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初中英语教学中中国文化融入现状调查研究

发布时间:2023-06-04 10:15
Contents
Abstract i
摘 要 iii
Contents I
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1Background of the Study 1
1.2Significance and Purpose of the Study 5
1.3Structure of the Thesis 8
Chapter Two Literature Review 9
2.1Related Concepts 9
2.1.1Definitions of Language 9
2.1.2Definitions of Culture 10
2.1.3The Relationship between Language and Culture 11
2.1.4Intercultural Communication 14
2.2Related Studies at Home and Abroad 17
2.2.1Studies at Home 18
2.2.2Studies Abroad 21
2.3 Theoretical Basis 23
2.3.1Intercultural Communication Theory 23
2.3.2Input Hypothesis and Output Hypothesis 26
Chapter Three Research Methodology 28
3.1Research Questions 28
3.2Research Participants 29
3.3Research Instruments 29
3.3.1Student Test Paper 30
3.3.2Students' Questionnaire 30
3.3.3Teachers' Questionnaire 32
3.3.4Teachers' Interview 33
3.4Data Collection and Analysis 34
Chapter Four Results and Discussion 35
4.1Attitudes of Teachers and Students Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English Teaching and Learning 35
4.1.1Attitudes of Teachers Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English
Teaching 35
4.1.2Attitudes of Students Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English
Learning 38
4.2Current Situation of Chinese Culture Introduction in Junior Middle School
English Teaching 40
4.2.1Present Situation of Chinese Culture Learning in Junior Middle School
English Teaching 40
4.2.2Teachers' and Students' Ability of Expressing Chinese Culture in English44
4.2.3Chinese Culture Allocation in Junior Middle School English Textbooks 46
4.2.4Chinese Culture Introduction in English Class 47
4.2.5Chinese Culture Introduction after English Class 50
4.3Factors Affecting Chinese Culture Introduction in Junior Middle School English
Teaching 54
4.3.1English Textbooks' Factors 54
4.3.2Teachers' Factors 55
4.3.3Teaching Evaluation' s Factors 56
4.4 Summary 58
Chapter Five Conclusion 60
5.1Main Findings 60
5.2Implications 62
5.2.1From the Perspective of Textbooks 62
5.2.2From the Perspective of English Teachers 62
5.2.3From the Perspective of Students 63
5.3Limitations of the Study 64
5.4Suggestions for the Future Research 64
References 66
Appendix One Test Paper for Students 70
Appendix Two Students' Questionnaire 71
Appendix Three Teachers' Questionnaire 73
Appendix Four Interview Outline for Teachers 75
About the Author 76
Chapter One Introduction
This chapter includes an introduction of the background, the significance and purpose of the study and the structure of the thesis.
1.1Background of the Study
At present, the world now is changing at a much faster pace. The communication between people of different nationalities is getting closer and closer, which makes it inevitable for people to carry out intercultural communication in their daily life. Nowadays, there is no doubt that English plays a dominated part as global lingua franca in the world for it plays a crucial role in the communication among people from different countries and regions. In order to adapt to the increasingly frequent communication needs under the background of globalization, junior middle school students should enhance their intercultural communicative competence. What's more, intercultural communication is a bilateral communication process, and it is actually the communication between people from various cultures. So we should not only accept the culture of target language with an open and inclusive attitude, but also let foreigners know more about Chinese culture through appropriate opportunities. In the process of actual communication with foreigners, quite a few learners can clearly express foreign culture, while they have difficulties in expressing native culture in English precisely. For the sake of achieving a two-way balance of cultural communication, it is urgent to let students' be aware of how to express native language culture in English. The 21century is an information age, and the rapid development of the Internet is accompanied by more frequent interactions and collisions between different thoughts and cultures, we should let the people of all countries understand the essence of Chinese culture, tell Chinese stories well and spread Chinese cultural heritage widely.
At the same time, General Secretary Xi Jinping repeatedly highlights that we should “ tell stories about China well” since the 18th National Congress of the Party. This shows that telling stories about China well is significant to make the world understand a true and comprehensive China and it is also an important duty and mission to output Chinese culture. In 2016, the Ministry of Education in conjunction with the National Language Commission issued the “13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National language and characters”, which attaches great importance to the need to further develop Chinese excellent language culture and make it a high position in the development of language and characters. Since the reform and opening up, China's economic and political strength in the world has been continuously improved and its comprehensive strength and international status has been increasing day by day. Consequently, Chinese stories and Chinese voices have become important topics of international concern. More and more attention has been drawn to the fact that we should focus on telling Chinese stories to the world and spreading Chinese voices to let foreign friends know about China. “Promote China to the world and let the world understand China” is the goal of our foreign communication and the ultimate goal of English teaching. At present, China urgently needs to train a large number of intercultural communication talents in such a domestic and foreign environment. Our country's future is in the children's hands, and their capabilities of carrying culture will directly affect our country's international status and impact. Therefore, the mastery of language knowledge should combine with the study of Chinese culture to make them have a good command of English language knowledge, language skills and communicative ability. More importantly, we should make students be a man with upper humanities, a strong sense of social responsibility and national pride. To achieve these goals, our English class should expand the function of inputting culture in English teaching and cultivate students' ability of using English to express Chinese culture. We should also train some talents for our country to spread Chinese culture to the world.
In addition, according to the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2011 Edition, hereafter referred to as “Curriculum Standards”), culture awareness is included in the English curriculum objective structure for it is the guarantee of proper use of language. A hierarchy of cultural awareness goals for students of different grades is defined in the Curriculum Standards. Furthermore, Curriculum Standards points out that knowing foreign language culture is beneficial for the understanding of English language and it can deepen students' affection of Chinese excellent culture in the process of English learning. At the same time, it can help students widen their knowledge and accurately recognize and judge the similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign cultures with a reasonable manner. It is no doubt that we should learn English culture in the process of learning English, but we should also try our best to foster students understand the way to express Chinese culture in English because the cultivation of intercultural communicative competence is based on the study of both foreign culture and Chinese culture.
Considering the vital role of cultural teaching, foreign language scholars has paid much attention to it. But most teachers and scholars think that cultural teaching is only to learn target language culture and they think highly of the role of learning foreign language culture, while the input of Chinese culture in English class has been neglected all the time, which cause students to fail to introduce Chinese culture even when talking about the traditional festival, daily diet and history of China. Scholar Wangyan (2015) says:“ In the present middle school English teaching, the study of English culture has been paid much attention to in the English teaching, but Chinese traditional culture in language teaching has not been emphasized. As a result, middle school students' awareness of Chinese traditional culture has become weak, which leads to students' low ability to express Chinese traditional culture in English. And it is difficult for students to feel and realize the charm of Chinese traditional culture.” This impedes the development of students' intercultural communicative competence and makes them fail to communicate with foreigners successfully. So how to achieve the integration of both target language culture and Chinese culture into English teaching and promote students to carry out effective intercultural communication has become a hot topic in English language teaching.
However, in the aspect of teaching assessment, students are evaluated by all kinds of test papers that consist of language knowledge, and there are few questions relating culture. And in order to get a high grade in tests, students will try their best to memorize language knowledge such as grammar roles and vocabularies. In the face of this invisible pressure, students lack interest in learning English, let alone learn how to express Chinese in English. However, English is a means for communication and it's not a subject that we ask students to get high marks. Our English class should lay emphasis on training students' ability of expressing to cultivate more talents of intercultural communication for our society. As the organizer and conductor of students' English learning, English teachers in junior middle schools should cultivate students' cultural self-confidence and intercultural communicative competence consciously by integrating Chinese culture into English teaching. This demands English teachers have a great grasp of Chinese culture and can introduce it in English. Therefore, it is of practical significance to study the current situation of Chinese culture teaching in junior middle school English teaching in order to guide teachers to better implement the Curriculum Standards in teaching to cultivate students' ability of understanding and expressing Chinese culture, so as to help students strengthen their cultural confidence and learn to spread Chinese culture in English in intercultural communication. However, most English teachers don't have an overall understanding of Chinese culture and they can't present Chinese culture in English fluently. Just as the Chinese scholar He Lifen (2018) says: “A lot of English teachers hold positive attitudes towards introducing Chinese culture in teaching, but they still stress the study of the language knowledge rather than the integration of Chinese culture into real teaching. At the same time, they are confused about how to combine Chinese culture with present teaching”.
Consequently, based on the background at home and abroad, the requirements of Curriculum Standards and the current situation of English teaching, it is indispensable to know the current situation of the integration of Chinese culture into junior middle school English teaching and try to find more practical strategies to help teachers integrate Chinese culture into English teaching.
1.2Significance and Purpose of the Study
Introducing Chinese culture into English class has both theoretical and practical significance.
As for the theoretical significance, since 1950s, scholars in China have been discussing the relationship between language and culture. And based on the inseparable relationship between language and culture, scholars began to talk about cultural teaching in foreign language teaching. Scholars Gao Yihong and Hu Wenzhong (1997) put forward the discussion of cultural teaching in language teaching in China, which mainly involves three aspects: whether to teach, what to teach and how to teach. These three aspects reflect the intense discussion of cultural teaching in language teaching among scholars. Nevertheless, it can be found that most scholars give priority to the learning of English culture in foreign language teaching and pay less attention to the integration of mother tongue culture, let alone cultivate students' ability of expressing mother tongue culture in English. Students in most parts of China have been learning English since the third grade, but after many years of study, they still can not express Chinese culture in English, especially Chinese traditional festivals such as “Spring Festival” and “Mid-Autumn Festival”, which should be recognized by English teachers and scholars. In recent years, some scholars have begun to pour attention into the phenomenon of Chinese cultural aphasia in English teaching, and they have carried out some research in universities. However, there are few related studies about middle school students, especially in junior middle schools. So this study aims at Chinese cultural introduction in English language teaching of junior middle schools to find out the current situation of it, which can make up for the deficiency of the research field to some extent. It can also arouse teachers' awareness of cultivating students' ability of expressing Chinese culture in English and provide some methods and suggestions for English teachers to integrate Chinese culture into English class.
The research has practical implications for both students and teachers. For students, one of the important purposes of English learning is to increase their capacity to communicate with people who have diverse cultural background. And in order to communicate fluently, learners should not only learn and accumulate enough language knowledge, understand the cultural background of English-speaking countries, but also be able to express Chinese culture in English. Traditional teaching often focuses on the input of English culture and neglects the cultivation of the ability of expressing Chinese culture, which causes many students to master language knowledge well but fail in intercultural communication. The introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching can make students realize the differences between Chinese and foreign cultures, deepen their understanding and love for Chinese traditional culture, and enhance their national self-confidence and sense of achievement. It can also help prevent some students from worshiping foreign countries blindly and help them critically accept foreign culture and establish correct cultural values. In the classroom, the usage of various media such as video and music in the process of introducing Chinese culture or contrasting diverse cultures in English class can not only enliven classroom atmosphere, but also improve students' interest in learning English. Through the cultural comparison between Chinese and foreign culture, students can understand the native culture deeply and heighten their ethnic pride. At the same time, students' intercultural communicative competence will be improved with the improvement of their Chinese cultural expressing ability, and they can let the world understand China in the foreign communication and promote the dissemination and development of Chinese culture.
For teachers, they can have a further understanding of the importance of integrating Chinese culture into English teaching through this research. Moreover, this study can help teachers deepen their understanding of the current situation of students' ability of expressing Chinese culture and cultivate students' ability of language expression consciously. In addition, the Curriculum Standards don't explain in detail the implementation of how to train students' cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence, and this study will provide some useful advice for teachers to help students attain the requirements of cultural awareness. And in order to better carry out cultural teaching, teachers themselves should also learn cultural knowledge, be familiar with the expression of native culture and improve their own cultural awareness, which can promote the professional development and the specialization of teachers.
