Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
English teaching has started early in China. And English has become the requiredforeign language in high schools and has been written into the national curriculumstandards since 1978. Afterwards, English Curriculum Standards for Nine-yearCompulsory Education (hereinafter referred to NECS) in 2011 version has provided somesuggestions for middle school English teachers: on the one hand, teachers should guidestudents to understand different cultures and to prepare for intercultural communication.On the other hand, in order to develop students’ ICC, teachers are supposed to createauthentic contexts in accordance with students’ language ability, cognitive level and theirlife experience.
As for the definition and importance of cultural awareness, it refers to a “graduallydeveloping inner sense of the equality of cultures, an increased understanding of yourown and other people’s cultures, and a positive interest in how cultures both connect anddiffer. Such awareness can broaden the mind, increase tolerance and facilitateinternational communication.” (Tomlinson, 2001: 5) What is more, a research which isconducted in New Zealand by Liddicoat (2004) has proposed that when languageteaching has focused only on language learning, students have few opportunities todevelop their cultural awareness. Through reading the literature, the author hassummarized the major barriers in the cultivation of students’ cultural awareness inprimary, junior, senior high schools and college English teaching. To begin with, somestudents have few opportunities to go abroad mainly because of their family economicconditions, so that they do not have a deep understanding of foreign cultures. Secondly,although teaching resources become more available than before, students still lack anauthentic language environment. Finally, due to the pressure of entrance examinations,most students treat English as a tool for further education or job hunting, so that theyignore the improvement of their cultural awareness.
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1.2 The Purpose and Significance of the Research
The purposes of this research are as follows. First and foremost, the author intendsto figure out English teachers’ perceptions and teaching practice on fostering middleschool students’ cultural awareness by questionnaires, interviews and classroomobservations. Secondly, the author attempts to explore effective ways to overcome thebarriers in cultural teaching. Lastly, the author aims to promote the cultivation of middleschool students’ cultural awareness and enrich English teaching contents.
On the one hand, the pedagogical significance of this research is to facilitate thecultivation of middle school students’ cultural awareness, so that their language abilityand ICC can be improved. In addition, this study may offer middle school Englishteachers enlightenment in the cultivation of their students’ cultural awareness. In the longterm, teachers’ teaching competence will be enhanced and their cultural awareness will beimproved to some extent. It can also provide reference for teachers’ cultural trainings andcultural activities in schools. On the other hand, the theoretical significance of thisresearch is to provide examples for relevant research and to enrich English teaching ideas.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Culture
The word, culture, covers a wide range of meanings. Scholars at home and abroadhave different understandings of it. Many of them have proposed numerous definitions ofculture based on their own research domain since 1871. The well-known linguist Sapir(1982) proposes a broad definition of culture that culture is what people have thought andwhat they have done in the society. Afterwards, Hu and Gao (1997) point out that theword “culture” is polysemous. In ancient China, its meaning is far less complicated thanthat in modern China. It only refers to “cultural governance and enlightenment”, which isopposite to “force” and “martial arts”. In English, it is sometimes equivalent to culture,sometimes to civilization, and sometimes to education or literacy. One of therepresentatives Hall points out that “culture is communication and communication isculture.” (1959: 94) It shows that culture and communication are mutually inclusive oreven equivalent to each other. Furthermore, he regards culture as profound and unstatedexperience which native members share. In his eye, culture refers to a kind of non-verbalexperiences which a certain community shares. Similarly, Hofstede defines culture asfollows: “culture is the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the membersof one group or category of people from another.” (1980: 25) It shows that culture isunique so that people from different places may have different personalities and behaviors.Additionally, in Brooks’ (1968) view, physically and mentally, everyone is the same,while the interactions between persons or groups vary widely from place to place thusforming the foundation of different cultures.
