An Experimental Research On Culture Teaching In English Reading Class For Junior High School Students

With the growing globalization of world communication,there has been an increasing demand for an intercultural focus at different levels of second or foreign language teaching.It could not be denied that acquiring cultural knowledge encoded in a foreign language is an integral part of foreign language learning.Therefore,it is a vital issue to combine culture knowledge with the language teaching which is suitable for mushrooming needs of intercultural communication in current society.Reading is the main input manner of language and the most important skill for students in English learning in China.It is also an essential approach for students to enhance their intercultural competence.Reading ability affects not only students’ exams but also their development of their lifelong journey.It is meaningful to discover the elements affecting students’ reading comprehension so as to improve their reading ability and intercultural competence.A great number of tests and experiments show that the hurdle of English reading comprehension lies in not only vocabulary and grammar but also background knowledge and cultural elements.With the enforcement of the reform of English teaching and the development of basic education,the importance of cultural awareness has become increasingly crucial.It is manifest that English culture teaching and language teaching should be closely fused to each other in the basic English education field.The Ministry of Education issued the Criteria for High School English Curriculum in 2001 which attaches important to cultural knowledge,cultural understanding,cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence.It is the first time that cultural awareness is considered as one of the teaching goals.Culture teaching has been gradually engaged into English teaching in junior high schools.This research attempts to explain whether culture teaching can promote students’ ability to understand English reading materials.The research methods are mostly theoretical analysis,questionnaire surveys and teaching experiment and the research data mainly are collected through two questionnaires,as well asthe pre-tests and post-tests.Before the study of experimental teaching,the author conducted two questionnaire surveys on 11 teachers and 745 students of Grade8 at the author’s school to seek out the current situation of culture teaching and learning,especially related to the teachers,students and textbooks in English reading class of the junior high school.After the investigation and analysis,the author designed culture-oriented reading class with the cultural teaching strategies.The students from two classes in Grade 8(130 students)were divided into the control class and the experimental class.The controlled class was carried out in the traditional reading teaching model while the experimental group was done with cultural teaching strategies.The main purpose is to check whether the 12-week experiment can promote junior high school students’ English reading ability by the combination of culture and language teaching.The results show that cultural teaching can greatly affect the reading comprehension and the reading interest of English learners,and can cultivate their cultural consciousness.Through the study,the author believes that reading activities in junior high school should be integrated into some effective cultural teaching strategies.Culture teaching should be conscious and explicit by activating background knowledge,dealing with culture-loaded words and expressions and analysis of structure of the texts,as well as using effective techniques,comparison,classroom discussion,cultural volunteers and multimedia.The research results have some practical significance to junior high school English reading teaching and cultivating students’ cultural consciousness and intercultural communicative competence.At the same time,the research also puts forward some practical suggestions for the roles of teachers in the teaching of culture and the English teaching of junior high schools in the future.