A Study Of Culture Element In New Senior English For China

With the rapid development of information technology and increasingly close exchanges between countries in the 21 st century,China is the world's most populous country and second largest economy,has more and more communication with all the other countries in the world.Therefore,it is necessary for us to cultivate students' cultural awareness and build up their cultural self-confidence.At the present stage,senior English textbooks are still the main channel to cultivate high school students' cultural awareness,and the arrangement of the cultural content plays an important role in the cultivation of cultural awareness of the core competence of the English subject.Therefore,this study attempts to explore in this aspect and mainly answers the following two questions:(1)Whether the New Senior English for China(NSEFC)1 meets the goal of the cultural awareness of the core competence of the English subject? How is it embodied?(2)Whether the NSEFC meets the needs of teachers' cultural teaching?Based on Cheng Xiaotang's theory on the evaluation of English teaching materials,this paper selects the NSEFC,meanwhile,internal and external evaluations are made on the cultural types and cultural regions of listening,speaking,reading and writing.Internal evaluation of the NSEFC.According to the ministry of education “the Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standard”(2013)and Cortazzi & Jin and others for the classification of culture,to analyze the topics of listening,speaking,reading and writing in Reading and Using Language section.In this way,it is easy to find out whether the NSEFC meets the goal of the cultural awareness of the core competence of the English subject and how is it embodied.(2)External evaluation of the NSEFC.The questionnaire was designed according to Paloma Castro.It was conducted for high school English teachers who use the NSEFC and mainly includes six aspects.In this way,it is easy to find out whether the NSEFC meets the needs of teachers' cultural teaching.The study found that:(1)All kinds of cultures are involved in the cultural content in the NSEFC and meet the goal of cultural awareness.Although the textbook basically meets the requirements of cultural consciousness cultivation of the new curriculum standard,it also has some shortcomings.Firstly,in terms of regional culture,the textbooks focuse on British and American culture and Chinese culture,but less on Chinese traditional culture and comparative culture.Secondly,as far as cultural types concerned,there are more cultures related to local conditions and customs,the historical geography and lifestyles,and less contents related to thinking mode and values.Thirdly,literature and art are not involved in Chinese culture.The questionnaire results show that teachers have a deep understanding of the new curriculum standards.They believe that the compilation of textbooks conforms to the requirements of the new curriculum standards,and the cultural contents are more in line with the actual life of students,which is helpful for the cultivation of students' cultural awareness and cross-cultural ability.And teachers hold positive comments on the textbooks.There are some shortcomings.Most teachers believe that there are few references to Chinese culture,world culture and comparative culture in the textbooks,and they are not interesting enough to attract students' attention.At the same time,few teachers carry out comparative cultural teaching.According to the internal and external evaluation of textbooks,the author puts forward the following suggestions for textbook editors and teachers.On the one hand,the textbook writers are supposed to add the comparative culture,the excellent traditional Chinese culture,the thinking mode and value concept culture.On the other hand,teachers should improve their cultural literacy.In cultural teaching,teachers should select and add the cultural contents which are close to students' actual life and match the age ofcharacteristics of students,and organize students to compare Chinese culture with western culture in order to improve students' multicultural awareness and intercultural communication ability.