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地方文化融入高中英语教学的调查研究

发布时间:2023-05-23 14:16
Contents
Acknowledgements i
Abstract ii
摘要 iv
List of Tables vii
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1Research Background 1
1.2Purposes of the Study 3
1.3Significance of the Study 4
1.4Structure of the Thesis 5
Chapter Two Literature Review 6
2.1The Integration of Culture in Foreign Language Teaching 6
2.1.1Definition of culture 6
2.1.2Previous studies of the integration of culture in foreign language teaching abroad 7
2.1.3Previous studies of the integration of culture in foreign language teaching at home 10
2.2The Integration of Local Cultures in English Teaching 13
2.2.1Definition of local culture 13
2.2.2Previous studies of the integration of local cultures in English teaching abroad 14
2.2.3Previous studies of the integration of local cultures in English teaching at
home 18
2.3Summary 19
Chapter Three Theoretical Foundations 21
3.1Place-based Education Theory 21
3.2Sociocultural Theory 24
Chapter Four Research Methodology 26
4.1Research Questions 26
4.2Participants 27
4.3Instruments 28
4.3.1Questionnaire 29
4.3.2Interview 32
4.4Research Procedures 32
4.5Data Collection and Analysis 35
Chapter Five Results and Discussion 36
5.1Results 36
5.1.1Results of senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local
cultures into English teaching 36
5.1.2Results of the influential factors of local cultural integration 47
5.2Discussion 53
5.2.1Discussion of senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local
cultures into English teaching 53
5.2.2Discussion of the influential factors of local cultural integration 62
Chapter Six Conclusion 66
6.1Major Findings 66
6.2Pedagogical Implications 68
6.3Limitations 70
6.4Suggestions for Further Research 70
References 71
Appendix I Questionnaire 80
Appendix II Outline of Interview 83
Appendix III Data of Interview 84
Appendix IV Materials Collected from Some Interviewees 91
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Demographic characteristics of interviewees 28
Table 4.2 Dimensions of the questionnaire 29
Table 4.3 Reliability statistics of the questionnaire 33
Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's test of the questionnaire 33
Table 4.5 Results of the factor analysis of the questionnaire 34
Table 5.1 Results of the questionnaire survey in the objectives of local cultural
integration in senior high school English teaching 36
Table 5.2 Results of the independent samples t-test of the objectives of local cultural
integration in different school types 38
Table 5.3 Results of one-way ANOVA for the objectives of local cultural integration
in different years of teaching experience 38
Table 5.4 Results of one-way ANOVA for the objectives of local cultural integration in different cities 39
Table 5.5 Results of the questionnaire survey in teachers' frequency of integrating
local cultures into English teaching 41
Table 5.6 Results of the questionnaire survey in the frequency of local cultural topics
in senior high school English teaching 42
Table 5.7 Results of the questionnaire survey in the activities of integrating local
cultures into senior high school English teaching 43
Table 5.8 Results of the questionnaire survey in the evaluation methods of students'
culture learning in senior high schools 46
Table 5.9 Results of the questionnaire survey in the influential factors of local cultural
integration in senior high school English teaching 48
Chapter One Introduction
The topic of language teaching and culture has been provoking a vigorous debate. With the introduction of core competences and the requirement of cultivating students' cultural identity, local cultures have attracted more and more scholars' and teachers' attention. Therefore, this study investigates senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching and the influential factors. This chapter introduces the research background, research purposes, significance of the study and structure of the thesis.
1.1Research Background
Language and culture are closely intertwined, and language teaching is inseparable from the integration of culture. Cultural integration in foreign language teaching has been explored and researched by numerous experts at home and abroad, who have presented different viewpoints on what culture should be integrated.
Many countries have gradually turned their attention away from the target language culture and toward their native culture. With the rapid development of globalization, English, as a lingua franca, has virtually become a weapon for the political, economic and cultural expansion of English-speaking countries to non-English-speaking countries. Many non-English-speaking countries are afraid that the inheritance of their native culture is under threat. Consequently, these countries demand that school education should take on the responsibility of preserving native culture. For instance, the Indonesian government proposes that the education sector contribute to the preservation of native culture (Prastiwi, 2013). Furthermore, some countries have unique histories and cultures from Western countries, and are sometimes misunderstood or even accused by the Western world. Leaders of these countries are concentrating their efforts on figuring out how to use English to express their standpoint, so that they can be better understood by the governments and people of other countries (Wen, 2016). Therefore, English teaching nowadays aims at promoting bilateral and equal intercultural communication and cultivating learners' abilities to spread their own culture instead of just learning the target language and its culture.
Domestic English teaching has likewise gone through a transition from focusing on the integration of the target language culture to gradually focusing on the integration of native culture. Since Cong (2000) put forward Chinese cultural aphasia, many domestic scholars have focused on the integration of Chinese culture into English teaching and stressed the comparison of native culture with foreign cultures. Additionally, the focus of English teaching has shifted from teachers' personal abilities and teaching effect to the fulfillment of ideological and political education as a result of the English curriculum reform. The requirements of The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools are as follows:
The general senior high school English course should develop core competences and strengthen morality education. Besides, when developing students' language skills, the English course should help students learn, comprehend and appreciate splendid Chinese and foreign cultures, cultivate their cultural identity and cultural confidence, broaden their international horizons and enhance international understanding. (Ministry of Education, 2020: 2)
The English course also requires learners to tell Chinese stories well in English. The question of how to bring excellent Chinese culture into English teaching, enhance students' cultural identity and cultural confidence, spread Chinese culture around the world, and cultivate new-age talents with both patriotism and international perspectives, has been a heated topic in English teaching.