In summary, introducing Chinese culture in English class can improve English teaching quality of junior middle school and cultivate more outstanding students who are proficient in language knowledge and language skills and can tell Chinese stories to the world.
As for the purpose of the thesis, at present, China urgently needs to train a large number of intercultural communication talents in the modern society, who can spread Chinese culture to the world in intercultural communication. Therefore, making students be familiar with the English expression of Chinese culture can not be ignored in the process of language teaching. However, for a long time, due to the examination system of our country, most English teachers pay attention to the study of language knowledge in the process of teaching in order to make students obtain high scores and they often ignore the teaching of culture. As a result, many excellent students can't communicate with foreigners successfully. At the same time, English teachers should consciously shoulder the important task of spreading excellent Chinese culture by cultivating students' initial intercultural communicative competence through the integration of both English and Chinese culture, which can help them lay a solid foundation for intercultural communication in the future.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out the current situation of Chinese culture learning and problems exist in integrating Chinese culture in English teaching of junior middle school and put forward corresponding advice of how to promote to integration of Chinese culture into English teaching.
In addition, this study intends to arouse English teachers' attention of integrating Chinese culture into English class to make students build national self-confidence and sense of worth, and cultivate more intercultural communication talents who can spread
Chinese culture to the world.
1.3Structure of the Thesis
The thesis consists of the following five chapters.
The first chapter mainly introduces the background, the significance, the purpose and the overall framework of this thesis.
Chapter two is literature review. There are three parts. The first part is about some basic concepts of the research. The second part is mainly about the related studies at home and abroad about the integration of native culture in foreign language teaching. And the third part is the theoretical basis for the research.
Chapter Three is research design. This chapter includes research questions, the basic information of research participants, research instruments and data collection and data analysis.
Chapter Four is results and discussion. It introduces the research results from the analysis of students' test paper, students' questionnaire and teachers' questionnaire. Furthermore, the results of interview are discussed as a supplement for the research. And based on these research results, the findings of the study are expounded.
Chapter Five is the conclusion part of the thesis. In this chapter, the research findings are summarized and the pedagogical implications are provided. Additionally, the limitations of this study and the suggestions for further study will be discussed in this part.
Chapter Two Literature Review
This chapter mainly discusses some related concepts, studies and theoretical basis. Additionally, related studies about the introduction of native culture into foreign language teaching at home and abroad will be introduced. Finally it is the theoretical basis of the thesis.
2.1Related Concepts
Language does not exist in isolation, it is deeply rooted in national culture. And different languages is the embodiment of the historical and cultural achievements of different nations.
2.1.1Definitions of Language
Language is the precious wealth held by human beings and it is the carrier of cultural heritage and development from generation to generation. Linguists define culture from such aspects as society, psychology and culture, but we can not conclude an accurate and normative definition of it. Yet it is undeniable that language plays an important role in human communication and exchange.
Language can be used both broadly and narrowly. As for its narrow sense, language includes oral language and written language. Language in a broad sense includes all symbols that human use for communication, in which oral and written languages are the most important carriers of communication.
Chomsky (1957:13) thinks language is a set of finite or infinite sentences in which the length of each sentence is limited and consists of a limited set of components.
The Chinese scholar Liu Runqing (1997:1) says most foreign scholars agrees that “Language is an arbitrary, colloquial system of symbols used in human communication.” By this definition we know that language can use limited means to express infinite content, its basic channel is spoken language, while text is an auxiliary means. At the same time, language is unique to human beings, and the communication system of animals cannot be compared with it.
Although it is difficult for scholars to come to an agreement on the definition of language, there is no doubt that language is a tool for social communication. And we understand the world and think about problems by language.
2.1.2Definitions of Culture
Culture is the core of intercultural communication. There are more than 250 definitions of culture proposed from different subjects.
In western countries, early explanations of culture tend to focus on spirit and ideas. British anthropologist Taylor (1871:1) says that culture is a complex whole, which include knowledge, faith, art, morality, legal customs and all the abilities and habits that people acquire as members of society. His definition of culture opened up a whole new field for cultural studies.
Kramsch (1998:4) defines culture from the perspective of humanities, focusing on “the way in which social groups express themselves and others through material production, artistic works, literary works, social situations or handicrafts in daily life”.
Stern (1992:208) points out that some scholars divide culture into two categories, one is called “culture with a big C”, which includes literature and art, music, architecture, philosophy, scientific and technological achievements and so on, they focus on all aspects of human civilization. The other is named “culture with a small c”, which includes people's customs, lifestyle, standard of conduct and social relations, etc. They are universal social habits or the ability of an individual of society to adapt to their culture.
In China, Qi Yucun (1992) holds that culture is a social phenomenon, which is generated by people in a creative way. In addition, it is more of a historical phenomenon, which is the precipitation of the history for a long time. In addition, culture has national trait.
Wen Qiufang (2016) divides culture into two categories, they are culture expressed through language and culture expressed without language as a carrier. The former refers to a variety of political, historical, military, cultural, scientific and technological knowledge, traditions and beliefs transmitted by language. While the latter refers to cultures that don't need language as an medium, such as architecture, pictures, music, clothing, food, etc.
English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2011 edition) points out that culture refers to history and geography, local manners and feelings, traditional customs, lifestyle, behavior habits, literature and art, values and so on. If we are going to master a language, we need to understand the culture of the language from these aspects. And the thesis adopts this definition.
Though we can't reach an agreement on the definition of culture, we can summarize that culture has the following characteristics: it is created in the process of the evolvement of human society; it has distinctive national characteristics and it is the soul of a nation and it is the more enduring and deeper forces of the development of a nation.
2.1.3The Relationship between Language and Culture
Language is bred by culture, and every language has its own deep imprint of national culture. At the same time, language can also be used as a carrier to spread culture in communication. Besides, language is restricted by the influence of culture and it reflects a specific culture. When we communicate with a person of a different nation, we not only acquire some information, but we also receive the other person's culture and values without being aware of it. As is known to us all, culture is the basis of communication and it is difficult to carry out intercultural communication without understanding the culture of a target language. Foreign scholars have studied the relationship between language and culture since the beginning of the 20th century.
Lado (1963:110) believes that through language learning, people can not only learn a new language, more importantly, they can understand the life style and new life values of another nation behind the language. So, language learning has great magic. According to him, language does not develop in a vacuum. As a main way for social members to communicate with each other, language is also a part of culture of a nation. Therefore, language is not only an element of culture, but a tool that is used to express and symbolize other related elements in cultural context.
Byram (1989:40) argues that it is believed that the relationship between language and culture is a very intricate issue because it's concerned with social and political as well as psychological level. From his perspective we know that there is a complex relationship between language and culture and it is hard to interpret it from single dimension.
Brown (1994:164) acknowledges that there is a cohesive relationship between language and culture. And he thinks that language and culture are tightly linked and no one can talk about them separately, or either side will be meaningless.
Oxana and Moeller (2012) agree with the important role of technology in second language learning. They believe that language learning should occur in a dynamic and active manner. Technology-based activities together with an inquiry learning approach allow students to interact directly with the second language and its culture without time and place restrictions.
Extensive research on the relationship between language and culture in China roughly began from the 1980s.
Hu Wenzhong (1982) points out that language is a form of expression of culture. It is impossible to learn English well without understanding British and American culture. The more deeply we understand the history, culture, traditional customs, lifestyle of the nation of a target language, the more correctly we understand and use the language. As one of the earliest scholars to study intercultural communication in our country, his opinions promote more scholars to study on the relationship between language and culture and to improve learner's intercultural communicative competence.
Qi Yucun (1992) proposes that the relationship between culture and language is closely related. The advancement of culture and language go hand in hand. The important impetus for the development of culture is the abundance and progress of the language. Therefore, people usually call language the carrier of culture and a mirror reflecting national culture.
At the High-level Forum on Foreign Language Education in China in 2015, Professor Wu Yian stresses that Professor Wu Yian stresses that the relationship between language and thought is as close as blood and can not be severed. Language, thinking and culture are inseparable and language also has the educational function on the character of thinking and culture. This proves that English has the value of cultivating students' ability of thinking and leaning English can help deepen students' understanding of foreign culture.
Ye Huijun (2010) explores the relationship between language and culture from the perspective of intercultural communication. Many studies have shown that English learning has reached an advanced stage, and the obstacles and mistakes in communication are mostly caused not by the language itself, but by the ubiquitous social and cultural differences that permeate all levels of the language system.
Dong Yue (2017) thinks that language can not be produced without the development and accumulation of culture, and language is formed in the continuous development of culture. Culture is a very important factor for the development of a country and a nation. From a broad point of view, culture includes politics, philosophy, history, literature and so on, so culture is the foundation of language production and it provides the power for the development of a country.
From the above researches it is known that most scholars have proposed that language and culture are closely intertwined. Man's spoken English is a kind of culture expression and language disseminates culture in a unique way. To acquire a language in depth, we must try to explore the culture and values behind the language because they are the quintessence of the language. Therefore, based on the deep understanding of the relationship between language and culture, we should help students grasp both foreign culture and native culture, which can not only help students better master foreign language, but also spread Chinese culture to the world.
2.1.4Intercultural Communication
According to many scholars, the concept of intercultural communication was first proposed by American anthropologist Edward T. Hall in 1959. He points out that people from different cultural backgrounds have obvious differences in the usage of time and space.
Gudykunst (2007:1) compares intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication, he thinks there is a difference between them in concept and content, the former covers the study of interpersonal communication between different cultures or cultures in any sense or at any level. The latter focuses on cultural contrast, which is part of the former.
Samovar et al. (2000:48) define intercultural communication as the communication between people whose cultural cognition and symbolic systems are different enough to change communicative events. They also point out that the four main elements of intercultural communication include: perception, that is, the process of individual selection, evaluation and organization of external stimuli; speech process: how people talk and how they think; non-verbal process: communication with action; and culture impacts the context of communication. Based on their opinion, we know that intercultural communication happens when a person from a culture wants to express information to a man of another culture.
Xu, K (2013) discusses the conditions for meaningful intercultural communication. He believes that meaningful intercultural communication could be based on both cultural similarities and differences.
Zhang Hongling (2007:26) says Chinese scholars generally believe that intercultural communication refers to the process of communication between people with different cultural backgrounds. According to her view, intercultural communicative competence should be the fundamental goal of foreign language teaching, because the awareness and competence of intercultural communication require foreign language learners to treat other cultures with a tolerant attitude.
Dai Xiaodong (2011:52) believes that intercultural communication has four basic characteristics: interactivity, systematization, interpretation and sociality. In his book he also mentions that Guan Shijie proposes that intercultural communication has five characteristics: both sides share the cultural differences; the degrees of cultural difference varies; unconscious thing often influences people silently; misunderstandings and conflicts increase, and cultural variability increases. The above two scholars have summarized the main characteristics of intercultural communication. We can take intercultural communication as a process in which members of different cultures communicate with each other and jointly construct meanings and identities.
