The results show that the infiltration of English and American cultural factors in high school English teaching is common.In the reading module of NSEFC(I-VII),the content related to English and American cultures is 2/5.In English classes,teachers pay much attention to the infiltration of English and American cultural factors,and they adopt a variety of teaching methods to transfer cultural factors.The questionnaire and interviews show that both teachers and students have a strong cross-cultural awareness of cultures.In the end,this study puts forward some suggestions on the problems found during the research process.Hopefully this study can provide some references for the study of cultural infiltration.