Meanwhile, place-based education (PBE) theory has been developed in foreign countries in these thirty years (Wang, 2021). PBE theory, originating from Dewey's pragmatic education philosophy, is a theory of curriculum development and instruction. It requires selecting teaching materials from local resources, with the goal of assisting local students in meeting the unified educational requirements, better understanding the local community, culture and ecology, and fostering a stronger attachment and sense of responsibility to the place (Liu & Chen, 2021). The successful practices of PBE abroad have attracted the attention of some domestic scholars, who introduced this theory to China, and attempted to implement PBE in some villages. The integration of local cultures, as a constituent of PBE, has been proved to have significant effects on language learning and the development of learners' local cultural identity, which can satisfy the requirements of The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020). Thus, it is worthwhile to conduct research on the integration of local cultures in English teaching.
Scholars have studied local cultural integration in English teaching, primarily paying attention to its positive impacts, local cultural topics, and the activities for local cultural integration. However, teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching are rarely investigated. Moreover, in China, the research on local cultural integration in English teaching is still insufficient. Although some researchers have explored the practice situation of integrating local cultures into English teaching, the discussion was extremely basic and was primarily from the perspective of students (Wu & Li, 2016). Little attention was paid to senior high school English teachers' practices of local cultural integration. Therefore, this study aims at investigating senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching and the influential factors.
1.2Purposes of the Study
The integration of local cultures in English teaching can not only cultivate students' cultural identity, but also have positive effects on their English learning. It is helpful to realize the educational value of English curriculum. In order to promote the integration of local cultures, this study is made to find out the general situation of senior high school teachers' local cultural integration in their English teaching in Guangdong Province. Specifically, it investigates senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching, which includes the objectives of local cultural integration, the local cultural topics, the activities that teachers carry out to integrate local cultures into teaching, and the methods of evaluating students' learning of local cultures. Besides, the study also researches the influential factors.
This study explores two research questions. First, what are senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into their English teaching? Second, what affects senior high school teachers' integration of local cultures into their English teaching? It is hoped that through answering the above questions, this study could offer some corresponding suggestions which may facilitate local cultural integration, thereby promoting students' ability to tell Chinese stories in English and boosting students' cultural confidence.
1.3Significance of the Study
The significance of the study can be divided into theoretical significance and practical significance.
The theoretical significance is discussed from two perspectives, PBE theory and the integration of local cultures in English teaching. On one hand, PBE theory has evolved over the last 30 years, and its development abroad is relatively mature, whereas research at home just primarily introduced the theory and its successful practices abroad with few empirical studies on its application. Thus, this study may be a supplement to relevant research at home. On the other hand, research at home on local cultural integration in English teaching primarily used questionnaire surveys and tests to explore students' understanding of local cultures and their ability to convey local cultures in English. However, little attention was paid to the empirical research on English teachers' practices of local cultural integration. This research focuses on the integration of local cultures in senior high school English teaching from the perspective of teachers. Therefore, it can enrich the research content of the topic of local cultural integration in English teaching.
In terms of the practical significance, this study investigates senior high school teachers' practices of local cultural integration, enabling researchers and front-line English teachers to better understand the real situation of local cultural integration in the Chinese context. And it may also help senior high school English teachers become more conscious of the value of local cultural integration in teaching. Furthermore, this study also analyzes the factors that affect the integration of local cultures, and proposes corresponding suggestions, which may help senior high school English teachers better integrate local cultures into their actual teaching.
1.4Structure of the Thesis
This thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter One is the brief overview of this thesis, including the research background, purposes of the study, significance of the study and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review at home and abroad, which discusses previous studies on the integration of culture in foreign language teaching and the integration of local cultures in English teaching. Chapter Three is the theoretical foundations of the study, including PBE theory and sociocultural theory (SCT). Chapter Four is research methodology, in which two research questions are proposed, and research participants are located. Meanwhile, research instruments, research procedures as well as data collection and analysis of the study are also included. Chapter Five is results and discussion. It presents the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview, with discussions made based on these results. Chapter Six is the conclusion, where the findings and the implications of the study are listed. Some limitations and suggestions for further research are also put forward.
Chapter Two Literature Review
This chapter introduces some significant research at home and abroad. First of all, previous studies are presented in two sections, namely the integration of culture in foreign language teaching and the integration of local cultures in English teaching. Then the limitations of previous studies and the implications for this study are briefly discussed.
2.1The Integration of Culture in Foreign Language Teaching
2.1.1Definition of culture
The definitions of culture are over two hundred. Researchers had different definitions of culture from various perspectives. Since the 1960s, scholars have been noticing culture in foreign language teaching. Brooks (1968) was one of the earliest scholars who defined culture in the context of foreign language teaching. He believed that the five meanings of culture are personal refinement, biological growth, the fine arts and literature, living patterns and a way of life. From the perspective of social discourse, McCarthy and Carter (1994) defined culture as the social knowledge and interactive abilities that are necessary besides knowledge of the linguistic system. Moran (2001) defined culture on the basis of the realities and potential of the language classroom. He regarded culture as the evolving way of life of a group of people, comprising a shared set of practices linked to a shared set of products, based upon a shared set of worldviews and set within specific social settings.
Lu (2005) defined culture from the perspective of education. He emphasized the effects of education on inheriting and developing culture. He believed that culture is the nature, the human internal nature, the humanization of social nature, and the socialization of individuals. There are positive and negative elements in culture, and culture is inherited and developed through education.
In China, the connotation of culture in English curriculum often refers to both Chinese and foreign cultures. English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education (2022) increased the part of Chinese culture in the definition of cultural knowledge based on the previous version in 2011. In addition, The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020) also clearly defined that cultural knowledge encompasses domestic and foreign cultures.
This study concentrates on English teaching in senior high schools. Therefore, this study uses the definition of culture from The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020). The connotation of culture can be divided into material culture and spiritual culture. Material culture mainly includes clothes, architecture, food, transportation and relevant creations. Spiritual culture consists of philosophy, science, education, history, literature, arts, and also includes values, morality, aesthetic taste, social conventions and customs.
2.1.2Previous studies of the integration of culture in foreign language teaching abroad
Studies about the integration of culture in foreign language teaching primarily focused on the impact, objectives, topics, activities, evaluation methods and influential factors of cultural integration.
