A Case Study On High School EFL Teachers' Beliefs And Teaching Practice In Cultivating Students' Cultural Awareness

Influenced by the globalization of economy and technology,the important role of English as lingua franca has been widely concerned,which significantly contributes to the development of foreign language teaching from a cross-cultural perspective.Traditional teaching concept of only focusing on vocabulary and grammar has been unable to accommodate the change of times and also unable to meet the demands of students' overall development.In order to adapt to the new social situation,the National English Curriculum Standards(2017)for Senior High School Education set forth higher requirements for English education and talent cultivation.Among them,the cultivation of cultural awareness not only includes the facet of cultural knowledge but more emphasizes value orientation,helping students build good character effectively,which signifies that senior high EFL teachers will encounter even greater challenges in the new educational context.Teachers' beliefs and practice are directly related to the degree of success in the implementation of Curriculum Standards.In order to improve the current situation of teachers' cultivating students' cultural awareness and implement the requirements of Curriculum Standards further,this thesis attempts to explore senior high EFL teachers' beliefs about the cultivation of cultural awareness,including how they understand the connotations of cultural awareness as a key competency or how they consider the role of fostering cultural awareness in English language teaching.Moreover,this thesis is also concerned with the exploration of senior high EFL teachers' classroom teaching practice of cultivating students' cultural awareness.Having a reference to the related content of cultural awareness in English Curriculum Standards,it examines currently what kind of differences between senior high school EFL teachers' teaching beliefs and the requirements of English Curriculum Standards(2017)in cultivating students' cultural awareness.Five teachers working at a public and key senior high school of Chengdu were observed and interviewed via qualitative methods in this research.Classroom observations sought sights into how teachers foster students' cultural awareness and their beliefs as well as reflections underpinning their teaching practice were dug out through interviews.Considering ECS(2017),it was found out that teachers' perceptions of cultural awareness as a key competency were not comprehensive and the practice of fostering students' cultural awareness was also hindered by objective and subjective factors.For the purpose of narrowing down the distance to ECS(2017)and achieving expected results,this study provides suggestions for reference in the aspects of promoting teachers themselves' professional development,optimizing class time arrangement,enriching course materials,innovating the design of teaching activities and defining the role of teachers,hoping to further optimize teachers' beliefs and practice regarding the cultural awareness cultivation.