Cultivating Cross-Cultural Awareness in English Class of High Schools

Abstract

 Due to globalization, exchanges and communications between different countries have become more frequent and important in recent years. How to cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness is an essential question that needs to be addressed urgently. The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017 edition, 2020 revision) puts forward requirements for developing students’ cross-cultural awareness within this context accordingly. But the situation of cross-cultural awareness cultivation in English teaching in senior high schools is still unsatisfactory nowadays. Therefore, the study aims to find measures to better integrate cross-cultural awareness into English teaching in senior high school by means of questionnaires and interviews. 70 students and 5 English teachers in grade two at H Senior High School in L City joined in the research. The questionnaires were administered to 70 students and 5 English teachers were interviewed. The main findings show that both students and teachers show a positive attitude toward cross-cultural teaching and learning, but students still have poor knowledge of foreign cultures. And the current situation where cross-cultural awareness integrates into English is not ideal. In order to change the current situation and cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness wisely, some useful strategies are given.