Many scholars believed that it was necessary to integrate culture into foreign language teaching because of its positive impact (Alam & Aktar, 2018; Byram, 1997; Fantini, 1997). On the one hand, the integration of culture can promote language acquisition. The success of learners' adaptation to a new cultural setting will influence their success in language acquisition (Brown, 2001). On the other hand, integration of culture can aid foreign language learners in achieving interactive goals in real social interaction scenarios (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hendon, 1980).
Because of the significance of cultural integration, many teachers try to integrate culture into their teaching. If teachers want to successfully integrate culture into foreign language teaching, they need to specify the teaching objectives. Many scholars believed that the primary objective for learners was to learn the target culture and improve their intercultural communication abilities (Byram, 1997; Seelye, 1974). In England and Wales, teaching objectives should involve understanding the culture and civilization of the target language, and cultivating positive attitudes towards foreign language learning (Hu & Gao, 1997). Allwn and Valette (1977) explained five objectives of cultural learning, three of which emphasized learning foreign cultures. Hammerly (1982) came up with a list of ten teaching objectives based on the target language culture. These objectives consisted of learning about cultural connotations of new vocabulary, cultural behavior norms, cultural conventions of the target language and so on. According to these scholars, the main objectives of integrating culture into foreign language teaching are to understand cultural knowledge and values of the target language, to cultivate learners' curiosity about the target culture, and to form their intercultural communication competences. Scholars focused little on the teaching objectives for learning native culture to some extent.
The selection of cultural topics is an important part for teachers to integrate culture into foreign language teaching. Sercu, Garcia and Prieto (2005) investigated Spanish foreign language teachers' opinions on cultural integration, and discovered that the topics of daily life, regularity, food and teenage culture were most frequently integrated into teaching, while the topic of international relationships was least integrated. Gonen and Saglam (2012) investigated Turkish foreign language teachers' opinions on cultural integration, and found that daily life, regularity, food, education and career life were commonly integrated into teaching, while the topic of international relationships was also the least frequent one.
After choosing the cultural topics, teachers should consider how to integrate culture into teaching. Scholars proposed different types of activities for integrating culture into teaching. Moran (2001) proposed that teachers adopt a cultural experience teaching method to integrate culture into teaching, which requires teachers to create realistic scenarios in activities allowing students to engage in cultural experience. Turkan and Qelik (2007) suggested adopting personal activities and the form of discussion to integrate culture into teaching. According to Golshan and Ranjbar (2017), culture can be integrated into foreign language teaching through dialogues, mini-dramas, role plays and experiencing culture through the use of language. Stern (1992) mentioned that culture can be integrated by creating realistic learning situations, offering cultural information, solving cultural issues, creating dramas, reading literature, watching movies, getting in touch with real life of the target culture and utilizing community cultural resources. Additionally, Sercu, Garcia and Prieto (2005) investigated the frequency of the activities that Spanish foreign language teachers used to integrate culture into teaching. They found that Spanish teachers tended to offer information on the foreign culture, which reflected a traditional information transmission model. All these studies provided guidelines for foreign language teachers to design activities for cultural integration.
After integrating culture into teaching, teachers may need to evaluate the effects of cultural integration. As to how to evaluate the effects of culture learning, Byram and Morgan (1994) proposed that teachers observe students' role plays and discussion of relevant cultural questions, adopt assessment of paper work which includes students' essays on cultural topics and tests of cultural knowledge, and adopt questionnaire surveys as well as interviews to review students' culture learning from three aspects of knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Byram (1997) mentioned that the ways of evaluating students' culture learning included portfolios, homework and examinations.
Although most teachers recognized the importance of cultural integration, some of them didn't often integrate culture into foreign language teaching. Therefore, many scholars investigated teachers' opinions and practices of integrating culture into foreign language teaching in order to determine its influential factors (Brown, 2009; Gonen & Saglam, 2012; Sercu, Garc^a & Prieto, 2005). From these surveys, they discovered the problems during the process of cultural integration. For instance, students had stereotypes of the target culture and lacked cultural reflection (Byram & Kramsch, 2008). Scholars also explored the causes of the problems. Gonen and Saglam (2012) interviewed Turkish foreign language teachers and found that the time was limited in a foreign language lesson, and it was difficult for teachers to distribute time to integrate culture into their teaching. Teachers were unfamiliar with the target culture and lacked the necessary cultural integration training. Students were negative towards learning culture. In addition, teachers were unsure how to assess students' intercultural competences and the changes in their attitudes towards learning culture.
According to Moore (2006), most teachers believed that students were interested in cultural learning. Cultural integration was hampered by a lack of culture in examinations, limited teaching time and a shortage of teaching resources. In short, the factors that impede the integration of culture are mainly limited teaching time, teachers' lack of understanding of the target culture, students' indifference to culture learning, poor teacher training, lack of cultural contents in the examinations and shortage of teaching resources.
2.1.3Previous studies of the integration of culture in foreign language teaching at home
Since the 1980s, the cultural integration in foreign language teaching has been advocated by domestic scholars (Lv & Yu, 2021). In China, English runs through the whole basic education curriculum. As a result, previous studies in this part primarily focus on English teaching. Cultural integration can improve students' intercultural communication skills and cultivate their cultural identity (Hu, 2016). It is necessary to research cultural integration in English teaching. The previous studies at home involve the objectives of cultural integration, the integration methods, the evaluation methods of students' culture learning and the influential factors of integrating culture into English teaching. Besides, the integration of Chinese culture in English courses is also mentioned.
In terms of the objectives of cultural integration, domestic scholars focused on cultivating learners' intercultural competences, and believed that the ultimate objective of cultural integration was to enable learners to perform successful intercultural communication. The macro goal of cultural integration, according to Hu and Gao (1997), was to cultivate learners' social-cultural ability, which included linguistic ability, pragmatic ability, and ability to comprehend the source language and the target language, so that learners could compare two types of cultures, find similarities and differences, and clarify their own cultural identity more clearly. Zhang and Zhang (2007) pointed out that the ultimate goal of cultural integration was to cultivate students' identity of domestic culture and excellent foreign cultures, and to improve their intercultural communication ability. These studies emphasized the significance of native culture in the objectives of cultural integration, concentrating on the objectives of learning the differences and similarities between Chinese and foreign cultures through comparison, establishing cultural identity and expressing Chinese culture in English.
