A Case Study On The Cultural Corner Of The Senior English Textbooks Published By Foreign Language Teaching And Research Press

As the reform of senior high English teaching develops,English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2018)(shortened as New Curriculum Standards)has listed “cultural awareness” as one of the four components of key competencies.Currently,Ordinary Senior Curriculum Standard Experiment Teaching Material New Standard English(shortened as New Standard English)published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press is widely used by senior high school in Sichuan province.In this set of textbooks,the cultivation of “cultural awareness” is embodied in a specific section named “Cultural corner”.According to the investigation of the current situation of using this set of textbooks,the teaching contents in “Cultural corner” mainly concentrate on delivering grammar points and providing reading materials,the functions of culture appreciation and culture understanding have not been fully invoked.Therefore,“Cultural corner” fails to meet the teaching requirements of developing students' cultural awareness.Nowadays,experts abroad and at home,have done a lot of studies on cultural elements of different textbooks,the author summarizes the previous studies of cultural contents in English textbooks into the following three aspects.First,the cultural contents in English textbooks are categorized and its distributional feature is analyzed.The second one is to explore the differences and similarities between different version of English textbooks.Finally,the selection and presentation of cultural contents in English textbooks have been investigated.Through the analysis of literature,the author finds out that few studies are commissioned to research Cultural corner provided by the compulsory textbooks of New Standard English,there is only one paper concerned with this section,which means that the research of this part is insufficient.Thus,this research focuses on studying “Cultural corner” of New Standard English,taking textbook evaluation theory,cultural schema theory and cultural transfer theory as the theoretical foundation.The author applies test,interview,classroom observation,content analysis and questionnaire to analyze the cultural phenomenon,the cultural theme,the perspective of demonstrating culture and explore the way of setting the cultural contents in Cultural corner.Based on these investigations,the author tries to offer some suggestions to improve cultural contents,which can facilitate English teachers to present this section vividly so that a better service can be provided to cultivate students' cultural awareness.The following questions will be solved:(1)What themes have been involved in the Cultural corner of New Standard English?(2)How can the contents of Cultural corner be presented in the teaching of English writing and reading?(3)What suggestions can be offered to improve the contents in Cultural corner?Integrating teaching practice with the analysis of “Cultural corner”,the author has drawn the following conclusions from the present study.First,there are three kinds of cultural themes involved in “Cultural corner”: man and self,man and society,man and nature.These themes are appropriate for senior high school students to learn.But the compulsory textbooks focus on the theme of man and society,there are a small number of articles concerned with the other two types of themes.Meanwhile,the cultural content describes cultural phenomenon from one aspect,which lacks the comparative analysis of cultural elements.Second,the research shows that employing flipped classroom in the teaching of Cultural corner can help students better understand culturalknowledge and cultural phenomenon as well as stimulating students' interest of acquiring cultural knowledge.Then,based on the research,the author finds out that Cultural corner has room for further improvement.Textbook editors may replenish some themes,cultural contents in Cultural corner,while deleting some improper cultural contents,such as outdated themes,repetitive topics,etc..In order to provide convenience for learners to preview the learning materials,extracurricular reading list may also be supplied.Additionally,cultural phenomena in Cultural corner may be demonstrated from different perspectives,which is conductive to foster critical thinking.At the end of this thesis,the limitations of this research have been listed,the author also offers several suggestions for the further study.