Lu Ziwen (2005) proposes that intercultural communication refers to the fact that in order to make an effective and fluent communication, students change their cultural reference framework according to different contexts. And thus they can have a successful communication in the multicultural environment.
To sum up, intercultural communication is a process of communication between people from different culture contexts and the purpose of intercultural communication is to exchange information. Different cultural and historical backgrounds create different ethnic people. Therefore, cultural differences are bound to exist in the communication between people from different countries. In order to make a successful communication, it is necessary to understand the cultural background of other countries. Moreover, we should be able to express Chinese culture in a foreign language in order to achieve a balanced cultural exchange.
Intercultural communicative competence is the basis of successful intercultural communication, which is reflected in the ability to better understand the cultures of both sides of the intercultural communication, the keen intercultural consciousness, the high acculturation ability and the attitude to respect other cultures.
Bennett and Allen (1999) put forward three meanings of intercultural communicative competence: one is to transcend ethnocentrism, the other is to do well in appreciating other cultures, and the third is to properly express in more than one cultural environment. In addition, Bennett (2004:149) believes that intercultural communication is “the ability to communicate effectively in intercultural situations.” and there is an emerging consensus among scholars that intercultural communicative competence consists of cognitive, affective, and behavioral attributes. His opinion emphasizes the correct attitude towards other cultures in intercultural communication.
Byram (2009) proposes a model of intercultural communicative competence, and some skills and information related to the obtainment of intercultural competence are classified in this model. They are information, skills of discovery/interaction, manners, skills of interpreting/relating and critical cultural awareness. The characteristic of his theoretical model is that it includes the concept of communicative competence based on communicative language learning. He also suggests that the ideal intercultural spokesmen are not those who want to change others, but to have their own position and know what their position is.
Dodd (2006) believes that intercultural communicative competence refers to the ability to produce effective intercultural results in intercultural contexts. To sum up, it refers to the ability and quality required for successful intercultural communication.
Barker (2015) analyzes intercultural communicative competence from many aspects. Firstly, the cognitive component of intercultural communicative competence refers to the speaker's ability to perceive and accurately interpret linguistic information and nonverbal cues. The second affective component includes the ability and motivation to appreciate, empathize and be able to accept cross-cultural differences. Thirdly, the behavioral component addresses the ability to function in the host society.
Zhang Hongling (2009:281-282) generalizes intercultural communicative competence into four levels: sensitivity or consciousness, attitude or emotion, knowledge and skill. Specifically, a person with strong intercultural communication skills must first have intercultural awareness and sensitivity. In her opinion, intercultural communication competence refers to the ability to use the rich cultural knowledge of one's own nationality and foreign countries to communicate smoothly in the actual intercultural environment. Furthermore, one should also calmly face the unexpected problems in the process of intercultural communication. From her point of view, we can conclude that in order to successfully carry out intercultural communication, we should enable students to master the cultural knowledge of their own nationality and foreign countries, and help students to understand the differences between cultures.
Xu Lisheng (2012:8-9) believes that intercultural competence generally includes cognitive, emotional and behavioral adaptability. And it has the following characteristics: sensitive, positive, open, respectful, receptive attitude, rapid adaptability to the new environment, strong psychological tolerance, ability to change and think about problems and ability to use strategies to solve problems. Xu Lisheng (2000) thinks that strategic ability plays an important role in the composition of cross-cultural communicative competence because it decides whether or not one can deal with difficulties in the process of communication with proper strategies.
In a word, we can find that scholars at home and abroad have conducted extensive research on the connotation, composition, evaluation and cultivation of intercultural competence. Therefore, we can conclude that intercultural communicative competence mainly includes the attitudes towards intercultural communication, the knowledge of foreign and one's own country and skills in dealing with conflicts in communication.
2.2Related Studies at Home and Abroad
Through literature review, it is found that some achievements have been made in the cultural teaching of English teaching at home and abroad, but they mainly focus on the learning of the target language culture. The study of mother tongue culture in language teaching starts late, and the focus of this study is mainly on the importance of mother tongue culture.
2.2.1Studies at Home
Since the 1980s, with the development of intercultural communication and other subjects, foreign language teaching not only refers to language teaching, but also to cultural teaching. The importance of cultural teaching is self-evident. In recent years, scholars have begun to call for the inclusion of Chinese culture into English teaching, which has been neglected for a long time. They affirm the importance of native culture in foreign language teaching and investigate the situation of Chinese cultural learning in different groups of students to look for the causes of “Chinese culture aphasia” from various aspects and put forward corresponding solutions, aiming to improve students' ability of expressing Chinese culture in English.
(1)The first aspect is about the necessity of Chinese culture teaching in English teaching.
Gao Yihong (1997) argues that “In productive foreign language learning, the improvement of mother tongue and target language complement each other. And the understanding of mother tongue and target language culture promotes each other, which can help stimulate learners' potential, develop their personality and push them toward a better direction”.
Liu Runqing (1999) believes that foreign language learning cannot completely ignore the mother tongue, because there are some commonalities between languages, if we completely abandon the mother tongue without refer to the mother tongue or contrast foreign culture with Chinese culture, it will cause great loss.
According to Zhang Hongling (2007), intercultural communicative competence should be the fundamental goal of foreign language teaching in the cross-regional and diversified environment. At the same time, we should notice that intercultural communication is a two-way communication, so we should emphasize the teaching of mother tongue culture in foreign language teaching.
The concept of “Chinese culture aphasia” is firstly came up with by Professor Cong Cong (2000) of Nanjing University. He publishes an article entitled Chinese culture aphasia: the defects of English teaching in China. He points out that many young scholars can not express native language culture well in English in the process of communicating with foreigners. This article points out the problem that many people neglect their mother tongue in English learning.
Luo Dimin (2011) once conducts the test paper and questionnaire to investigate “Chinese culture aphasia” in high school students. The results show that most senior high school students do not have a comprehensive comprehension of their native culture and few of them can accurately express some Chinese culture in English. In intercultural communication, the contact between the two cultures is inevitable and the communication between people from two different cultural backgrounds should be two-way communication.
Wen Qiufang (2016) proposes that we should encourage English speakers to learn multiculturalism. At present, in order to cooperate with China's “Belt and Road” policy and the new diplomatic strategy of great powers, we should support and encourage students to use English to explain Chinese ideas, Chinese roads and Chinese programs to the outside world. At the same time, they should be familiar with the cultural traditions of other countries. Her point of view combines the current situation of China and points out the importance of spreading Chinese culture.
(2)The second aspect is the causes of “Chinese culture aphasia”.
Wang Chuanli (2011) analyzes the reasons of “Chinese culture aphasia” and he summarizes these reasons into three categories: 1. The understanding of intercultural communication is one-sided. In teaching practice, teachers ignore the cultivation of students' ability of understanding and absorbing native language culture. 2. The understanding of cultural teaching in English teaching is one-sided. Cultural teaching is often understood as the introduction of foreign culture in English teaching. However, Chinese native culture is not thought as the content of cultural teaching. 3. One-sided perception of the relationship between mother tongue and English learning. The flexible and appropriate usage of mother tongue in foreign language teaching will enhance students' language sensitivity and comprehensive ability so as to achieve the purpose of mastering foreign languages as soon as possible. He explains the reason why students can't express Chinese culture accurately in intercultural communication and points out the direction of cultural teaching in English teaching.
Some scholars analyze the reasons that cause “Chinese culture aphasia” from different perspectives. Xu Huijuan (2013) analyzes the causes of Chinese cultural aphasia among primary and secondary school students and puts forward four reasons. The first is the lack of Chinese culture in English textbooks for primary and secondary schools. The second is the lack of cultural consciousness and strength of English teachers in primary and secondary schools. The third reason is that middle school students lack of Chinese cultural consciousness, which is reflected in their lack of understanding and affection of Chinese culture. The last aspect is the lack of Chinese cultural content in the traditional English test of primary and secondary schools.
(3)The third aspect is the advice for “Chinese culture aphasia”.
He Lifen (2018) conducts an investigation and the results show that most English teachers hold a positive attitude toward introducing culture especially Chinese culture in English class. And as for how to develop students' ability to express Chinese culture in English, both teachers and students think English textbooks should include the proportion of Chinese culture and strengthen the comparison of Chinese and western cultures.
Cao Di (2013) investigates the current situation of integrating Chinese culture into college English teaching and concludes that college students don't do well in expressing Chinese culture in English. In view of this situation, he proposes to integrate Chinese culture into teaching materials, classroom teaching practice, and testing and evaluation.
Yinwei (2013) believes that the improvement of students' intercultural communicative competence is based on the good interaction between students and teachers and the integration of both Chinese and foreign cultures. She puts forward a “two-way cultural teaching method”, firstly, the interaction between teachers and
students should be promoted to a deeper degree; secondly, both the culture of Chinese culture and foreign culture should be encompassed in class.
Therefore, teachers should pay attention to the integration of mother tongue culture in the teaching process, only in this way can we achieve the balance between mother tongue culture and foreign language culture and lay a solid foundation for students' intercultural communicative competence.
Through the literature review, it is found that in recent years the introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching has been widely studied and many achievements have been made. This not only enriches the studies of cultural teaching in foreign language teaching in China, but also provides a theoretical basis for integrating Chinese culture into foreign language teaching and promoting students' intercultural communicative competence. However, most scholars mainly focus on the necessity of integrating Chinese culture into English teaching and the causes and strategies of “Chinese cultural aphasia”.
2.2.2Studies Abroad
In recent years, scholars have begun to realize the importance of mother tongue culture in language learning.
American scholars Legutke and Thomas (1991) acknowledge that people who have intercultural awareness should be sensitive to other cultures. In addition, they should also promote the integration of mother tongue culture and target language culture. So it is necessary for students to understand mother tongue culture and positively spread it in the process of cultivating intercultural awareness. Their opinions prove that understanding foreign culture is a premise for intercultural communication, but it is also essential to spread mother tongue language culture.
Kramsch (1993) argues that the purpose of cultural teaching in foreign language teaching is not only to master a language, but to make learners understand foreign language culture and promote language learning. At the same time, the mother tongue culture and foreign culture should be included in the process of teaching to promote intercultural communication. We can see from his point of view that it is necessary to include mother tongue culture and foreign language culture in the process of foreign language teaching, which can not only give full play to the advantages of different cultures, but also achieve the good interaction of culture in intercultural communication.
Sandra (2003) thinks that foreign language teachers should realize the value of topics related to mother tongue culture in the process of teaching and combine appropriate activities to involve students in the discussion of this topic. In addition, her investigation on foreign language teachers shows that more and more teachers are aware of the role of mother tongue culture in foreign language teaching and try to integrate mother tongue culture into the teaching process.
Margana (2009) recognizes the importance of promoting the development of mother tongue culture in English teaching, because intercultural communication is not just one-way communication but a multi-dimentional interaction, so intercultural communication is a process of cultural absorption and dissemination. The teaching of mother tongue culture can promote students' understanding of mother tongue culture. So it is essential for teachers to integrate mother tongue language into foreign language class.
Mikhaleva and Jean-Claude Regnier (2014) consider learning both native and target language culture have a great influence on students' individual progress in the process of foreign language acquisition because it can promote the personal development of students. Now the important role of foreign language teaching is to create sufficient conditions for students to learning both native language and target language culture.