As to how to integrate culture into English teaching, domestic scholars put forward some methods and explained them through specific teaching cases. Hu and Gao (1997) mentioned that the methods of cultural integration included cultural infiltration, cultural narration, cultural work analysis, cultural fragments and cultural package. Zhu (2017) specifically explained the cultural teaching methods in teaching reading, translating, listening and speaking. Su and Zhuang (1996) believed that the methods included comparison, integration, annotation, practice and specialized interpretation. Zhao (2013) mentioned organizing a series of activities, such as holding a seminar on Chinese and western cultures, creating situational dialogues and role plays, requiring students to write English essays to introduce Chinese culture, creating and displaying a column on Chinese culture in hand-copied paper and encouraging students to read English works, newspapers and journals about Chinese culture. Although each scholar mentioned different approaches to cultural integration, the common method was to compare native and foreign cultures during the process of cultural integration.
After the integration of culture in teaching, it is necessary to evaluate whether the objectives of local cultural integration can be achieved. However, there is little research on the assessment of students' culture learning. Liu (2008) pointed out that domestic language assessments didn't assess students' cultural identity. Therefore, he proposed that cultural tests be adopted with five kinds of questions, true-false, multiple-choice, matching, short answer and translation. According to Huang (2012), the evaluation of the goal completeness of cultural integration needed more research and practice. In addition, she concluded three kinds of evaluation methods, namely evaluation as one part of a separate examination, evaluation combined with other tests and formative assessment. Among these evaluations, the ways of evaluating students' culture learning effect were varied in observation records, one-on-one conversations, group discussions, survey investigations, role plays and students' weekly journals which can record students' learning performance.
The integration of culture in English teaching are affected by many factors. It is believed that it can be affected by English teachers to some extent. Some scholars explored teachers' cultural quality and their roles in cultural integration (Liu & Gao, 2012; J. Lv & D. Lv, 2012). However, some teachers lack the ability to integrate culture into English teaching. Shao and Chen (201 1) investigated English teachers and found that teachers' intercultural sensitivity was on a relatively good status, but many teachers didn't pay attention to cultural integration. The traditional method of teacher-centered teaching was still the mainstream for senior high school English teaching which may be caused by teachers' lack of training and over-weighted linguistic teaching goals. Cheng and Dai (2016) thought that teachers lacked the awareness of recognizing the differences between native and foreign cultures, lacked the ability to discriminate the benefits and drawbacks of foreign cultures, focused on teaching foreign cultures, and ignored Chinese culture. These studies discussed the factors that affected cultural integration in English teaching. Scholars' attention should be called to teachers as one of the influential factors in further studies.
Since Cong (2000) put forward Chinese culture aphasia, many scholars have shifted their focus from foreign cultures to Chinese culture in English teaching. Scholars explored the causes and solutions of Chinese culture aphasia, and the value of integrating Chinese culture into English teaching. Certain researchers investigated the situation of Chinese culture aphasia in colleges and found that the native cultural understanding of some college students was limited and their ability to express native culture in English was poor. Therefore, colleges should make an effort to develop students' intercultural awareness, which may help achieve equivalent cultural communication (Zhao, 2011; Zhou & Chen, 2015). Some scholars analyzed the situation of integrating Chinese culture into senior high school English teaching. They believed that Chinese culture was missing in English teaching, and mentioned the necessity of integrating Chinese culture into senior high school English teaching (Wang, 2012; Wang, 2015; Zhao, 2013). In the newera, according to Wen (2019), the learning of multi-culture has been switched to the equal learning of multi-culture and native culture. And she also held that students should be able to introduce Chinese culture to the world. In future studies, more scholars may focus on the integration of Chinese culture in English teaching.
Studies at home and abroad primarily focused on the objectives of cultural integration, the cultural topics, the activities for cultural integration, the evaluation methods of culture learning, and the influential factors that affect integrating culture into foreign language teaching. These studies also revealed that scholars' attention had shifted from foreign language cultures to native culture, which was to better achieve the objective of cultivating students' intercultural competences.
However, some differences existed among these studies. First, foreign scholars investigated teachers' opinions and practices of integrating culture into foreign language teaching. But domestic scholars were more interested in students' ability to express Chinese culture in English. Second, foreign scholars conducted investigations to study the topics and activities of cultural integration, while domestic investigations rarely involved these two aspects.
As a result, future research should focus on teachers' practices of integrating culture into foreign language teaching, and learn about the topics and activities of cultural integration.
2.2The Integration of Local Cultures in English Teaching
2.2.1Definition of local culture
Local culture is a vital component of national culture. Local “belongs to or connected with the particular place or area that people are talking about or with the place where you live” (Oxford Dictionary, 2014: 1223). Local culture, according to Wulandari, Vianty and Fiftinova (2018), refers to the human beings' ways of life, festivals, historical places, history, arts, music, dance, and food that originated in a particular area. Local culture is the long-term and stable living culture which has been developed over time by local people. It includes the spiritual culture of thinking ways and values, the institutional culture of behavior norms and traditional customs, and the material culture of physical scenery and landscape (Li, Wang & Dong, 2014).
In this study, local culture refers to the culture of a particular place or area where teachers and students live, which has been developed over time by local people. It includes not only the material culture of local clothes, architecture, food, transportation, relevant creations and so on, but also the spiritual culture of philosophy, science, education, history, literature, arts, values, morality, aesthetic taste, social conventions and customs of the local area. For example, for teachers and students in Guangzhou City of Guangdong Province, the local culture is Guangzhou culture, including the custom of having morning tea, arcaded architecture, the legend of five goats, Kwon-glazed porcelain, Kwon embroidery, tourist attractions of Chen Clan Academy and Canton Tower, etc.
