Abstract Language and culture are closely related with each other. In fact, foreign language teaching is cultural learning. In order to learn a foreign language well, we should understand the target language culture, especially the differences between the source language culture and target language culture. This paper is concerned with the incorporation of the culture teaching in class, and special consideration is given to the necessities of teaching culture. It has demonstrated that teaching a foreign language is not only to give an instruction on syntactic structures or on learning new words and expressions, but also to incorporate some cultural elements. The main purpose of this thesis is to provide some useful methods based on those principles guiding the cross-cultural teaching, thus helping students apply the necessary skills to communicate and improving their competence in intercultural communication in their lives.   

Keywords: English teaching; cross-cultural awareness; culture teaching    53562

摘要语言与文化密切相关，外语学习实际上是一种文化学习，要学好外语就必须了解目的语文化，尤其要熟悉本族语与目的语之间的差异。本文结合文化教学的必要性，进而阐述了在中学外语教学中，句子结构的灌输与记忆已远远不能适应当前学生的需要，还必须传授与语言知识密切相关的文化因素。另外本文结合文化教学原则，提出了一些教学方法，以帮助学生养成良好的语言学习习惯，解决交际中的实际问题，从而提高跨文化交际能力。

关键词：英语教学；跨文化意识；文化教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching Abroad 1

2.2 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching at Home 2

3. Necessity of Developing Cross-cultural Awareness 3

3.1 Definition of Cross-cultural Awareness 3

3.2 The Importance of Cultivating Cross-cultural Awareness 3

4. Cultivation of Cross-cultural Awareness in ELT 4

4.1 Goals of Cross-cultural Teaching 4

4.2 Principles of Cross-cultural Awareness Teaching 4

4.3 Methods of Culture Teaching in ELT Classrooms in Middle Schools 6

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction 

The history of culture is as long as the history of mankind. Thousands of years ago, man began to consider the problems of language teaching and cultural communication. Records show that the course of “Foreign Studies” was set in some schools of Zhou Dynasty in China and that in the Ming Dynasty a foreign institution called “Si-Yi Guan” was set up in Beijing in 1862 for teaching foreign languages. The cultural teaching concerning modern linguistics and language teaching can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1920s, China published some English textbooks specially for introducing foreign cultures. 

The cultural teaching of modern language began in the 1950s, but the theory of cultural teaching was not formed until the 1960s-1970s. Nelson Brooks, a well- known language teaching theorist, advocated in 1960s that cultural elements should be incorporated into second language teaching. In 1977, J. Allen and many scholars put forward some proposals about dealing cultural problems in classroom teaching, which were soon responded and supported by many experts and scholars. They firmly believed that cultural teaching is not only valuable but also practical.