It can be seen that both Chinese and foreign scholars have affirmed the role of mother tongue culture teaching in foreign language teaching, so it is necessary to create opportunities to integrate mother tongue culture into foreign language teaching.
However, the research participants mainly focus on college students and there are few researches on primary and middle school students. Therefore, this study takes junior middle school students and teachers as the research participant, aiming to obtain the present situation of Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching. And furthermore, the thesis tries to put forward some practical suggestions for junior middle school English teaching.
2.3Theoretical Basis
2.3.1Intercultural Communication Theory
The study of intercultural communication stemmed from the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. The original study is to adapt to the need for people who go abroad. To sum up, intercultural communication can be regarded as the process of interchanging information and culture between people with different cultural backgrounds. Because each culture is unique, it is easy to lead to misunderstanding in intercultural communication without understanding the culture and background of other countries.
Spitzberg (1994) believes that individual communicative competence is embodied in the appropriate and effective communicative behavior of individuals in a particular situation. He points out that intercultural communicative competence consists of three factors, they are adequate intercultural knowledge, positive motivation and effective communication skills. These three factors influence and interact with each other, and the lack of any factor can not constitute complete intercultural communicative competence.
Intercultural knowledge includes both broad cultural knowledge and narrow cultural knowledge. The former involves the knowledge of culture of different nations, and the broad sense of cultural knowledge explains the phenomenon of intercultural communication macroscopically and guides the speakers' intercultural communication behavior. The latter is the knowledge of a particular culture. Consequently, communicators should master specific cultural knowledge, only by doing this can they judge how to communicate appropriately in real intercultural communication.
Motivation refers to the emotional association of communicators in intercultural communication activities. If the motivation of communication is positive and the judgment and evaluation of each other are more accurate, the intercultural communicative competence of both sides will be strong.
Skill refers to the effective and appropriate communicative behavior in intercultural communication. Only having some knowledge and motivation of intercultural communication is not enough. If we want to carry out intercultural communication successfully, a lot of communicative behavior skills are needed.
Intercultural awareness has a certain relationship with intercultural communicative competence and the degree of intercultural awareness will influence the formation of intercultural communicative competence.
Intercultural awareness refers to the understanding of the culture of a native country and other cultures that influence people's behavior and views, including the understanding of human behavior and the difference of diverse cultural patterns. Accordingly, this is not a simple understanding of the national culture and specific facts or information of other cultures, but an insight and critical understanding of cultural phenomena, patterns, characteristics and relationships between different cultures. Hence, intercultural awareness is not only an external knowledge, but also an internal ability and quality.
Hanvey (1979) defines intercultural awareness as cultural discernment. He divides the sensitivity of intercultural differences into four levels: the first level is to identify the cultural characteristics of the surface layer; the second level is to find out distinct and hidden cultural features that are different from their own culture; the third level is the same as the second level, except that cultural features at this level are not deemed to receivable unless they are reasonably analyzed and the last level is to be able to understand the culture from the point of view of others', or we can say it is the transfer of foothold. This is the highest level in this system.
In the 1980s, intercultural communication theory was introduced into China and caused extensive research. Wen Qiufang (1999) defines students' foreign language proficiency as “intercultural communicative competence”, which incorporate communicative competence and intercultural competence. The former includes sensitivity to cultural differences. It is believed that the development of these two competences is not easy to carry out. The cultivation of students' communicative competence and intercultural communicative competence should begin with the improvement of students' sensitivity of cultural differences and then make them hold a positive attitude towards cultural differences and train the skills that deal with cultural differences. According to Jia Yuxin (1997), intercultural communication means that communicators can use language appropriately and decently when they communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds. While intercultural awareness refers to the ability to understand cultural conflicts and recognize cultural differences.
In intercultural communication, the collision between two cultures is inevitable, which requires communicators to fully understand the target language culture. At the same time, intercultural communication is the exchange of cultures between the two countries, so we can not only absorb the culture of the target language, but also spread Chinese culture to the world in order to realize the equality and interactivity of intercultural communication. Hence, the understanding of mother tongue culture plays an crucial part in promoting intercultural communication.
The fundamental purpose of foreign language teaching is to cultivate students' intercultural communicative competence, which not only requires students to master rich cultural knowledge of the target language, but also requires students' capability to express Chinese culture in the target language. Therefore, teachers should integrate Chinese culture properly into English class, cultivate students' awareness of cultural equality, cultural understanding and cultural communication. In addition, teachers should increase students' capability to express Chinese culture in English smoothly and successfully. The dual improvement of intercultural communicative competence and awareness can promote the development of students' intercultural communicative ability and help them to tell Chinese story well.
2.3.2Input Hypothesis and Output Hypothesis
The famous America linguist Krashen brought up a series of complete theory of second language acquisition in the 1980s. The theory consists of five hypotheses and this theory has aroused a hot discussion in the world and has caused lots of scholars to further explore the theory of foreign language teaching.
Among them, “Input Hypothesis” is the core of Krashen's second language acquisition theory. Krashen (1985) believes that second language acquisition is not acquired through learning, but depends on the acquisition of input of the meaning or information. Thus, he highlights “the comprehensibility of the content of input” in the input hypothesis, and the difficulty of content should be a little higher than the learner's current language level, which can be called “i+1” input mode. In this model, “i” stand for the learner's present language level, “1” refers to language content that is marginally beyond the learner's current language level. According to this theory, if learners want to achieve the goal of language acquisition, the input should not be too difficult or too easy. Meanwhile, Krashen also focuses on the interest and relevance of the input in this theoretical system, which means that input materials should not only stimulate learners' interest in learning, but also be closely related to the actual life of learners. Krashen's input hypothesis pays much attention on language input, and he even thinks that language input is the only source of language acquisition, weakening the importance of language output, so this hypothesis is questioned by many scholars.
Contrary to Krashen, Swain proposes “Output Hypothesis” in 1985, emphasizing the importance of output in language learning. She believes that as for the fulfillment of second language acquisition, language input is a imperative rather than sufficient qualification. In order to make learners have a great mastery of a language, comprehensible input is not enough and comprehensible output is more important. Swain also points out that “understandable output” has three functions: attention trigger function, hypothesis test function and conscious introspection function. She believes that output is a process of deep processing and reconstruction of new and old language knowledge, which not only contributes to the overall acquisition of second language, but also promotes learners'language cognitive skills to a higher level.
Language input and output are not two independent processes, we should unify these two processes into the process of language learning. Language output is based on input and output is the measurement and enhancement of input. In order to promote the introduction of Chinese culture in English classroom and improve students' intercultural communicative ability, teachers should provide students with sufficient input materials about Chinese culture and make full use of all the teaching time to provide more understandable input. Teachers can also provide appropriate and authentic listening and reading materials involving Chinese culture to help students understand Chinese culture and guide them to use the language creatively.
Teachers should bring into play to students' initiative and give students more opportunities to output language. It is necessary to adopt flexible teaching methods to inspire learning motivation, activate students' thinking and promote their language learning. Teachers should encourage students to express Chinese culture in English by some activities, for example role-play and interview. Teachers can improve students' language proficiency in long-term language output exercises. Through language output, teachers can understand the defects in students' language expression, help them correct mistakes and improve the quality of language output in future classroom teaching so that students can master the expression of Chinese traditional culture and improve intercultural communicative competence.
Chapter Three Research Methodology
In order to help students tell Chinese stories well and spread Chinese culture to promote the prosperity of Chinese culture, it is very important to cultivate students' intercultural communicative competence, especially the ability of expressing Chinese culture in English. Therefore, in order to know the situation of Chinese culture learning in English teaching, teachers and students' attitudes towards Chinese culture learning in English class, and the problems existing in the introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching, this paper adopts the methods of test paper, questionnaire and interview. And teachers and students of XX junior middle school in XX City are investigated. The third chapter consists of four parts. The first part is research questions. The second part is some detailed information about research participants. The third part is research instruments and the last part is data collection and analysis.
3.1Research Questions
In order to achieve the purpose of the research, the following questions will be answered by analyzing the test paper for students, questionnaires and interview among students and teachers from XX junior middle school in XX city.
(1)What's the attitude of junior middle school teachers and students towards Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching?
(2)What is the current situation of Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching?
(3)What are the factors that affect Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching?
3.2Research Participants
In this study, 200 students in the third grade of XX junior middle school and 30 English teachers of XX junior middle school in XX city are selected as the research participants. The XX junior middle school in XX city is an ordinary junior middle school, whose teaching quality is of the middle level in XX city. The school's teaching facilities are advanced and students are equipped with tablets. In addition, the researcher will practice in this school for four months, so it is easier to collect data for the thesis. The English textbooks used by students are textbooks of Lujiao Edition commonly used in Shandong Province.
Among the 200 students in Grade Eight, there are 94 girls and 106 boys, accounting for 47% and 53% respectively. The reason for selecting students in Grade Eight for this study is that compared with students in Grade Nine, Grade Eight students face less pressure and they have the time to seriously treat the questionnaire so as to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Secondly, after more than two years of study in junior middle school, students in Grade Eight have accumulated an amount of knowledge of Chinese culture and English expressions of Chinese culture. Therefore, their answers can truly reflect junior middle school students' situation of Chinese cultural learning in English teaching.
Of the 30 teachers surveyed, 5 teachers are male. The remaining 25 teachers are female. Of these 30 teachers, 12 teachers have taught for more than 10 years, so their views are persuasive. And three teachers will be selected for interviews for further research.
3.3Research Instruments
In this study, mainly test paper for students, questionnaire and interview on teachers and students are employed.
3.3.1Student Test Paper
The purpose of the test paper is to find out the current situation of Chinese culture learning in junior middle school English teaching. This questionnaire adopts the existing questionnaire of Jin Chaohua's (2008) study on The Lack of Chinese traditional Culture in the Cultivation of Junior Middle School Students' Intercultural Awareness. The test paper is divided into two parts, the first part is translation from Chinese into English and the second part is translation from English into Chinese. There are eight items in each part and a total of 16 points, one point for each item. Among the 16 items, 12 are from the the seventh and eighth grade English textbooks of Lujiao Edition, they are item 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in the first part and item 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 in the second part. The other items are extracurricular knowledge related to Chinese culture. These words cover the fields of traditional Chinese festivals, daily diet, literature and art, geography, historical places of interest and other aspects.
Finally, the researcher will calculate the average score, the highest score, the lowest score and the rate of accuracy of each item.
3.3.2Students' Questionnaire
The questionnaire used in the study is from Zhou Qihui and Chen Gang's study on An Analysis and Suggestions on the Loss of Mother Culture in College English Teaching (2015). It adopts the form of Likert 5-point scale, the option from 1 to 5 representing strongly disagree, disagree, generally agree, agree and strongly agree respectively. The questions in the questionnaire are expressed in Chinese to avoid students' misunderstanding. The student questionnaire consists of two parts. Part 1 includes basic information about the students, such as the class and gender of the students. The second part is the problems, consisting of three dimensions. The dimensions are expressed in detail in the following table.
 