2.2.2Previous studies of the integration of local cultures in English teaching abroad
Many scholars argued that local cultures were just as significant as the target language culture. Darong and Menggo (2021) used the literature review method and found that both target culture and local cultures were acceptable and can be employed in English teaching. Kanoksilapatham and Channuan (2018) used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to prove that young Thai students, along with their English teachers, had overwhelmingly favorable attitudes regarding local community-based instruction. It is vital and reasonable to integrate local cultures into English teaching. This part presents previous studies on the effects of local cultural integration, local cultural topics and the activities that teachers use to integrate local cultures into teaching.
Many researchers attempted to prove the effects of local cultural integration, with a particular emphasis on promoting quality-oriented education and students' language abilities.
When it came to the effects of local cultural integration on quality-oriented education, Sudartini (2012) believed that integrating local cultures into teaching can boost quality-oriented education while also improving students' comprehension of local cultures and their cultural identity. Irwan, Taufiq and Fernando (2020) believed that integrating local wisdom into English learning would help students develop a strong sense of national identity. Local wisdom guided students to learn about their local values and traditions. Thus, students would retain their national and local identity while simultaneously being able to compete and be prepared to meet the challenges of the global era. Kanoksilapatham (2015) investigated the impact of local cultural instruction and discovered that students were more motivated and aware of the importance of English as a tool for empowering them to be capable citizens in both regional and global contexts. Sefa (2011) used the Ghanaian case study to examine how indigenous cultural knowledge informed the education and socialization of youth in Ghana, and proposed strategies to rethink schooling and education in African contexts. He found that among the local cultural integration, knowings about self and community, development of self-worth and character, the importance of social discipline and collective social responsibility were highlighted. All of these studies suggested that local cultural integration helped promote quality-oriented education, improving students' local cultural identity and assisting them in becoming capable citizens.
The impacts of local cultural integration on learners' listening, speaking, reading and writing skills were studied by some scholars. In terms of listening skill, Carson (2019) investigated the students from a college in Japan, and discovered that local cultures can activate students' background knowledge. The activation can help students reduce the listening barriers and promote their listening comprehension.
From the perspective of improving speaking skill, Wutun, Arafah and Yassi (2018a) interviewed fifteen students in an institute about their opinions on integrating local cultures into spoken English learning. Their study found that local cultural integration lightened their cognitive burden, promoted personalized learning, offered an interesting and active learning atmosphere, and enhanced their confidence in speaking English. Wutun, Arafah and Yassi (2018b) also used observation and interviews to learn how local cultures affected students' skills to communicate in English. It revealed that local cultures served as the ice breaker to reduce speaking anxiety by creating humor, enjoyment and stimuli for learners. Seftika, Janah and Syaputri (2017) performed a quasi-experiment to show that students' speaking skill was improved through practicing English as means of conveying local cultural information.
In the aspect of reading skill, Wulandari, Vianty and Fiftinova (2018) employed a quasi-experimental research method to study whether there were obvious differences in reading comprehension scores between students who were taught using local cultural materials and those who were not. They found that using local cultural materials might considerably improve students' reading comprehension. Rahman (2018) also used experimental research to prove that local culture-based materials had a substantial impact on students' reading ability.
In terms of writing skill, Nurlia and Arini (2017) conducted quasi-experimental research to show that bringing local cultures to English teaching improved students' writing skill. Additionally, in order to improve students' writing ability, Tanjung (2019) designed English teaching material in genre based on Gayo local culture, and it was proven to have a high level of reliability.
From the perspective of improving overall language competences, Nambiar, et al (2020) studied the impact of local cultural integration in the English teaching program of Your Language My Culture (YLMC). They found that the integration promoted students' language competences, comprehension skill and thinking quality, enabled them to express more ideas in writing, increased their sensitivity to English listening and encouraged them to speak English more fluently and confidently. Putra and Dwiyana (2017) designed a local culture-based project and used triangulation to confirm students' responses to this project. They proved that this project could enhance both the students' language skills and learning attitudes. Ratminingsih and Budasi (2018) developed local culture-based picture storybooks for teaching English to young learners and discovered the following positive effects: improving reading skill, building children's English competences, creating a fun learning atmosphere, increasing students' motivation and participation in understanding and using the language. Prastiwi (2013) used a case study and showed that the use of local folktales in translation as material in English teaching benefited language learning, and that familiarity with these stories promoted students' mastery of English and helped them use a new language more comfortably.
In general, the integration of local cultures in English teaching can promote quality-oriented education, enhance students' cultural identity, activate students' background knowledge, decrease learning disorders, offer an interesting and active learning atmosphere, enhance their interest and confidence in learning and improve students' language competences.
As a result of the positive impact of integrating local cultures into English teaching, schools and scholars began to emphasize local cultural integration in English teaching. Some scholars expanded discussions on the topics of local cultural integration. Estuarso, Basthomi and Widiati (2017) investigated students' requirements when they developed local cultural materials. They found that students were most interested in tourist attractions, folk legends, personal experiences and historical characters successively. Oyarvide and Rodiiguez (2021) found that the local cultural topics in the classroom were tourist attractions, festivals, traditional food, traditional dance, traditional clothes, oral discourses and traditional poems from more to less. In the study of Wutun, Arafah and Yassi (2018), they separated the topics of local cultures into local food, public places, students' interests, daily activities, party groupings, school activities, shopping, public transportation, self-home and self-identity. These studies were useful in helping English teachers select the topics of local cultures.
Following the selection of local cultural topics, teachers also need to consider selecting what activities to integrate local cultures into teaching. Barfield and Uzarski (2009) analyzed some teaching cases of integrating local cultures into English teaching, and discussed how senior high school teachers did so. In these cases, local cultures were integrated into English teaching by question discussions. Margana (2009) proposed that English teachers select topics used for classroom discussions, select or develop English materials, design tasks or programs, and design tests. Oyarvide and Rodr^guez (2021) investigated the integration of local cultures into English teaching in the Don Bosco School and discovered that most teachers taught local cultures through oral presentation, with a small percentage of teachers teaching through songs, dramas and role plays. The previous research served as a guide for English teachers to design the activities for integrating local cultures into teaching.
