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2.1The requirement of syllabus
“Language is system of arbitrary, vocal symbols by means of which the members of a speech community communicate, interact, and transmit their culture.”［3］ This definition is given to emphasize that the function of language is not only a tool of communication but also an important vehicle of culture. So learning a foreign language is a process of acquiring the language and its culture for communicating purpose. English syllabus currently points out that the ultimate goal of English teaching is to foster students’ intercultural communicative competence. Culture is the content of language; every language reflects its own culture. People’s language should adapt to the context. What to say, how to say it, when to say it, and to whom to say it are all determined by the underlying beliefs and values.［4］As Wolfson (1983) noted, “In communicating with foreigners, native speakers tend to be rather tolerant of errors in pronunciation or syntax. In contrast, violations of rules of speaking (pragmatic failure) are often interpreted as bad manners since the native speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativities.”［5］ In the new syllabus for Senior Middle School English, it shows that students of Full-time Senior Middle School English not only should grasp vocabularies, grammar, and pronunciation, but also properly grasp the relationship between language teaching and culture understanding.［6］ Hence, we should carry out cultural teaching in middle school and improve students’ intercultural awareness.
2.2 The present teaching materials
Nowadays, intercultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence have been prescribed into the New English Curriculum Standards. The newly organized teaching materials of junior and senior middle school involve some western culture, for example, greeting, western festivals, literature, music, body language and so on. Then culture becomes an important part of English teaching. It is unwise, in order to save time, only to teach English with the neglect of cultural introduction. Barriers in English learning sometimes come from the lack of cultural knowledge.
Some teachers have attributed their students’ poor reading and listening comprehension to linguistic deficiencies. They believe that so long as their students grasp the meaning of every word, every sentence, and every text passage, they will have no difficulty in comprehending the whole text. This idea is not correct. English reading materials inevitably convey western culture. When we teach Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day, some cultural background knowledge of these festivals can help students overcome obstacles in the text and grasp language knowledge better. In addition, many words, in the text book of middle school, have relations with cultural contexts, such as, old, name, dog, pork, beef, lookout, breakfast, and some words to express colors. For example, in the text book “blue” and “green” are not only the meaning of colors, each has its implied meanings. “Blue” in English often associates with unhappy feelings, “in a blue mood” or “having the blues” expresses a sad, gloomy or depressed mood. “A blue Monday” (the first day of week-work or school after a pleasant, happy weekend) has the similar meaning. Also, i