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2.2 Language and Culture
Kroeber (1952), an American anthropologist, noted for his studies of culture,believes that culture started when speech has come into being, and from that beginning,the enrichment of either one has led to the development of the other. In other words,language and culture have cohabited invariably. According to Saussure (2009), languageis a symbol system, which includes phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and syntax. And themain function of language is for communication. Furthermore, Hantrais (1989) putsforward the view that culture is the beliefs and practice governing the life of a society forwhich a specific language is the vehicle for expression. Similarly, Byram (2017) holds theview that culture represents behaviors, values and beliefs while language does not attachany beliefs and values. It should be noted that their opinions illustrate the importance oflanguage and culture for people’s daily life as well as the differences between them.Specifically, Halliday (1976) holds the view that language is not only a symbol system,but also one of the parts of culture. Namely, language is subordinate to culture. Thus,there is no doubt that learning a language involves learning its culture. Moreover,Samovar and Porter (2004) underline the multiple roles of language in culture, whichinclude recording events, transmitting culture as well as standing for identity. And theyalso demonstrate the influence of culture on language. In other words, culture is thecontext of the whole language system. Therefore, language and culture have muchinfluence on each other. Further, Suchankova (2014) presents the view that learning aforeign language enables people to learn about other cultures and contributes to thediscovery of their own identity as well as the development of their own culture. It leads totolerance, understanding, sympathy and sensitivity and brings better life. Alternatively,Wen (2013) presents the view that English as a lingua franca, can be used to exchangeideas about not only scientific and technological knowledge, but also different cultures. Inaccordance with their descriptions, it can be concluded that language plays an importantrole in culture and vice versa. Therefore, it is of prime importance to understand and teaseout the connections between language and culture.
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3.1 Research Questions................................. 17
3.2 Research Subjects...............................17
3.3 Research Instruments..................................18
Chapter Four Results and Discussion..................................22
4.1 Teachers’ Perceptions on the Cultivation of Students’ Cultural Awareness......... 22
4.1.1 Questionnaire Results and Discussion................................22
4.1.2 Interview Results and Discussion..........................31
Chapter Five Conclusions......................................61
5.1 Major Findings.................................. 61
5.2 Implications............................. 64
5.3 Limitations and Recommendations................................... 66
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
4.1 Teachers’ Perceptions on the Cultivation of Students’ Cultural Awareness
In this study, both the questionnaires for middle school English teachers and theinterviews with them are designed to ascertain their perceptions on the cultivation of theirstudents’ cultural awareness. A total of 247 valid questionnaires have been obtained and 7respondents have been interviewed. In order to arrive at the answers to the first researchquestion, the results of the questionnaires and the interviews are analyzed in this section.
4.1.1 Questionnaire Results and Discussion
The author applies SPSS 25.0 to test the reliability and validity of the questionnairesbefore the formal questionnaires are launched out. As is presented in Table 4, theCronbach’s Alpha of the questionnaires (alpha = 0.951) is much higher than 0.07, whichindicates that the reliability of the research data is ensured. Hence, the author then issuesthe formal questionnaires to obtain respondents’ opinions and experience in thecultivation of their students’ cultural awareness.
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Chapter Five Conclusions
5.1 Major Findings
To begin with, this study is a tentative investigation into the cultivation of middleschool students’ cultural awareness in and out of English classes. Besides, it is based onmiddle school English teachers’ self-reported views on the cultivation of their students’cultural awareness in EFLT and the results of classroom observations. According to theresearch results, the major findings in this research can be summarized as follows.
The first research question refers to the participants’ perceptions on the cultivationof their students’ cultural awareness. According to the results of the questionnaires andinterviews, it is found out that most participants hold the view that most of their studentslack cultural awareness and it is necessary to cultivate their students’ cultural awareness.However, some teachers who have taken the interviews are concerned about whether thecultivation of their students’ cultural awareness may determine students’ academicsuccess or not. Furthermore, it has to be noticed that, the results of the questionnairesindicate that middle school English teachers with different ages, education backgroundsand areas have different perceptions on the cultivation of their students’ culturalawareness. In general, elder teachers are more experienced and young teachers are morepassionate. (Zhao, 2009) Young teachers can learn teaching experience from elderteachers by conducting classroom observations. Moreover, teachers in urban areas haveedges over those teachers in rural areas (Huang & Cai, 2017), because the latter have lessaccess to various teaching resources and training seminars on the cultivation of students’cultural awareness. Specifically, networking opportunities are less available for teachersfrom rural schools. (Chapman, 2020) As is advocated by Fu and Lu (2016), theimprovement of teachers’ education backgrounds is conducive to teachers’ professionaldevelopment. To some extent, teachers with higher degrees know more culturalknowledge and teaching theories than teachers with lower degrees. Hence, the latter havemore teaching experience than the former. And their teaching practice can also influencetheir perceptions on the cultivation of their students’ cultural awareness.
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