2.2.3Previous studies of the integration of local cultures in English teaching at home
Studies of local cultural integration in English teaching at home are much fewer than relevant studies abroad. Scholars focused on the value of local cultural integration in English teaching and the practice situation of local cultural integration from the perspectives of students and subject teaching.
Some scholars believed that local cultures should be integrated into English teaching as a result of their value. In terms of high school English teaching of ethnic minorities, because students of ethnic minorities differ from other students in many aspects, local cultures should be integrated into their English courses and the approaches to English teaching should be innovated (Gu & Jing, 2019; Yang, 2017). In tourism English teaching, the development of tourism textbooks should take into account the local cultural background in order to help students learn unique and personalized local cultures better (Liu, 2011). Some scholars believed that the educational value of local cultures included strengthening students' ethnic and national identity, expanding students' general knowledge, and cultivating students' ability to comprehend, engage in and adjust to a multicultural environment. The instrumental value of local cultural integration was presented as follows: promoting the adaptive transformation of course content, enriching the resources of courses, activating teaching, and exhibiting course features (Li, Wang & Dong, 2014).
Some scholars investigated students' understanding of local cultural knowledge and their ability to convey local cultures in English. Du and Li (2011) adopted a questionnaire survey as well as cultural translation tests to investigate students majoring in English at a college in Hebei Province of China. They found that these students lacked local culture knowledge as well as the ability to translate and communicate about local cultures. And they also discussed the causes of these current issues. Their study revealed the necessity of strengthening students' cognitive capacity in local cultures and promoting their cultural output.
Besides, the realization of local cultural integration necessitates specific subject teaching and effective transformation of school-based courses. However, there is a phenomenon known as subject development imbalance. Abundant studies are about the integration of local cultures in the courses of Chinese, art and history, while less research has been done on local cultural integration in geography, English and music courses (Li, Wang & Dong, 2014; Wu & Li, 2016). In future studies, scholars need to focus more on the integration of local cultures in English teaching.
Previous studies at home and abroad underlined the importance of local cultural integration in English learning, but some differences existed in the research methods and research contents of local cultural integration. Foreign scholars mostly adopted empirical research to prove the positive effects of local cultural integration on learners, and explored the local cultural topics and the activities for integrating local cultures into teaching. However, domestic scholars mostly used theoretical analysis to emphasize the importance of local cultural integration, and focused on students' ability to express local cultures in English, paying less attention to the practice situation of local cultural integration from the perspective of teachers.
2.3Summary
Although scholars have made abundant research on cultural integration in foreign language teaching and local cultural integration in English teaching, there still exist some limitations of previous research.
First of all, compared to studies abroad about local cultural integration in English teaching, relevant studies at home were much fewer. Domestic scholars focused less on the integration of local cultures in senior high school English teaching.
Secondly, English teachers' practices of local cultural integration and the influential factors were rarely investigated. The value of local cultures has drawn much attention. However, scholars have rarely conducted empirical research to explore the local cultural topics, the activities for integrating local cultures into teaching, the evaluation methods of students' learning of local cultures and the influential factors oflocal cultural integration.
Still, previous studies enlighten this study as follows. On one hand, previous studies support the rationality of this study. The integration of local cultures has been proved to be beneficial to cultivating students' local feelings, enhancing their ethnic and national identity, which meets the requirements for cultivating students' cultural identity and their ability to tell Chinese culture in English in The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020). Therefore, it is critical to concentrate on the practice situation of local cultural integration in senior high school English teaching. This study investigates teachers' practices and the influential factors of integrating local cultures into English teaching, hoping to enrich the relevant research to some extent.
On the other hand, previous studies have referential significance for the dimensional design of the questionnaire in this study from the aspects of the objectives of local cultural integration, local cultural topics, activities for integrating local cultures into teaching, and evaluation methods of students' local culture learning. Additionally, many scholars studied cultural integration in English teaching through questionnaire surveys and interviews, and they have already designed relatively valid questionnaires, which have guiding functions for designing the questionnaire in the study. This study draws on the questionnaire design of previous studies, and generalizes the findings ofdifferent scholars to design the questionnaire ofthe study.
In brief, enlightened by previous studies and based on the implications mentioned above, this study investigates senior high school English teachers' practices of local cultural integration and the influential factors, so as to propose specific suggestions for promoting local cultural integration. The specific theoretical foundations of the study are delineated in the next chapter.
Chapter Three Theoretical Foundations
The last chapter has a detailed review of both theoretical and empirical studies on the integration of culture in foreign language teaching and local cultural integration in English teaching, which provides the feasibility of this study. In this chapter, specific theoretical foundations of the present study will be elaborated, which include place-based education theory and sociocultural theory. The implications of these two theories to this study are also introduced.
3.1Place-based Education Theory
PBE theory, explicitly situated in the learners' physical and cultural surroundings, originated in America. Although the term “PBE” was coined at the end of 1980s, its practices were much older. Newmann and Oliver (1967) were the first to propose the similar idea of PBE. They criticized that school education was isolated from society, obstructing real generational development and cultivating a separate rather than continuous sense of self. They believed that education reform should prioritize outdoor learning and strengthen the connection between schools and society. John Dewey (1897) argued that education was not separated from the experience of living, which was discussed at length in his book Experience and Education in 1938. He also criticized the disconnection between schools and society. Dewey (1959) claimed that the great waste in the school for children came from their inability to use the experiences they acquired out of the school in any complete and free way within the school; besides, they couldn't apply in daily life what they were studying at school. In response to this phenomenon, Dewey put forward that schools should connect with the community. Many of his educational philosophies were the foundation of PBE theory. In the past thirty years, PBE theory has been developed.