Table 3-1 Three Dimensions of Students' Questionnaire
Dimensions Question Number
Students' views on their ability of expressing Chinese culture in English. Q1
Students' attitudes towards introduction of Chinese culture in English learning. Q2,Q3,Q4,Q5,Q6,Q7
,Q8
The current situation of Chinese culture introduction in English teaching. Q9,Q10,Q11,Q12,Q1
3,Q14,Q15,Q16,Q17,
Q18,Q19
 
In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, 65 students from the tested grades are randomly selected for a pilot test before the formal issuance of the questionnaire. A total of 65 questionnaires are issued, which are totally recovered and 60 valid questionnaires are obtained. Then SPSS 24 is used to analyze the reliability and validity of the 60 samples to prepare for the formal issuance of the questionnaire. According to Table 3-2, we can see that the Cronbach's Alpha is 0.756( a 〉0.7), which means that the questionnaire has a good reliability. And according to Table 3-3, the KMO value of the questionnaire is 0.717, which is higher than 0.7, indicating that the questionnaire has a good validity and is suitable for further analysis and research.
Table 3-2 Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
.756 19
 
Table 3-3 KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy .717
Bartlett's Test of
Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 379.443
df 171
Sig. .000
 
3.3.3Teachers' Questionnaire
The teacher questionnaire is adapted from Xiao Longfu, Xiao Di,Li Lan, and Song Yiwen's study on Chinese culture aphasia in English teaching in Chinese higher education (2010). It includes two parts. The first part is the basic information of teachers, including teachers' gender, teaching age and academic qualifications. Part 2 contains 17 questions, which are divided into four dimensions as is shown below.
Table 3-4 Four Dimensions of the Teachers' Questionnaire
Dimensions Question Number
Teachers' views on their ability of expressing Chinese Q1
culture in English.
Teachers' attitudes towards introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching. Q2,Q3,Q4,Q5,Q6,Q7
The current situation of Chinese culture introduction in Q8.Q9,Q10,Q11,Q12,Q
English teaching. 13,Q14,Q15,Q16,Q17
Factors that influence the Chinese culture introduction in English teaching. Q18
 
In order to test the reliability and validity of this questionnaire, 30 participants
take part in the a pilot test. A total of 30 questionnaires are issued, which are totally
32
recovered and 30 valid questionnaires are obtained. The reliability and validity are analyzed by using SPSS 24. According to Table 3-5, it is seen that the Cronbach's Alpha is 0.714( a 〉0.7), which means that the questionnaire are relatively reliable.And according to Table 3-6, the KMO value of the questionnaire is 0.707, which is higher than 0.7, indicating that the questionnaire has a good validity.
Table 3-5 Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
.714 19
 
Table 3-6 KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy .707
Bartlett's Test of
Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 297.286
df 136
Sig. .000
 
3.3.4Teachers' Interview
In order to ensure the authenticity and effectiveness of the research and further obtain the details of the current situation of the integration of Chinese culture into junior middle school English teaching, semi-structured interview is employed as a supplement of the questionnaire. The main content of the teacher interview includes their opinions and suggestions of the teaching resources that related to Chinese culture, especially English textbooks, teachers' views on their ability of introducing Chinese culture in English teaching and the factors influencing the integration of Chinese culture into English classes. Three teachers will be randomly selected from Grade Eight.
The interview outline is in Appendix 4.
3.4Data Collection and Analysis
The questionnaire was handed out in the middle of October, 2020. To ensure the validity and authenticity of the questionnaire, the student questionnaire and student test paper are issued to the students by the teacher during their self-study. Before the issuance of the questionnaire, the students are informed of the purpose and requirements of the questionnaire and the anonymity of the questionnaire so that students could answer it according to their real situation. A total of 200 questionnaires are distributed to students and 200 are collected with a recovery rate of 100%. Teachers' questionnaires are mainly completed in the teacher office. A total of 30 questionnaires are distributed and 30 are recovered. The recovery rate is 100%.
As for the analysis of the student test paper, Excel was used to calculate the rate of the accuracy of students' answer in each item. Moreover, descriptive statistics analysis was used to analyze the data of students' and teachers' questionnaire by SPSS 24 and Excel, and the results are presented in the form of tables or charts. The tables will preset the means, maximum, minimum and standard deviation of each question. And the chart will show the percentage of the choices in each question.
In the end of October, the semi-structured interviews of teachers were conducted within 10 minutes so as not to delay much time of teachers and students. During the interview, the digital recorder was used to record the whole interview process. After the interviews are completed, the interview recordings are converted into text and sorted out according to specific questions and the contents of interview are mainly edited by the tool of Word.
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
Based on the needs of English talents in the future society, English teachers have the responsibility to cultivate students to be a person with a good command of language knowledge, language skills and intercultural communicative competence. Therefore, introducing Chinese culture in English teaching is of great significance. This part will analyze the the attitudes of junior middle school teachers and students towards Chinese culture introduction, the current situation of Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching and factors affecting Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching.
4.1Attitudes of Teachers and Students Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English Teaching and Learning
In this part, the attitudes of teachers and students towards the role of Chinese culture in junior middle school English learning and teaching will be presented through the results of questionnaires respectively.
4.1.1Attitudes of Teachers Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English Teaching
In order to further understand the current situation of the introduction of Chinese culture in junior middle school English teaching, besides investigating students' attitudes towards the role of Chinese culture, the research also investigates teachers' attitudes towards the role of Chinese culture. The following is the discussion of teachers' attitudes towards the role of Chinese culture in English teaching. The results are shown in the table below.
Table 4-1 Teachers' Attitudes Towards Introduction of Chinese Culture in English
Teaching
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean
Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q2 30 3 5 4.47 .629
Q3 30 3 5 4.40 .675
Q4 30 3 5 4.57 .626
Q5 30 3 5 4.23 .728
Q6 30 3 5 4.47 .681
Q7 30 3 5 4.60 .498
Valid
N(listwise) 30
 
When they are asked whether it is necessary to disseminate excellent traditional Chinese culture when communicating with foreigners(Q2), teachers' average score is 4.47, indicating that most teachers agree we should spread traditional Chinese culture to the world and promote the prosperity of Chinese culture. The third question is about whether it is necessary to cultivate junior middle school students' awareness of spreading Chinese culture to foreigners and their attitudes towards different cultures in English teaching in junior middle school. The teachers' average score is 4.4, this shows that English teachers agree that junior middle school students should be cultivated to spread Chinese culture in English teaching and teachers should cultivate students' correct attitude towards different cultures. In the implementation of the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2011 Edition), it is suggested that teachers should guide students to understand the similarities and differences of Chinese and foreign cultures in combination with teaching content and gradually enhance students' understanding of different cultures in order to prepare for intercultural communication. Q4 is whether teachers think it is necessary to cultivate the ability of junior middle school students to express Chinese culture in English. The average score is 4.57. This result shows that nearly all teachers can realize that the purpose of learning English is not only for examination, but also for communication. Therefore, in order to promote cultural exchange, it is needful to train students' ability to express Chinese culture in English. The fifth question is whether teachers think Chinese culture plays a positive role in English teaching. The average score is 4.23, which is the lowest among the six questions. This result shows that most English teachers are aware of the role of traditional Chinese culture in promoting English teaching, such as mobilizing students' enthusiasm, activating classroom atmosphere, and closing the relationship between teachers and students. The sixth question is about whether teachers think it is necessary to increase the English expression of Chinese culture in English teaching. The average score is 4.47. This result shows that almost all teachers agree to integrate English expression of Chinese culture in English teaching, which provides an opportunity for students to improve their oral expression ability and lay a solid foundation for intercultural communication in the future. The last question is whether teachers think it is necessary to include target language cultural knowledge in junior middle school English teaching. The average score for this question is 4.6. From this we can come to the conclusion that most teachers hold a positive attitude towards the learning of target language culture in English teaching. Since the 1980s, scholars have had a heated discussion on the importance of learning target language culture in English teaching. Therefore, the integration of target language culture into English teaching has become a consensus among the teachers. However, in recent years, English teaching in China has the tendency of focusing on more English culture than Chinese culture. Therefore, enough attention should be paid to Chinese culture in English teaching. Through the results of the questionnaire, we are pleased to find that junior middle school English teachers have a very positive attitude towards the integration of Chinese culture into English teaching. They are not only aware of the important role of Chinese culture integration in English teaching, but also aware of the important role of enhancing junior middle school students' intercultural communicative awareness in spreading excellent Chinese culture to the world.
Based on the above results of questionnaires, it is found that junior middle school English teachers and students have shown their recognition of the positive role of Chinese culture in English teaching and learning. In addition, they are willing to teach and learn the English expression of Chinese culture in the process of English teaching and introduce Chinese culture to foreigners.
4.1.2Attitudes of Students Towards Chinese Culture Introduction in English Learning
The results of junior middle school students' attitudes towards the role of Chinese culture in English learning are presented in the table below.
Table 4-2 Students' Attitudes Towards Introduction of Chinese Culture in English
Learning
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q2 180 1 5 4.31 .711
Q3 180 1 5 4.17 .906
Q4 180 1 5 4.55 .654
Q5 180 1 5 1.97 .900
Q6 180 1 5 1.27 .784
Q7 180 1 5 1.88 .786
Q8 180 1 5 2.39 .446
Valid
N(listwise) 180
 
The table above clearly shows the students' attitudes towards the introduction of Chinese culture in English learning. As for Question 2, it is about whether it is necessary to learn relevant mother tongue culture and English culture in the process of English learning, the average score of students is as high as 4.31, which means that most of the students hold a positive attitude towards learning the dual cultures including both the target language culture and Chinese culture in English learning. The third question is students' opinion on the importance of understanding native culture and English culture in intercultural communication. The average score is 4.17, which indicates that junior middle school students agree on the important role of mother tongue culture in intercultural communication. This also shows that students can realize that intercultural communication is the communication between the two cultures, it is not only limited to one aspect. Next comes Question 4, when students are asked whether it is necessary to spread native culture when communicating with foreigners, the average score was 4.55, which is higher than the first two questions. This shows that almost all students believe that as a Chinese, we should actively spread excellent Chinese culture to foreigners and carry forward Chinese culture. And junior middle school students have a strong sense of patriotism and this attitude responds to President Xi Jinping's call of “to let China go to the world and let the world know about China”. The fifth question is students' attitude towards “learning English should lay emphasis on western culture, while mother tongue culture is a matter for Chinese learning”. The average score of this question is 1.97. This shows that most students do not agree with this view. They believe that the learning of native culture should also be included in English learning. The sixth question is about students' viewpoint about “There is no need for materials about Chinese culture in English textbooks”, the average score is 1.27, which indicates that a majority of students think English textbooks should not only include English culture, but also some Chinese culture. In terms of the eighth question, when students are asked whether they are more interested in western festivals than traditional Chinese festivals, the average score of the question is 1.88. The result shows that most students don't prefer western festivals to Chinese traditional festivals. In recent years, due to the penetration of western culture, many young people are crazy about western festivals such as Valentine's Day, Christmas, Halloween and so on, while their enthusiasm for traditional Chinese festivals is declining. But what is surprising is that most junior middle school students still prefer traditional Chinese festivals. The eighth question is about students' attitude about “Learning Chinese culture has little effect on English learning”, the average score of the students is 2.39, which indicates that most students don't agree with this view. They realize that learning Chinese culture is useful for English learning. Mastering the English expression of Chinese culture can not only enable students to deepen the cognition of Chinese traditional culture, but also facilitate the understanding of western culture through cultural contrast. At the same time, it can stimulate students' enthusiasm and motivation to learn foreign languages.
The above 7 questions indicate that junior middle school students hold a positive attitude towards the status and role of Chinese culture in English learning and show a positive attitude towards the integration of Chinese culture into English class, hoping to learn the English expression of relevant Chinese culture in class and introduce Chinese culture to foreigners. Junior middle school students have a strong patriotic feeling, treat foreign festivals rationally and they hope to spread Chinese culture. But they are skeptical about whether Chinese culture can promote English learning, the reason of the questionable attitude is perhaps junior middle school students attach much importance to exams, while these exams contain less content of Chinese culture, so the role of learning Chinese culture in promoting English learning is not obvious.
4.2Current Situation of Chinese Culture Introduction in Junior Middle School English Teaching
4.2.1Present Situation of Chinese Culture Learning in Junior Middle School English Teaching
Table 4-3 Total Score of Student Test Paper
The average The highest score The lowest score
score
 
