Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
With the acceleration of globalization process, all countries enlarge and deepen the communication and cooperation in many aspects, like politics, economics, culture, and so forth. The development of science and technology and the emergence of multimedia and internet makes the earth a village. There’s no doubt that China is much more involved in the international village than ever before. To adapt to the brand-new lifestyle and avoid the hinder and conflict in cross-cultural communication, we are required to know about different cultures in different society.
Cultural awareness cultivation, as one of the requirements in English language teaching, is included in the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017). Compared with the previous curriculum standards, the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017) put more emphasis on the important role played by teachers in cultural teaching. It put forward more detailed suggestions for teachers’ cultural teaching, and puts forward higher requirements for their IA. It is necessary and important for teachers to improve their IA in the context of the new era.
To cultivate students’ IA, we should firstly focus our attention on English teachers’ IA because teachers play a leading role in class and teachers’ awareness and behavior have a directly influence on students. Many studies have focused on how to cultivate students’ IA in recent years. However, there are relatively few studies on the status of teachers’ IA. Furthermore, the previous studies are mainly carried out in eastern China, there are only a few researches on this aspect in western China.
In the light of the above, this research attempts to investigate on IA among English teachers of senior high school in Yining City with the instruments of tests, questionnaire and interview to explore the development model and effective strategies for cultivating English teachers’ IA suitable for the region.
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1.2 Research Significance
1.2.1 Academic Significance
First, this study can provide a case for the researches in this field to enrich the theoretical construction of IA. For one thing, this study aims to explore the main factors influencing English teachers’ IA and effective strategies for the cultivation of IA based on the current situation of English teachers’ IA of senior high school in Yining City, which is helpful for the enrichment and development of the theoretical construction as a case study. For another, by reviewing the existing literature about IA, this study analyzes the connotation and components of IA and probes into the history and development trend of it. Based on the special role of English teachers who act as not only the learners but also the imparters of English, this study explores a new perspective of research into IA to improve English teachers’ professional literacy.
Secondly, this study aims to explore the influencing factors and effective strategies of the cultivation of English teachers’ IA based on the local realities, which is helpful for future researches to construct a development model of English teachers’ IA suitable for the region. There’s no doubt that the level of English teachers’ IA and the corresponding training strategies will be different in different regions owning to the differences in social environment and economic development. Most of the scholars carried out their researches about IA in eastern China, which lead to the fact that the existing research achievements can’t be generalized nationwide. By referring to relevant theories and practical experiences of cultivating IA at home and abroad, the study could explore the influencing factors and effective strategies for the cultivation of IA of English teachers in the region based on local realities.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Relevant Concepts
In order to provide readers a better understanding of the thesis, it is necessary to provide the definitions of the key terms and concepts involved in this study firstly, such as culture, awareness and IA. Different scholars have different definitions on them which are presented as follows.
2.1.1 Culture
Culture, originating from the Latin word cultra, means cultivation, development, and respect. The connotation of culture is quite rich and the scope involved is very wide. Scholars in different fields gave different definitions from different perspectives.
Tylor (1920) defined culture as a complex synthesis which includes knowledge, belief, art, morality, law, custom, and other abilities and habits of a person as a member of society from the perspective of anthropology and sociology.
Liu Yunde (1988) defined culture from a sociological perspective, “Culture refers to the system of values and meanings shared by the people in a whole society. The substance materialized by the system of values and meanings also belongs to culture. It is something that most people in the society take for granted.”
The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017) defined culture from the perspective of English teaching, “In English teaching, culture mainly refers to the history and geography, customs and tradition, literature and art, norms and values, etc. shared in English-speaking countries.”
The study adopts the definition of culture defined by The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017). Specifically, culture refers to the history and geography, customs and tradition, literature and art, norms and values, etc. shared in English-speaking countries.
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2.2 Theoretical Basis
2.2.1 Schumann’s Acculturation Model
Acculturation refers to the process of adapting to a new culture. Schumann (1986) discussed the specific reasons for the significant differences in the speed and effectiveness of second language acquisition between learners in terms of social environment and learners’ personal psychological factors. He believed that “second language acquisition is an aspect of acculturation, and the degree of learners’ acculturation to the culture of the target language community will constrain their second language proficiency”. Second language acquisition is a process of acculturation, which is influenced by the social and psychological distance between countries.
Schumann (1986) divided acculturation into two categories according to the way learners combine with the target language community. The first type of learners wants to be fully assimilated into the lifestyle and values of the target language community, and they will try to understand, accommodate and use the target language. The second is psychologically open to the language of the target language community, but they are resistant to be assimilated by its way of life and values. If learners have a positive attitude towards the target language and target language users and have a strong motivation for learning, it is easy for them to achieve second language acquisition. Otherwise, it is difficult to go beyond the early stage of language development to the intermediate stage.
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Chapter 3 Research Methods ................................. 16
3.1 Research Aim ................................. 16
3.2 Research Questions ........................... 16
3.3 Research Subjects ............................ 16
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion ............................ 22
4.1 Current Situation of Intercultural Awareness among English Teachers ...................... 22
4.1.1 Data analysis and Discussion on Culture Test .............................. 22
4.1.2 Data analysis and Discussion on Questionnaire ..................... 25
Chapter 5 Conclusion ...................................... 35
5.1 Major Findings ......................... 35
5.1 Implications .......................................... 36
5.3 Limitations of the Study ................................... 37
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Current Situation of Intercultural Awareness among English Teachers
This part describes the current situation of senior high school English teacher’s IA in Yining City based on data analysis and discussion on the culture test and the questionnaire with SPSS 20.0 and Excel 2007. The questionnaire is applied in the study to measure the degree of IA. And the culture test is conducted to test English teachers’ mastery and understanding of intercultural knowledge and their intercultural communicative competence as supplementary and supporting information. Detailed analysis and discussion are as follows.
4.1.1 Data analysis and Discussion on Culture Test
The cultural test consists of 30 test questions, the first part (question 1-20) mainly examines English teachers’ mastery and understanding of intercultural knowledge, covering politics, history, geography, culture, education, customs and allusions, the test results of this part are shown in table 4 and table 5.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Major Findings
Based on Schumann’s acculturation model and Young Yun Kim’s intercultural adaptation theory, the empirical study has been conducted. The major findings of the study can be briefly summarized as the follows:
First, the IA of English teachers of senior high school in Yining City is generally weak at present. To be specific, the interconnected relationship between language and culture has been widely recognized by teachers. However, under the influence of traditional education, teachers are mostly imprisoned by simple language forms, ignoring the cultural connotations behind them. First of all, in terms of cultural knowledge, teachers are familiar with the customs and allusions involved in teaching materials, but there is a lack of comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the general intercultural knowledge of English-speaking countries. Secondly, in the aspect of communicative behavior, teachers underperform in cross-cultural communication due to the lack of real context. Thirdly, the overall level of teachers’ IA is not high. Specifically, teachers involved in this survey have better performance in the response to Empathy. And they have relatively good performance in Attitude toward Others and Cultural Integration. However, English teachers’ intercultural awareness on Behavioral Response and Intellectual Interaction is relatively lower than that on the other dimensions.
Secondly, based on the interview and relevant literature, the study classified the problems faced by teachers in cultivating their IA into two categories: subjective aspect and objective aspect. Subjective aspect refers to teachers’ lack of motivation to cultivate their IA. And objective aspects include the absence of professional training, teachers’ tight teaching schedules and limited spare time, and lack of target language environment. Because of all these problems, English teachers’ IA in Yining City is generally weak at present.
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