PBE theory that considers natural, cultural, and ontological realms is more indicative of the phenomenon that exists between humans, their cultures and their natural environments. It immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, using these as a foundation of study. PBE is “the
process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum” (Sobel, 2004: 6). This definition shed light on what PBE comprised, while the Rural School and Community Trust gave another definition. “PBE is learning that is rooted in what is local—the unique history, environment, culture, economy, literature, andartofaparticularplace” (Smith & Sobel, 2010: 23). The community serves as the context for studying in PBE, and students' work is focused on community interests and needs. Community members also serve as partners and resources in all aspects of education. This definition exemplified the attempt to promote the cooperation between rural schools and communities through PBE theory, which was well-representative in the context of American rural education reform. Therefore, according to these definitions, local cultures, as one element of PBE, are reasonable to be integrated into teaching.
PBE theory aims to keep school education connected to the real world (Gruenewald, 2003; Sobel, 2004). Place-based educators advocate for a pedagogy that relates directly to students' experience of the world, and that improves the quality of life for people and communities (Gruenewald, 2003). This theory also claims that teachers need to provide meaningful contextual experiences in both natural and constructed environments which complement and expand classroom instruction. It enlightens teachers to integrate local cultures into teaching, which connect classroom teaching with students' real life.
Stronger connections have recently been found between sense of place and the theory and practice of PBE. According to Semken and Butler (2008), enrichment of sense of place in the learning process is a valid and accessible learning outcome of PBE. Places are where people sense and link to their natural and cultural surroundings, and sense of place is a valuable construct for describing this connection. PBE is situated in pedagogically fruitful places and promotes the senses of place of students and teachers. It is obviously relevant to environmental ethics, conservation, ecological integrity, and cultural sustainability, because all of these are also situated in places. The goals of PBE are to boost students' engagement and academic achievement, community social and economic vitality, as well as ecological integrity. Thus, PBE theory supports the positive effects of integrating local cultures into English teaching.
The key features of PBE theory are presented as follows. Firstly, it emphasizes hands-on learning. Secondly, it stresses the importance of community engagement. Students are asked to become a part of their community and participate in community programs. Thirdly, it encourages the engagement with indigenous perspectives. PBE resonates with many indigenous peoples' sense of connection to the land on which they and their ancestors were raised (Penetito, 2009). Fourthly, PBE involves caring for the local environment. It pays attention to the significance of regenerating local ecosystems, ensuring that ecosystems are sustainable. Fifthly, PBE has longstanding roots in rural settings, which is because rural communities are close-knit and already have a well-established community atmosphere that teachers and students can tap into and rely upon in order to enhance their learning.
From the theme of PBE, scholars believed that teachers should set the theme of PBE according to diverse instructional scenarios. Smith (2002) presented five themes of PBE which included nature studies, cultural studies, internships and entrepreneurial opportunities, real-world problem solving as well as induction into community processes. Critical thinking and problem-posing education, engagement through community connection, social justice and environmental justice, according to Deringer (2017), were the themes of PBE. These themes enlighten the topics of local cultural integration in English teaching.
In brief, PBE theory emphasizes the connection between schools and local areas, making use of various resources in local places in teaching in order to promote learners' sense of place, cultural sustainability, community development and so on. According to this theory, local cultures, as an important resource of local areas where students live and study, should be integrated into English teaching. PBE theory explains the rationality and feasibility of integrating local cultures into English teaching, supports the impact of local cultural integration on promoting cultural development and cultivating learners' sense of place, and also enlightens the topics of local cultural integration.
3.2Sociocultural Theory
SCT, developed by a Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky and his colleagues, was rooted in Vygotsky's works Mind in Society in 1978 and Thought and Language in 1986. According to Vygotsky (1978), human development starts with social interaction, which thereafter becomes psychological and intrinsic. Since the 1980s, James Lantolf has been applying SCT to the context of second language acquisition (SLA), and he has popularized the theory among SLA audiences. Lantolf (2006) claimed that it was a psychological theory of mind and cognition, as well as a theory of learning and cognitive development. It highlighted that the cognitive and the social were interconnected and engaging in social activities was significant for the development of human cognition. Social and cultural factors influenced cognitive development.
SCT argues that human mental functioning is basically a mediated process organized by cultural artifacts, activities, and concepts (Ratner, 2002). Participation in cultural, linguistic, and historically shaped settings such as family life, peer group interaction, and institutional contexts like schools, organized social activities, and workplaces facilitates developmental processes. While human neurobiology is required for higher mental processes, the most essential types of human cognitive activity develop through interaction in social and material surroundings, including conditions encountered in educational settings (Engestrom, 1987).
Vygotsky regards the development of higher mental functioning as a process interactively connected with external social-cultural factors that are complicated and eternal (Lantolf& Qin, 2018). Based on this perspective, SCT researchers believe that learning is not just a cognitive activity that occurs in the minds of learners, but also a social activity that is directly tied to learners' identities. Learning contexts are not variables that can affect learning outcomes, but have a crucial impact on the learning process.
One of the core concepts of SCT is mediation. SCT believes that sociocultural and mental activities are linked in a dependent, symbolically mediated manner. Vygotsky held that the human mind consisted of lower mental processes, but the distinguishing feature of human consciousness was the capacity for voluntary control over biology through the use of higher level symbolic artifacts, such as language, literacy, numeracy, categorization, rationality, logic and so on. These artifacts, which all stem from the historical accumulation of human cultural activity and development (Tomasello, 1999), act as a buffer between the individual and the environment, mediating the connection between the social-material world and the individual. In SCT, regulation is an important form of mediation. When children learn language, words serve to modify biological perception into cultural perception and concepts in addition to isolating individual objects and behaviors (Gibson, 1979). SCT researchers describe a developmentally sequenced shift in the locus of control of human activity as object-regulation, other-regulation, and self-regulation.
