A Survey On Senior High School English Teachers’ Redevelopment Of The Cultural Content In The Textbooks

In the context of the New Curriculum Standards,it is an essential task to cultivate students’ cultural awareness in English classroom teaching.Textbooks are important resources in culture teaching.However,they still have limitations and the way teachers use the cultural content in the textbooks can even exert a greater impact on the effectiveness of culture teaching.Researches show that relying on textbooks alone to implement culture teaching is unconducive to students’ in-depth and systematic mastery of the cultural content.Therefore,teachers are strongly suggested to flexibly use the cultural content in the textbooks and actively develop other appropriate teaching resources to support culture teaching in order to truly cultivate students’ cultural awareness.Based on the literature review,the author clarified the concept,dimensions and methods of textbook redevelopment,constructed a research framework in terms of teachers’ evaluation of the cultural content in the textbooks,their understanding of and attitudes towards redeveloping cultural content in the textbooks,their relevant practices as well as the difficulties they encounter and the help they need.Accordingly,the author designed a questionnaire and conducted a survey among 152 senior high school English teachers.The survey was then followed by in-depth interviews with a few selected teachers.With the results of the questionnaire and interviews,the author found that:(1)teachers’ evaluations of the cultural content in the textbooks are generally good,but there are still some unsatisfactory points;(2)Their understanding of redeveloping cultural content in the textbooks is relatively comprehensive and their attitudes are positive;(3)Their practices of redeveloping culture content are far from satisfying,and there exist some differences in their behaviors in different dimensions;(4)Their behaviors in the cultural presentation dimension focus on redeveloping the audio-visual resources while those in the teaching sequence dimension happen within the unit;(5)Their behaviors in the cultural knowledge dimension are dominated by adding relevant cultural knowledge while deletion and integration are less used.(6)Their behaviors in the cultural activity dimension are mainly about modifying and deleting relevant cultural activities but less involve adding some other activities.(7)Their redevelopment of the cultural content in the textbooks is influenced by external factors such as class time and curriculum resources as well as their self-abilities and literacies.In this regard,the author proposes some targeted suggestions in order to improve the status quo of teacher’s redeveloping cultural content in the textbooks:(1)Adhere to improving the cultural content in the textbooks and equipping rich and convenient teaching resources;(2)Interpret the cultural content in the textbooks in depth and analyze the knowledge structure;(3)Strengthen the connection with the teaching reality and use a variety of methods boldly and reasonably;(4)Place equal emphasis on the cultural knowledge and the cultural activities and make use of both the in-class and the after-class time;(5)Improve culture literacies actively and broaden the channels for the development of cultural resources;(6)Create a good cultural teaching atmosphere and provide multifaceted support for teacher’s textbook redevelopment.