The Current Situation Of Cross-cultural Awareness In Junior Middle School English Teaching And Its Cultivation Countermeasures

Language is formed and developed under its cultural background,so culture is closely related to language.Learning the culture of other countries will contribute to develop cross-cultural awareness,and promote cross-cultural communication.In English teaching,cultural teaching should be combined with language teaching.The goal of cultivating students’ cultural awareness in "Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards"(2011 edition)shows that it is significant to cultivate cross-cultural talents.In practical teaching,teachers should explain some basic cultural knowledge and organize some cultural activities.They can increase students’ interests in learning English,enhance cross-cultural awareness and make language learning more easily.This research is dedicated to understanding the level of junior midlle school students’ cross-cultural awareness and the current situation about how the junior middle school English teachers cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness.At the same time,the problems and causes of teacher’ teaching will be uncovered in this research,and some suggestions or countermeasures for junior high school English teaching will also be put forward.This research subjects are the 7th grade students and teachers from Chongqing X Middle School.Based on linguistic theory,cross-cultural communication theory and communicative competence theory,this research develops under the cultural awareness goals proposed in the "Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards"(2011 edition).Test method,questionnaire method,classroom observation method and interview method are used in this research.Accordingly,the research instruments include the cross-cultural awareness test paper of junior middle school students,one questionnaire for students and another for teachers,classroom observation scale and interview outline.The aim of this research is to investigate the current situation of the cultivation of cross-cultural awareness in junior middle school English teaching.The main research topics include:(1)the level of students’ cross-cultural awareness;(2)the current state of the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness;(3)the problems and reasons for the cultivation of cross-cultural awareness in junior middle school English teaching;(4)the optimal strategies for cultivating cross-cultural awareness in junior middle school English teaching.Major findings are summarized as follows: First,the overall cross-cultural awareness of junior middle school students is relatively weak.They have little knowledge of Western culture and the differences between Chinese and Western cultures.Secondly,the level of teacher’s cross-cultural awareness is acceptable,but they don’t pay enough attention to the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness.Thirdly,the main reason for the weak level of students’ cross-cultural awareness is that teachers ignore the cultivation of students’ cross-cultural awareness.Also,the rigid teaching content,the unreasonable teaching methods,and the insufficient teaching evaluation are another three reasons.Fourth,in view of these reasons,this research puts forward the following suggestions for teachers’ teaching:(1)carry out cross-cultural teaching training in a timely manner to improve teachers’ cultural teaching attitude;(2)enrich teaching content and make reasonable arrangements of teaching tasks;(3)choose appropriate teaching methods and conduct cross-cultural teaching reasonably.