A Case Study On "Aphasia Of Chinese Culture" In Senior High School English Teaching

With further and deeper English teaching research being carried out in our country,the idea has been widely recognized and accepted by most English teachers that language is the carrier of its culture and that learning a language is a process of learning its culture,which is always stressed in all versions of National English Syllabus and Curriculum.Thus,it has become a most important aim to raise students' cross-cultural awareness and foster their cross-cultural communicative competence.However,our current Middle School English teaching practice is a long-term extension of the traditional system of a linguistic knowledge-centered teaching mode,focusing primarily on the cultivation of students'language ability.Due to the exam pressure,the importance of culture teaching and learning has almost been overlooked.And western culture teaching makes up most of the infrequently-conducted culture teaching,not to mention native culture teaching in English.All this has led to the "Aphasia of Chinese Culture" among senior high school students,thus impeding the effective cultivation of students' intercultural communicative competence.The research expounds in chapter 2 the close relationships among language,thinking,culture,and communication,in which we say the development of thinking,language,and communication can't be carried out without the cultural background.And each language and thinking is passed down in this background.It is also evident that every individual lives in a particular culture,and gains language skills,thinking ability and communication competence in that culture.Besides,the research is based on English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017),in which teaching requirements on cultural awareness are described in detail that students are enabled to gain cultural knowledge,understand the meaning of each culture,compare different cultures,thus gaining confidence in our Chinese culture,and eventually be equipped with the capability of expanding our traditional culture.As such,one of the primary English teaching aims is encouraging students to illustrate Chinese cultural minds and Chinese socialist road in English.In order to analyze the cross-cultural teaching problems as well as their causes in the school,where the author has been teaching for many years,the author focuses on the researches into 3 key factors-teaching materials,teachers,students,in the form of questionnaires,test and analysis of cultural components in current textbooks.This study utilized questionnaires to survey students and teaching staff,then comb through teaching materials to analyze problems and their causes.The result of the statistical analysis shows that there does exist the problem of "Aphasia of Chinese Culture" among senior high school students,of which the symptoms are:(1)Students have little desire for learning how to express Chinese traditional culture in English.(2)Students lack sufficient knowledge to gain the competence to express Chinese traditional culture in English.Hence,the causes of the phenomenon can be concluded from the research,which are listed as follows:(1)students:they are always stressed with various exams and competitions so that they can't develop interest in English communication competence of Chinese traditional culture;(2)teachers:teachers lack such intercultural teaching practice,so they are not skilled at expressing Chinese traditional culture in English;(3)teaching materials:there's an insufficient coverage of the Chinese cultural content in current teaching materials,which directly affects students' ability to express Chinese traditional culture in English.The findings of the research clearly suggest that senior English intercultural teaching must deal properly with the relationships between native culture and English culture,between language teaching,culture teaching and thinking cultivating.It also provides another countermeasure---teachers are advised to employ themes concerning culture in teaching materials to arouse students' interests,which can help students to foster language and cultural competence,eliminate the influence of the "Chinese cultural aphasia" and solve those problems met in intercultural teaching.