As Chinese culture is not the same as that of English-speaking countries, the rules for using Chinese are, in some respects, different from those using English. There is especially good evidence that Chinese students may transfer their mother tongue references of language used to their English performance and fail to communicate effectively. Misunderstanding caused by cross-cultural communication should break down and much attention should be paid to them in English language teaching.
So in middle school English teaching, teachers must not only train and improve students’ language level, but also pay attention to cultivating students’ abilities of intercultural communication.
2. Significance of cultivating the abilities of cross-cultural communication
2.1 The request of the development of Internationalization
Lin Dajin in the "cross-cultural communication study," pointed out that culture can be defined as " the integrated feature that a nation is distinct from another nation." Cultural differences are the barriers of cross-cultural communication. The modernization process accelerated the circulation of spiritual and material products, and brought all nationalities into a common "global village", [1] cross-cultural communication became an integral part of national life. If people do not understand the cultural convention in the USA or Britain, and use the way of China to treat foreigners, then it will create a lot of jokes, and even hurt each other's feelings, self-esteem and cause misunderstanding. Thus, to overcome the cultural differences caused by communication barriers has become a common problem faced by the entire world.
2.2 It is imperative to understand the cultural background knowledge
Understanding cultural knowledge is the key to language learning. “One can not really learn the language, and teach language well unless one knows the patterns and norms of culture and cultural background (Song Fei, 1998)." [2] Without a specific cultural background, language is non-existent. If we don’t know the culture of target language, we would find it is difficult to understand the meaning of certain words. For example, “Thanksgiving", "Sandwich" has been brought about in a specific social and historical circumstance, it is not enough merely to know the meaning of the surface of these words. Another example is: “You are, indeed, a lucky dog", the literal translation is "you are a lucky dog." This is a satiric sentence in China, because, in Chinese views, "dog" is an expression when people used to refer generally to dislike someone. While in English, it can mean, "You are a lucky man." In Western society, "dog" is a family member, and they are harmonious coexisting with people "Dog" here refers to people instead of satirizing others, but a very intimate expression. [3]
2.3 Cultural knowledge teaching is the objective of language teaching.
The main objective of language teaching is to train and develop students’ interpersonal skills. And cultural knowledge teaching can increase the ability of cross