Students' score of the test 7.8 16 0
 
The test paper adopts the method of English-Chinese translation to understand the present situation of Chinese culture learning in junior middle school English teaching. The test paper is 16 points in total. As can be seen from the table, the average score of the test paper is 7.8, which does not reach half of the total score. The highest score is 16 points and the lowest is 0 point. So we can come to the conclusion that the situation of Chinese culture learning is not very optimistic. On the whole, students are not very familiar with the English expressions of some Chinese culture and “Chinese culture aphasia” exists in junior middle school students. In the following part, the test paper will be analyzed in detail from the two parts separately.
Table 4-4 Accuracy Rate of Each Item in Part One
(Chinese-English Translation)
Item Number Mean Accuracy Rate
I1 筷子 0.2 19.4%
I2 中国象棋 0.48 47.2%
I3 长城 0.63 62.2%
I4 剪纸 0.2 19.4%
I5 京剧 0.49 48.3%
I6 饺子 0.61 61.1%
I7 大熊猫 0.77 76.7%
I8 红包 0.17 17.2%
 
The average score and accuracy of each item can be clearly seen from the table above. Among the eight questions, the three with the highest average score and correct rate are “panda”, “Great Wall”and “dumplings”, with an accuracy rate of 76.7%, 62.2% and 61.1% respectively. The reason why students handle them well is inferred that they are included in the textbook of the Lujiao Edition. Other items, such as “Beijing Opera” 41
and “Chinese chess” follow the highest correct translation rate, accounting for 48.3% and 47.2% respectively. This means that nearly half of the students can accurately translate these two items. Other items, such as “chopsticks”, “paper-cutting” and “red packet” receive the lowest scores, averaging less than 20%. On the one hand, the spelling of these three words is difficult. On the other hand, it is inferred that the reason for the low accuracy of these items is that even though students have been exposed to these words in their daily study and life, they do not know how to express them in English without reference. As for the translation of “dumplings”, most students write Chinese phoneticized “jiaozi” directly. In this part, it is found that some students are aware of the corresponding English expressions of Chinese culture, but they could not spell them correctly and make spelling mistakes.
Table 4-5 Accuracy Rate of Each Item in Part Two
(English-Chinese Translation)
Item Number Mean Accuracy Rate
I1 Journey to the West 0.63 62.2%
I2 Yangze River 0.58 57.2%
I3 The Palace Museum 0.64 63.3%
I4 Dragon Boat Festival 0.60 65%
I5 The Story of the Stone 0.29 28.3%
I6 Spring Festival Scrolls 0.19 18.3%
I7 Silk Roads 0.56 56.1%
I8 Mapo tofu 0.95 95%
 
The second part of the test is about translation phrases related Chinese culture from English into Chinese. Among the 8 items, “Mapo tofu”, “Dragon Boat Festival”, “The Palace Museum”, “Journey to the West”, “Yangtze River” and “Silk Road” score high in the correct rate, with 95%, 65%, 63.3%, 62.2%, 57.2% and 56.1% respectively. The first four of the six questions are included in the eighth-grade English textbook, and the last question appears in the seventh-grade textbook. The accuracy rate of “Silk Road” is 56.1%, indicating that half of the students are able to accurately translate it. The reason for the high accuracy rate may be the implementation of the national “One Belt And One Road” policy in recent years, which enables students to know the story of the silk road, so that they have many opportunities to contact the English expression of the “silk road” in life, and English teachers may mention it in class frequently. The average accuracy rate of “The Story of the Stone” and “Spring Festival Scrolls” is less than 30%, which indicates that nearly all of the students are not familiar with the two phrases and cannot accurately recognize their Chinese meaning.
In these items, some students translate “Yangtze River” into “ 黄 河 ” and “the Palace Museum” into “博 物馆 ”. In the translation of “the Story of the Stone”, most students translate it into “一个关于石头的 故事”. For the “Spring Festival scrolls”, most students can realize that this phrase is about the Spring Festival, but they don't know the meaning of the whole phrase. It is referred that the reason for the low accuracy rate is that students rarely encounter this phrase in their regular studies. Among the 16 items, “paper cutting”, “red packet” and “Spring Festival Scroll” are all about Chinese traditional festival-the Spring Festival, which is one of the most important festivals in China. Most students are familiar with this festival but they can't express things related to this festival in English for students' scores in the three questions are relatively low. Therefore, we can infer that if students are asked to describe the customs and habits of the Spring Festival, they will face many difficulties in expression.
To sum up, the item with the highest accuracy rate in the whole test paper is “Mapo Tofu” and “panda”, with an accuracy rate of 95% and 76.7% respectively, both of them are included in the textbook. Therefore, we can see that even though some of the questions are included in the textbook, students cannot completely translate them correctly, let alone some knowledge of Chinese culture outside the textbooks. By summarizing the items of these two parts, it can be concluded that students are not very familiar with the English expression of Chinese culture, and they cannot accurately express Chinese culture in English. There is a certain degree of Chinese cultural aphasia among junior middle school students.
4.2.2Teachers' and Students' Ability of Expressing Chinese Culture in English
As is known to us all, teachers play a vital role in improving students' intercultural communicative competence. Only when teachers have a deep understanding of Chinese culture and can express Chinese culture fluently, can they help students understand Chinese culture and improve their English language competence.
The first question of teacher's questionnaire investigates whether teachers could express simple Chinese culture in English. The results are shown in the chart below.
 
 
Chart 4-1 Teachers' Views on Their Ability ofExpressing Chinese Culture in
English
As can be seen from the chart above, 43%(10%+33%) of the teachers think they find it difficult to express simple Chinese cultural customs and habits, while 47% ofthe teachers are unsure of their ability to express Chinese culture in English. Only 10%(3%+7%) of the teachers disagree with the statement, which means that they think they are capable to express simple Chinese culture in English. This result shows that most junior middle school English teachers are not good at expressing Chinese culture, and it is necessary for them to improve their ability of expressing Chinese culture.
Therefore, English teachers should not only improve their own cultural awareness, but also pay attention to the accumulation and improvement of cultural knowledge of the mother tongue, and infiltrate Chinese culture into English teaching consciously. In addition, teachers should improve students' intercultural communicative competence gradually and train talents for intercultural communication and dissemination of excellent Chinese culture.
In addition to investigating English teachers' ability of expressing Chinese culture in English, the first question of the students' questionnaire investigate students' capability that can voice Chinese culture in English.
 
 
Chart 4-2 Students'Views on Their Ability of Expressing Chinese Culture in English
From the chart, we can draw the conclusion that 50%(21%+29%) of the students think they find it difficult to express simple Chinese culture in English, 46% of the students are not sure if the have difficulty in expressing Chinese culture in English, and only 4%(3%+1%) of the students think they are capable to express some simple Chinese culture in English.
Combining the results of student's test paper and the sixth question of the questionnaire it is concluded that most junior middle school students have a poor performance in introducing Chinese traditional culture in English. This shows that that teachers' own cultural quality and cultural expression level have a profound impact on that of students, and teachers' accumulation of Chinese cultural knowledge and cultural 45
expression ability need to be improved.
4.2.3Chinese Culture Allocation in Junior Middle School English Textbooks
English textbooks are the main source of information for students to learn basic language knowledge and language skills. Chinese learners lack a real English learning environment, and textbooks provide students with an important source of language knowledge. In addition to the basic knowledge, such as phonological, lexical and grammatical knowledge, it also contains rich national cultural knowledge, such as historical geography, local customs, festival customs and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the introduction of culture in English textbooks.
Questions 9 and 10 in the students' questionnaire investigate the cultural materials of foreign countries and native country in the English textbooks. The results are shown in the table below.
Table 4-6 Students' Views About Culture Allocation in Junior Middle School
English Textbooks
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q9 180 1 5 3.14 1.299
Q10 180 1 5 3.47 1.189
Valid
N(listwise) 180
 
As can be seen from Table 4-6, the average score of students is 3.47 for the question that “English textbooks for junior middle school contain enough cultural knowledge of target language(Q10)”. When asked whether there are enough materials of Chinese culture in junior middle school English textbooks(Q9), the average score of students is 3. 14. This indicates that students believe that the English culture contained in junior middle school English textbooks is more than Chinese culture.
Table 4-7 Teachers' Views About Culture Allocation in Junior Middle School
English Textbooks
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q10 30 1 5 3.73 0.907
Q11 30 1 5 3.83 1.02
Valid
N(listwise) 30
 
Questions 10 and 11 in teacher's questionnaire are about cultural knowledge in English textbooks. As we can see from Table 4-7, as for the inclusion of Chinese culture in English textbooks(Q10), teachers' average score is 3.73. When asked whether English textbooks contain sufficient cultural knowledge of the target language(Q11), the average score is 3.83. This also indicates that teachers think the target language culture in the textbook is more than Chinese culture. This result is basically dovetail with students' views.
Therefore, it is clear that the current English textbooks for junior middle schools contain less Chinese culture than English culture.
4.2.4Chinese Culture Introduction in English Class
Learning in English class is the main way for students to absorb knowledge, so every minute of the classroom time is very valuable. In order to make the most of teaching, teachers should design the classroom carefully. In terms of integrating Chinese culture in classroom teaching, English teachers must take appropriate ways and integrate Chinese culture into the learning of vocabulary and discourse so as to regulate classroom atmosphere, arouse the enthusiasm of students' learning. At the same time, teachers should promote students' understanding of Chinese and foreign culture, strengthen their national self-confidence and a sense of pride and enhance their ability of using language.
This part will analyze the current situation of the introduction of Chinese culture in English classes from the perspectives of teachers and students in combination with questionnaires.
Table 4-8 Students' View About the Current Situation of Introduction of Chinese Culture in English Class
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean
Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q12 180 1 5 4.17 0.808
Q15 180 1 5 3.39 1.463
Q16 180 1 5 3.56 1.130
Valid
N(listwise) 180
 
