Fostering intercultural awareness in elementary school English teaching in China

Abstract

In recent years, the trend of economic globalization has been developing rapidly, and more and more people are paying more attention to cross-cultural communication and communicative skills. English, as a bridge to international communication, has been incorporated into the national curriculum of Chinese primary school. Primary school students usually focus only on textbook knowledge and know little about cross-cultural knowledge and lack awareness of the cultural differences between their home countries and English-speaking countries. Traditional English classroom teaching in China mainly teaches phonetic symbols, words, sentence patterns and phrases, thus neglecting the teaching and cultivation of cultural background and cross-cultural communication skills in extracurricular knowledge. This study investigated the intercultural awareness and communicative competence of primary school students in China. This study investigates the current situation of primary school students' intercultural communication awareness and ability, reveals the reasons for their lack of cultural awareness, and suggests effective ways to help them build intercultural awareness and develop intercultural communication ability. The paper is divided into four parts: firstly, an introduction; secondly, a comparative analysis of English education in China and other countries; subsequently, the current situation of cultivating students' intercultural communication awareness in primary school English Teaching in China and the importance of cultivating students' intercultural communication awareness in primary school English teaching in China; finally, the strategies for cultivating students' intercultural awareness in primary school English teaching in China.