Chapter One Introduction
1.1 The Background of the Thesis
During the last decades, mainly affected by structuralism, traditional foreignlanguage teaching in senior high schools in China pays more attention to students'linguistic knowledge such as grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure, leavingintercultural communicative competence without consideration. So after many years'study, a lot of students gradually find that their linguistic knowledge does notcorrespond with their intercultural communicative competence. Though they have agood a command of linguistic knowledge, they are still unable to communicate withforeigners smoothly. They often use typical Chinese thinking patterns when they have aconversation with others in English，which always leads to cultural misunderstanding orcommunication disorders. Take the following joke as an example. Once an officer inChina took his wife to meet an American guest, the guest first said to this officer that“your wife is beautiful”. The officer replied owing to politeness that “where，where”.Now the guest felt confused and did not know what was the matter，and he just repliedthat “everywhere”. This story only serves as an entertainment; however, we realize therole of culture knowledge plays in intercultural communication. Fluent language can notassure a successful communication for people with different background knowledge.Culture knowledge is also indispensable.The neglecting of culture aspects in foreign language teaching has causedmisunderstanding, so in the middle 1980s, scholars in China began to emphasize theimportance of culture teaching in English class, a great many scholars argue that cultureteaching and language teaching should be mixed together with each other; teachersshould enhance students' intercultural communicative awareness and interculturalcommunicative competence and so on. However, in reality，in senior high schools，under the heavy burden of college entrance examinations, both teachers and studentsjust focus on language skills. For teachers, they do everything they can to improvestudents' scores; while for students, they also do their best to enhance their test scores.Ignorance of culture knowledge is blame to both teachers and students.
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1.2 The Significance of the Thesis
Conducting culture teaching in foreign language teaching has great significance.The importance and status of culture teaching has gained its due attention, but in its realimplementation,affected by traditional teaching method.having teaching burden or otherreasons, its effect is under satisfaction. English teachers in senior high schools wouldrather have students do more exercise to achieve high scores than teach them cultureknowledge. Based on the above situation，the author made a research on cultureteaching in senior high schools to investigate the present situation and then put forwardssome suggestions. It has the following meanings: Culture teaching has attached much attention at home and aboard, and manyscholars have put forwards their own viewpoint concerning the principles, the contents,and the methods of culture teaching. The author organizes and summaries these theories, which would enrich theories in culture teacliing.These can become supporting theoriesto the English teachers who spend time and energy researching cross-culture teaching.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Nature of Language
What is language? For several decades, it has been given different definitions bydifferent people from different aspects. Traditional linguistics regarded it as awell-defined tool for people to exchange ideas.The structural linguistics regarded it assymbolic form system formed by signifier and signified or human behavior modalformed by stimulus and response. Sociol-linguistics regarded it as a socialphenomenon .Edward Sapir defined it as “phonetic symbolic system which expressesideas and feelings "(Sapir, 1921). In author,opinion，language is a special techniqueacquired during human beings’ evolutionary process, and it is a tool to exchange ideas,which changes according to social culture environment.
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2.2 Culture
What is culture? There is no simple answer to this question. Culture is consideredto be a complex term and many an anthropologists and researchers have defined it invarious ways.Culture originates from Latin word "cultura". It first refers to living, breeding ofanimals and plants and so on, later its meaning is enlarged and it means to developpeople's personality, quality and so on. The concept of culture was first put forward bythe pioneer English Anthropologist Edward Burnett Taylor in his book. PrimitiveCulture, published in 1871. Taylor said that culture is “that complex whole whichincludes knowledge，belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities andhabits acquired by man as a member of society" (Liu Jing，2006). In its concept, Tayloremphasizes knowledge，custom, ability, habits and so on，these concepts are all abstractones not concrete concepts，because Taylor thinks that concrete objects do not belong tothe scope of the culture. Although Taylor' concept has been put forward for a long time，it still remains as one of the most accurate and extensive concepts in the world. Afterthat，many definitions about culture are put forward. Nida defined culture as all learnedbehaviors which are socially required (Nida, 2001). Brown defined culture as acollection of beliefs, habits, living patterns and behaviors which are held more or less incommon by people who occupy particular geographical areas( Brown, 2000). HuWenzhong claimed that culture is an integrated system of members of any given society(Hu Wenzhong，1999).
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Chapter Three Research Design.......... 19
3.1 Design of the Research........ 19
3.2 Objectives of the Research........ 19
3.3 Participants of the Research........ 19
3.4 Methods and Procedures of the Research........ 20
3.5 Data Collection21Chapter Four Results and Discussion........ 22
4.1 Results and Discussion of Culture Test Paper ........22
4.2 Results and Discussion of Questionnaires........ 25
4.2.1 Results and Discussion of Questionnaires for Students........ 25
4.2.2 Results and Discussion of Questionnaires for Teachers........ 32
4.3 Results and Discussion of the Interview ........36
Chapter Five Suggestions on English Culture Teaching ........37
5.1 Combining Training Language Skills with Imparting Culture........3 7
5.2 Making Use of Internet, Multi-media and Newspaper........ 39
5.3 Experiencing Culture Differences between China........ 40
5.4 Emphasizing Traditional Chinese Culture........41
5.5 Establishing Correct Attitude and Improving Teachers........42
5.6 Reducing Obstacles for Carrying Out Culture Teaching........ 43
Chapter Five Suggestions on English Culture Teaching
5.1 Combining Training Language Skills with Imparting CultureKnowledge by Means of Textbooks
English class is the main place of English teaching. In class, English textbooksplay an important role. The majority of students, time is spent on textbooks. The processof training students' language skills is also the process of combining language withculture. So teachers should take full advantage of textbooks, and infiltrate cultureknowledge when training students' language skills.Vocabulary has accumulated rich culture meanings. Because of the difference ofdifferent countries’ traditional cultures,vocabulary conveying the same meaning mayhave different connotative meanings. So when teaching vocabulary, teachers mayexplain connotative meanings of words to students to avoid them makingmisunderstanding according to their subjective judgment. Take the word drugstore forexample, it is not totally equal to its Chinese meaning. In America, besides the meaningof selling medicine, it also sells things such as cosmetics，newspapers, and drinks and soon. If you use the word “peasant?’ to address people who is occupied in agriculture work,he would feel upset, because peasant in China is a neutral word; while in west it isderogatory，which often refers to an illiterate person. A farmer is an appropriate address.English phrases and idioms are an important part in west countries. Such phrases aredifficult to understand and use properly. For example, make up，it has dozens ofmeanings. Obviously, vocabulary teaching can not be separated from culturetransmission.So teachers should make the students have a clear idea that Chinese andEnglish words carry different connotative culture meanings.
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Conclusion
The research mainly aims to find out the present situation of culture knowledgeteaching in senior high schools. The major findings are as follows:First, nowadays，the majority of teachers have realized the importance of cultureknowledge teaching. However, due to various reasons, such as the limitation ofclassroom teaching, college entrance examinations, teachers have to put more emphasison the language teaching; therefore, culture teaching has been neglected to some degree,though bearing in mind that the cultivation of students' cross-culture communicativecompetence is important.Second, most of the students show great interest in culture study, but they bear alittle knowledge about foreign counties' history, geography, and customs for the heavyburden of the college entrance examinations. The main way for students to absorbculture knowledge is from classroom, so teachers should try their best to provide cultureinformation enough to their culture learning.Third, one of the the main obstacles for carrying out culture teaching is that seniorhigh schools is a special period for the students' further development. In this period,students' burden is heavy，and they are under the pressure of entering a higher levelschool.
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References (omitted)