Question 12 of student questionnaire investigates the willingness of junior middle school students to learn to express Chinese culture in English class. The result in the above table show that the average score of students is 4.17, which indicates that most students hope to learn how to express Chinese culture in English classes. This is a good result, because nowadays many young people are crazy about some western festivals and blindly worship western culture, believing that western culture is superior to Chinese culture, while Chinese traditional festivals are neglected. Question 15 is about whether their English teachers will explain some Chinese cultural knowledge in class. The average score of students is 3.39, which indicates that students are uncertain about whether their English teachers involve some knowledge of Chinese culture in class. Besides, the minimum of the question is 1, which means that some students think their teachers never teach Chinese culture in class. The sixteenth question is about whether English teachers often add cultural differences to the teaching of texts. The average score of students of this question is 3.56, which shows that half of the students think that their English teachers add cultural differences to the explanation of the text, but there are still some teachers who seldom mention cultural differences in class. By summarizing these three questions, it is seen that students have a strong desire to learn the expression of Chinese culture in class and they hope to improve their intercultural communicative skills. However, the frequency of teachers' integration of Chinese culture into class is not very often, and the content of cultural differences is not very much. Therefore, there is a incongruity between students' needs and teachers' teaching contents.
Questions 8 and 9 in the teacher's questionnaire are about the cultural integration into classroom teaching. The results are shown in the table below.
Table 4-9 Teachers' View About the Current Situation ofthe Introduction of Chinese Culture in English Class
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q8 30 1 5 3.73 0.980
Q9 30 1 5 3.40 1.070
Valid
N(listwise) 30
 
By analyzing the results of questions 8 and 9, it is found that the average score of teachers about whether they often introduce Chinese culture and its English expression in English teaching(Q9) is 3.4, while the average score of teachers about whether they often introduce the target language knowledge in English teaching(Q8) is 3.73. The results show that most teachers are aware ofthe importance of dual cultural teaching in English learning, and they can consciously integrate the knowledge of target language culture and Chinese culture into classroom teaching. However, most teachers introduce more target language culture than mother tongue culture in classroom teaching.
Teachers' interview also shows the situation of Chinese culture introduction in English class. As for the third question, it is about teachers' views on whether they consciously extend Chinese cultural knowledge in the classroom and what teaching methods are used. Through interviews, it is found that in the actual teaching process, if English teachers have enough time, they will try their best to extend and teach students some simple expressions of Chinese culture if they encounter relevant cultural knowledge in textbooks. They mention that because students are under great pressure in study, the class time is often filled with the teaching of language knowledge. When the teacher mentions some Chinese and foreign stories and Chinese culture, the students are very interested and it could enliven the classroom atmosphere.
In terms of the approaches they use to integrate Chinese culture into the English classroom, teachers all mention that the most commonly used method is direct narration, i.e. in the process of learning, if the content in textbook associate with the relevant Chinese culture, they will directly speak to the students orally and impart some cultural expressions to the students. They also mention that sometimes they would use multimedia to present some pictures or videos to students, which are more intuitive and attractive. The effect of these methods is very significant, and the students are very interested in them. However, due to the limited teaching time, the frequency of using this method is very low. One teacher mentions that he has used role-playing, which can help students experience the cultural differences between China and foreign countries.
4.2.5Chinese Culture Introduction after English Class
In English teaching, the time in class is the main time for students to absorb knowledge, but the time outside the class can not be ignored. Homework and exams after class have their own functions. Homework is an indispensable link in the process of students' accepting and consolidating new knowledge. Classroom teaching alone cannot meet the needs of students to learn English, nor can it help them achieve the purpose of using English proficiently. In terms of integrating Chinese culture into the English classroom, if students only listen to the knowledge in class, and there is no relevant content in the exams and homework, the result is that students only have input but no output in the learning process, so that they cannot master the knowledge well. Examination is currently the most important goal of students' learning. Both students' learning and teachers' teaching focus on how to get higher grades. If exams do not involve knowledge about Chinese culture, teachers and students will not pay attention to the learning of Chinese cultural knowledge naturally. So there is an investigation of the integration of Chinese culture after English class. The analysis will be conducted from the perspective ofstudents and teachers respectively.
Table 4-10 Students' View About the Current Situation ofIntroduction ofChinese
Culture After English Class
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q11 180 1 5 3.36 0.844
Q13 180 1 5 3.96 0.828
Q14 180 1 5 3.73 0.823
Q17 180 1 5 4.18 0.898
Q18 180 1 5 2.58 1.214
Q19 180 1 5 2.98 1.205
ValidN(listwise) 180
 
The 11th question is about the students' insufficient understanding of Chinese culture. The average score ofit is 3.36, which indicates that most students are uncertain whether they have a good understanding and enough knowledge of Chinese culture. Understanding Chinese culture is the premise of expressing Chinese culture in English. If students do not have a deep understanding oftheir own culture, they will be unable to express it in English and spread Chinese culture to foreigners. The 13th question is whether students think that the foreigners around them show interest in Chinese culture. The average score of this question is 3.96, which indicates that most students agree that the foreigners around them are interested in Chinese culture. This reflects the necessity of disseminating Chinese excellent cultural tradition to the outside world. Internationally, with the extensive development of Confucius Institutes around the world, more and more foreigners are full of curiosity about Chinese culture. When the students are asked about their attitude towards the fact that “I seldom have the chance to use English to introduce Chinese culture”(Q14), their average score is 3.73, which indicates that the overall attitude of students is that they usually lack a lot of opportunities to introduce Chinese culture in English. In their daily study and life, students mainly study in school. On the weekends, students spend their holidays doing homework, so they have little time and opportunity to introduce Chinese culture in English. The school does not hold relevant activities to let students introduce Chinese culture, so students have no chance to express Chinese culture. Even if some of the foreigners around them show interest in Chinese culture, they can hardly express it in English fluently. The 17th question asks students whether their English exams have ever included the content of Chinese culture. The average score for this question was 4.18, indicating that the majority of students agree that Chinese culture has been included in the English test. The content of Chinese culture in the exam will arouse students' attention of Chinese culture, and the learning of Chinese culture can promote their understanding of the contents of exam. The 18th question investigates whether students often watch CCTV9 and other programs that introduce Chinese culture in English after class. The average score of this question is 2.58. It can be seen that most students do not often watch programs about Chinese culture. Some students watch it purely out of interest, while others spend most of their time studying and doing other recreational activities, rather than consciously watching programs related to Chinese culture. When students are asked if they have easy access to information about Chinese culture in English(Q19), the average score is 2.98. This shows that most students can not easily access to some information about Chinese culture. Students may not know
how to choose the materials suitable for them; besides, they may have no spare time.
Although students are willing to spread Chinese culture, they are not confident in their ability to express Chinese culture in English and do not have many opportunities to introduce Chinese culture. In addition, they cannot easily obtain the material of Chinese.
The teacher's questionnaire investigates the situation of Chinese culture integration after class.
Table 4-1 1 Teachers' View about the Current Situation ofIntroduction ofChinese
Culture after English Class
N Statistics Minimum
Statistics Maximum
Statistics Mean Statistics Std.
Deviation
Q12 30 2 5 3.20 1.064
Q13 30 1 5 3.37 1.066
Q14 30 1 5 3.53 0.900
Q15 30 2 5 3.63 0.928
Q16 30 2 5 3.50 0.938
Q17 30 2 5 3.57 0.935
Valid
N(listwise) 30
 
Questions 12 and 13 are teachers' view about “I often encourage students to read English extra-curricular materials about Chinese culture culture” and “I often encourage students to read English extra-curricular materials about target language culture”. The average score of these two questions is 3.2 and 3.37 respectively, which indicates that teachers recommend more extra-curricular reading materials of English culture than that of Chinese culture. The same situation is reflected in Questions 14 and 15, which are about the knowledge of Chinese culture and target language culture involved in junior middle school assignments and exercises. The scores are 3.53 and 3.63 respectively. This shows that the content of English culture is a little bit more than Chinese culture in the homework. Questions 16 and 17 are about Chinese and foreign cultures in the English test paper, with scores of 3.5 and 3.57 respectively. The results are consistent with the first four questions, and English culture is slightly more than Chinese culture. These 6 questions reflect that in the case of less cultural integration into after-class English learning, the content of English culture appears slightly more than Chinese culture.
Based on the results of the teacher's and student's questionnaire above, it can be concluded that the situation of the integration of Chinese culture into junior middle school after English class is not very optimistic, and more target language culture and Chinese culture should be appropriately integrated into homework and exams. Besides, teachers should provide students with some opportunities to express Chinese culture in order to improve students' ability to express Chinese culture in English.
4.3Factors Affecting Chinese Culture Introduction in Junior Middle School English Teaching
The 18th question of the teachers' questionnaire investigates the factors that influence Chinese culture introduction in English teaching. Combined with the first two questions of the teachers' interview, these factors can be divided into three categories: factors of English textbooks, factors of teachers and factors of the teaching evaluation.
4.3.1English Textbooks' Factors
Table 4-12 English Textbooks' Factors Influencing Chinese Culture Introduction
Questions Choices Percentage
What do you think are the factors that influence the Chinese culture (1)There is little Chinese cultural content in the English textbooks. 63.3%
introduction in your English teaching? (4)English teaching resources related to Chinese culture are scare. 66.7%
 
The first and fourth options of the 18th question of teachers' questionnaire are about the influence of English teaching resources on Chinese culture introduction in English teaching. As can be seen from Table 4-12, 63.3% of the teachers think that the content of Chinese culture in the English textbooks is not enough. This result is consistent with the results of teachers' questionnaire on the distribution of Chinese cultural content in English textbooks. And 66.7% of the teachers think that English teaching resources with respect to Chinese culture are insufficient. This result indicates that more than half of the teachers believe that these two aspects have a great influence on their introduction of Chinese culture in English class.
The first question of teachers' interview is teachers' opinions on English textbooks, especially on English textbooks. The teachers all think that their school lack English teaching resources related to Chinese culture. For example, there are few English books, periodicals and magazines about Chinese culture in the school library. And relevant audio and video resources are also very few. English textbooks play an significant part in English curriculum, while teachers say that the content about Chinese culture in the English textbooks is not enough and that there is not a good balance between Chinese culture and foreign culture. Besides, the cultural content is not systematic and it is relatively dispersed, and the position of Chinese culture in the textbook is easy to be ignored by students.
As a result, unbalanced cultural content in English textbooks and inadequate teaching resources are important factors that influencing Chinese culture introduction in English teaching.
4.3.2Teachers' Factors
Table 4-13 Teachers' Factors Influencing Chinese Culture Introduction
Questions Choices Percentage
What do you think are the factors that influence the Chinese culture introduction in your English teaching? (5)Teachers lack of knowledge of Chinese culture. 63.7%
(6)Teachers have insufficient knowledge of Chinese culture teaching theory. 80%
(7)Teachers lack practical skills in teaching Chinese culture. 70%
 
