An Investigation Into Senior High School English Teachers’ Intercultural Teaching Competence From The Perspective Of Cultural Awareness Cultivation

According to General Senior High School English Curriculum Standards(2017Edition,revised in 2020),the core competencies of English subject consist of four dimensions: language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.Cultural awareness,embodying the value orientation of the core competencies of English subject,is one of the essential goals of English teaching in senior high schools.Therefore,intercultural English teaching has become an inexorable trend of senior high school English teaching in the new era in China,calling for higher requirements for teachers’ professional abilities.Based on the educational background above,this study attempts to address the following questions from three dimensions: Teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs,intercultural teaching practices and intercultural teaching reflection.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)What is the status quo of senior high school English teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs,teaching practices and teaching reflection?(2)What are the factors that affect senior high school English teachers’ intercultural teaching competence?Based on the curriculum standards and the literature at home and abroad,the study explored the specific connotation of intercultural teaching competence.With 189 English teachers from six senior high schools in N City as the research subjects,the study adopted questionnaires and interviews,then conducted statistics and analysis of the intercultural teaching competence of senior high school English teachers and its affecting factors through SPSS27.0.Major findings are as follows:(1)The results of questionnaires revealed that the overall level of senior high school teachers’ intercultural teaching competence was relatively high(M=4.02).To be specific,among the three dimensions,teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs(M=4.28)were at a higher level,while their intercultural practices(M=3.88)and intercultural teaching reflection(M=3.88)were relatively low.(2)And in terms of the relationship among senior high school English teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs,intercultural teaching practices,intercultural teaching reflection and intercultural teaching competence,there was a moderate positive relationship between the intercultural teaching beliefs and intercultural teaching competence(r=.607,p<0.05),a high positive relationship between the intercultural teaching practices and the intercultural teaching competence(r=.861,p<0.05),and a high positive relationship between the intercultural teaching reflection and the intercultural teaching competence(r=.875,p<0.05).In other words,teachers are the leaders in developing students’ intercultural communication competence.To some extent,strengthening teachers’ intercultural teaching beliefs and reflection will promote teachers’ intercultural teaching competence.(3)Most teachers acknowledged the importance of intercultural teaching,but there were still inconsistent situations between their intercultural teaching beliefs and practices.Some teachers regarded culture as an adjunct to English class,and their intercultural teaching lacks planning and systematism.(4)There was a significant correlation among overseas working or learning experience,cultural training and teachers’ intercultural teaching competence.But no statistically significant differences were found in teachers’ intercultural teaching competence in terms of years of teaching and educational background.Apart from the influencing demographic variables mentioned above,the study also found other factors affecting teachers’ intercultural teaching competence.The internal factors include teachers’ intercultural communicative competence and professional development.And the external factors were illustrated from two aspects,examination-oriented education and imperfect evaluation mechanism,which made a difference in teachers’ perceptions and practices.Given the above findings,some recommendations are made to improve the intercultural teaching competence of senior high school English teachers.Firstly,it is hoped that teachers can update their cultural knowledge in time,improve their intercultural communicative competence,and adopt appropriate intercultural teaching methods to integrate intercultural education into classroom teaching.Secondly,to expand access to learning channels of English teachers,education departments and schools should take the initiative to provide teachers with more intercultural teaching training courses and opportunities to participate in overseas language and culture immersion programs.Finally,optimize the evaluation system for teachers,and develop more effective intercultural competence assessment tools to help teachers understand the actual effect of intercultural teaching.