The fifth, sixth and seventh options are about the influence of teachers' factors on Chinese culture introduction in English class. The results in the table show that 63.7% of the teachers think they lack knowledge of Chinese culture, and 80% of the teachers think they lack knowledge of Chinese culture teaching theory. At the same time, 70% of the teachers think their practical teaching skills are inadequate.
The second question of teachers' interview is their views on their ability of introducing Chinese culture in English. It is found that they have doubts about how to systematically teach Chinese culture in English teaching, i.e., they lack of the knowledge of Chinese culture teaching theory. In addition, some teachers mention that Chinese culture is rich and colorful, and they are not very familiar with the English expressions of some Chinese culture, or even they don't understand some Chinese culture, so the knowledge of Chinese culture involved in class is very limited.
Teachers' cultural literacy is a very important factor affecting the introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching. Their knowledge of Chinese culture, the reserve of teaching theories and the mastery of practical skills directly affect the effect of the introduction of Chinese culture.
4.3.3Teaching Evaluation' s Factors
Table 4-14 Teaching Evaluation's Factors Influencing Chinese Culture Introduction
Questions Choices Percentage
What do you think are the factors that influence the Chinese culture introduction in your English teaching? (2) The exam questions are less relevant to Chinese culture. 73.3%
 
The second option of the 18th question is about the influence of test content on the introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching. As can be seen from the table, 73.3% of the teachers think that the test items are of low relevance to Chinese culture. Through interview, it can be concluded that the main content of the examination is about the language knowledge such as words and grammar, as well as language skills such as listening and reading. There is very little reference to Chinese culture in the exam questions.
By interviewing teachers, in can be found that in order to help students get high grades under the heavy teaching burden, teachers put the emphasis of classroom teaching on the explanation of vocabulary, grammar and learning skills. For some knowledge that has no direct promotion effect on exams, teachers would not talk about more, they would only talk about it a little bit occasionally to make the atmosphere lively.
The content of teaching evaluation is the guidance of teachers' teaching and students' learning at present, and it is also an important factor affecting teachers' introduction of Chinese culture in English teaching.
Through the above results, it can be concluded that teaching resources, teachers' ability of teaching cultural knowledge and teaching evaluation are the main factors that affect the integration of teachers into Chinese culture in English teaching. In addition, the lack of class hours and the exam-oriented education system also have a certain impact on it.
4.4Summary
At first, it can be concluded from students' and teachers' questionnaire and interview that junior middle school teachers and students hold a positive attitude towards the integration of Chinese culture into English teaching. They all affirm the role of Chinese culture in English teaching and the necessity of spreading Chinese culture abroad. Teachers believe that the spread of excellent Chinese culture can enliven the classroom atmosphere, broaden students' knowledge and improve their language skills. Students believe that Chinese culture can help them understand the background knowledge of the topic and communicate with foreigners better.
Furthermore, as for the present situation of the Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching, it can be found that students are not very familiar with some English expressions of Chinese culture through the analysis of student test paper, even if some topics are included in the textbooks, they cannot accurately identify them and they cannot accurately express them in English. Therefore, junior middle school students have a certain degree of Chinese cultural aphasia phenomenon. And both teachers and students have difficulty in introducing Chinese culture in English. The third aspect is the inadequacy of Chinese cultural elements contained in textbooks. Moreover, the distribution of cultural knowledge is relatively scattered and unsystematic, which cannot make students form a complete cultural cognition. Fourthly, due to the pressure of teaching, the cultural content involved in English class is limited and the methods adopted are relatively simple, mainly including oral presentation and multimedia. As to Chinese integration after class, students' homework rarely contain Chinese culture, and the same is true of teaching evaluations. Furthermore, the school provides students with few opportunities to express Chinese culture, so students lack of real language environment.
In terms of the factors that affect Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching, it mainly includes teaching resources, teachers' personal qualities and teaching evaluation. In the aspect of teaching resources, the school lacks of abundant teaching resources and English textbooks contain insufficient Chinese culture and the Chinese culture are relatively scattered. Most teachers lack theoretical knowledge and practical skills in teaching Chinese culture. At the same time, the degree of correlation between teaching evaluation and Chinese cultural content is low. Therefore, the Chinese culture introduction in English teaching has not received enough attention from teachers.
Chapter Five Conclusion
Based on the theory of intercultural communication and input hypothesis and output hypothesis, the research mainly surveys the current situation of the introduction of Chinese culture in junior middle school English teaching and aims to discuss teachers and students' attitude towards the introduction of Chinese culture, current situation of Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching and factors affecting Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching. Following are some of the main findings and suggestions based on the findings.
5.1Main Findings
According to the analysis and discussion in the previous chapters, this paper draws the following conclusions.
(1)Firstly, the discussion results of the questionnaire show that junior middle school teachers and students agree on introduction of Chinese culture into junior middle school English teaching. They both affirm the role of Chinese culture in English learning and teaching and believe that as a Chinese, they should actively spread excellent Chinese culture to foreigners. Junior middle school students are full of interest in Chinese culture, which shows that they can treat Chinese and foreign culture correctly and rationally and have strong patriotic feelings. Teachers also strongly agree to cultivate the ability of junior middle school students to express Chinese culture in English. This is a happy result, because attitude is the premise of action, only when teachers and students form a common positive attitude in the actual teaching, can they promote the teaching and learning of expressing Chinese culture. And teachers and students can actively participate in the teaching and learning of Chinese culture.
(2)Secondly, the current situation of Chinese culture introduction in English teaching can be summarized as follows: there is a phenomenon of Chinese cultural aphasia among junior middle school students. It shows that students don't have a good command of English expressions of Chinese culture. In addition, it is found that both teachers and students agree that they have difficulties in expressing simple Chinese culture in English. The textbooks they use is Lujiao edition of junior middle school English textbooks, which contain less Chinese cultural elements. Moreover, the cultural presentation is relatively scattered and not systematic, which is not conducive for students to learn the English expression of native culture and the formation of their intercultural competence. Besides, English classes lack enough Chinese culture introduction and teachers mainly focus on the language knowledge. Furthermore, there are few teaching methods of integrating Chinese culture into English class, which mainly include oral teaching and multimedia. In terms of extra-curricular activities, the school basically does not hold corresponding activities to provide students with opportunities to express Chinese culture in English. In terms of the content of the exams, there are few contents related to Chinese culture and they are mainly about vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing. In terms of homework assignment, there are few contents related to Chinese culture. Besides, teachers seldom recommend English extra-curricular reading materials about Chinese culture to students.
(3)Thirdly, the factors that affect Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching include English textbooks, teachers' personal qualities and teaching evaluation. The results show that the English textbooks for junior middle schools contain limited Chinese culture, and the school lacks teaching resources about Chinese culture. In terms of teachers, some of them have insufficient knowledge of Chinese culture and Chinese culture teaching theories, and they lack appropriate teaching methods. In addition, teaching evaluation is also one of the important influencing factors. At present, teaching evaluation is mainly based on examination, whose content determines what teachers teach and students learn. In addition, the lack of class hours is also an important factor, teachers are more inclined to teach language knowledge in the limited time.
5.2Implications
Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are put forward from the aspect of textbooks, students and teachers, with the purpose of promoting the introduction of Chinese culture into junior middle school English teaching, improving students' ability of expressing Chinese culture in English and cultivating talents for intercultural communication.
5.2.1From the Perspective of Textbooks
Through analysis, it is found that the contents of Chinese culture in junior middle school English textbooks are few and not systematic. And the logical compilation of English textbooks directly will further the realization of teaching objectives. Xiao Longfu, Xiaodi and Li Lan (2010) point out that Chinese culture has a long history and has many contents. We cannot systematically train a large number of Chinese teachers to teach in English in a short time, but we can produce high-quality textbooks in a short time. Good teaching materials are the basis for cultivating students' intercultural communicative competence. Therefore, the textbook should not only include the language knowledge learned by students, but also reflect the thoughts behind the knowledge. Therefore, in terms of textbooks, textbook compilers should systematically integrate Chinese culture into textbooks. For example, they should try their best to include excellent articles reflecting Chinese culture in the reading texts. In the listening and speaking sections, more topics related to Chinese cultural background can be set. These topics need to be combined with students' real language environment so as to improve their ability to use language correctly.
5.2.2From the Perspective of English Teachers
Couin, the French educator, points out that cultural teaching can be implemented in regular courses by using appropriate teaching methods. Therefore, in order to better introduce Chinese culture in English teaching, English teachers should do the following things.
First, teachers should strengthen their own cultural literacy. On the one hand, English teachers not only undertake the task of language teaching, but also the task of transmitting Chinese culture. On the other hand, English teachers' cultural knowledge reserve and language expression ability will affect students invisibly. If teachers want to impart Chinese culture to students, they must first understand and master it. Therefore, English teachers should study Chinese culture and improve their ability of expressing Chinese culture in English through teacher training and lectures.
Secondly, teachers should integrate Chinese culture into English teaching consciously and adopt a variety of effective teaching methods to present the Chinese culture to students systematically in the classroom teaching. Moreover, teachers should take full advantage of modern multimedia to stimulate students' interest in Chinese culture.
Thirdly, teachers should encourage and guide students to conduct and participate in some activities related to Chinese culture after English class so as to expand the way of acquiring Chinese culture. In addition, they should recommend some materials that introduce Chinese culture in English to improve students' ability of expressing Chinese culture in English gradually.
5.2.3From the Perspective of Students
Students should realize that the purpose of English learning is not only for exams, but also for successful communication in intercultural communication. Meanwhile, junior middle school students should understand that English learning is not only the understanding of English culture, but also the learning of Chinese culture. They should recognize that it is their mission to master the way to express Chinese culture in English and carry forward Chinese traditional culture. In addition, students should get the utmost out of various ways such as books, TV and the Internet to learn about Chinese culture and how to express it in English.
5.3Limitations of the Study
This paper mainly discusses three questions: (1) What's the attitude of junior middle school teachers and students towards the introduction of Chinese culture in junior middle school English teaching? (2) What is the current situation of Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching? (3) What are the factors that affect Chinese culture introduction in junior middle school English teaching?
Although some efforts have been made in the research, there are still many problems in the research due to the limited level of the author and the influence of various objective factors.
First, the number of samples of the research is small and the range is limited. In this study, only one middle school is selected for investigation, so the study may not completely summarize junior middle school teachers' and students' opinion and the current situation of integration of Chinese culture in English teaching .
Secondly, although the questionnaires cited in the article has been modified, they are still incomplete and the problems still needs to be improved.
Thirdly, there are some limitations in the test paper used to study the situation of students' Chinese culture learning. These problems can only be used to investigate students' writing ability unilaterally, which has a certain gap with the direct test of their oral expression ability. Therefore, a more representative and scientific way of investigation is needed.
5.4Suggestions for the Future Research
In the future research and survey, researchers should expand the scope of investigation, and the respondents should not be limited to one school or one grade only. This will make the data more comprehensive and representative. In addition, researchers should find more authoritative tools to measure the English expressing ability of Chinese culture of junior middle school students so as to show the most real and objective results. In addition to questionnaires and interviews, researchers can use classroom observation to obtain the most authentic first-hand data in classroom teaching. The last point is that researchers should conduct in-depth research, focusing on the current educational environment and the general background to find out the factors affecting the teaching effect.
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