Another key concept of SCT is internalization. Internalization is the process by which cultural artifacts, such as language, take on a psychological function (Kozulin, 1990). According to Vygotsky (1981), the process of internalization is defined as the transition from an interpsychological plane to an intrapsychological plane. This process occurs through exposure to and usage of semiotic systems such as languages, numeracy and mathematics, and other historically developed cultural practices. In other words, internalization refers to the process through which individuals develop the ability to perform complicated cognitive and physical-motor functions with less reliance on external mediation and more reliance on internal mediation.
In conclusion, SCT emphasizes the importance of social and cultural interactions for developing human's cognition and learning. It also stresses that learning of all knowledge starts from society and then moves to individuals. Based on this theory, local cultures, as an element of social culture, can also assist students' cognitive development and language learning. SCT supports the positive effects of integrating local cultures into teaching, and enlightens English teachers on local cultural integration. It gives reasonable ground to local cultural integration in English teaching and to this study.
Chapter Four Research Methodology
In order to explore senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching and the influential factors, a questionnaire survey and an interview were conducted. Based on the above three chapters, which lay the foundation for the study, this chapter elaborates the research methodology. It consists of five parts, namely research questions, participants, instruments, research procedures, data collection and analysis.
4.1Research Questions
With the requirements of developing students' cultural awareness and cultural identity, as well as enhancing students' ability to express Chinese culture in English, many English teachers nowadays have been conscious of the necessity of integrating Chinese culture into English teaching. Meanwhile, local cultures, as a component of Chinese culture, increasingly attract the attention of teachers and researchers because of the educational value. This study investigates the senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching in Guangdong Province through a questionnaire survey and an interview. Referring to Tyler (1949), the development of any courses and teaching plans must answer four fundamental questions.
First, what educational purposes should the school seek to attain? Second, what educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes? Third, how can these educational experiences be effectively organized? Fourth, how can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? (1949: 9)
In other words, these four questions are confirmation of educational purposes, selection of learning experiences, organization of educational experiences and evaluation of learning effect. Therefore, based on Tyler's rationale, the senior high school English teachers' practices investigated in this study include four aspects, 
namely, the objectives of integrating local cultures into English teaching, the choices of local cultural topics, the activities for local cultural integration, and the evaluation methods of students' learning effect of local cultures. This study will explore the following two research questions.
(1)What are senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into their English teaching?
(2)What affects senior high school teachers' integration of local cultures into their English teaching?
4.2Participants
The participants of this study are senior high school English teachers in Guangdong Province, China. According to Qin (2009: 145), “snowball sampling is a sampling method that gradually enlarges the sample from small to large”. It is a cost-effective sampling approach in which existing subjects provide referrals to recruit samples required for a research study, and it is quicker and more convenient to find samples. In order to ensure the representativeness of this study, the participants should cover all 21 cities in Guangdong Province. Thus, it is convenient and effective to use snowball sampling to find the participants.
Totally 597 senior high school English teachers from 21 cities of Guangdong Province were recruited to take part in the questionnaire survey. Among them, most of the participants are from Heyuan City, Foshan City, Dongguan City, Meizhou City and Maoming City, and a small part is from Yangjiang City, Zhanjiang City, Chaozhou City, Shanwei City, Yunfu City, Zhaoqing City and other cities. Among these participants, 153 teachers have five years or less of teaching experience, accounting for only 25.6%. 193 teachers have teaching experience of six to fourteen years, accounting for 32.3%. 251 teachers have fifteen years or more of teaching experience, accounting for 42.0%. It signifies that the participants cover these three different levels of teaching experience, and most participants have rich teaching experience. Furthermore, regarding the school type, 68.84% ofthe teachers are from ordinary senior high schools and 31.16% ofthe teachers are from key seniorhigh schools. These samples are to ensure that the results of the questionnaire survey are representative and persuasive to a large degree.
After the questionnaire survey, twelve among the 597 teachers were recruited randomly for the interview. The demographic characteristics of these interviewees are shown in Table 4.1. The interviewees are from different cities in Guangdong Province. Half of the interviewees are from key schools, and half are from ordinary schools. Besides, the years of teaching experience ranges from 3 months to 26 years. Teachers with diverse teaching experience can share various understanding of teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching, which helps provide more revealing information for this study.
Table 4.1 Demographic characteristics of interviewees
Serial number Teacher City School type (key/ordinary school) Years of teaching experience
FS-20211229-P Peng Foshan Key school 26 years
DG-20211228-Y Yan Dongguan Key school 25 years
MM-20211229-R Ren Maoming Key school 19 years
QY-20211229-L Liang Qingyuan Ordinary school 12 years
HY-20211224-L Li Heyuan Ordinary school 11 years
HY-20211229-Z Zhao Heyuan Ordinary school 11 years
ZS-20211223-Y Yuan Zhongshan Ordinary school 8 years
ZS-20211229-Z Zhang Zhongshan Key school 8 years
JM-20211230-W Wu Jiangmen Key school 3 years
GZ-20211227-H Hu Guangzhou Key school 1.5 years
HZ-20211228-C Chen Huizhou Ordinary school 4 months
SZ-20211228-F Fan Shenzhen Ordinary school 3 months
 
4.3Instruments
The research instruments are composed of two forms, a questionnaire and an interview. The questionnaire was distributed in Guangdong Province to investigate senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching and its influential factors. And the interview was conducted to get more specific and in-depth information for the study.
4.3.1Questionnaire
The design of the questionnaire is based on two research questions. In order to decrease the stress on participants, the questionnaire should be filled out anonymously. The questionnaire mainly took the design of the questionnaire in “Teaching Culture in the FL Classroom: Teachers' Perspectives” (Gonen & Saglam, 2012) as a reference, and was adapted according to previous studies and the features of senior high school English teaching in China.
According to Qin (2009), items about behavior should be asked first in a questionnaire. What follows are items about investigating attitudes, opinions and feelings. And personal background questions are placed at last. Therefore, the questionnaire in this study is separated into three parts. The first part is senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching, including the objectives of local cultural integration, the choices of local cultural topics, the activities that teachers adopt to integrate local cultures into English teaching, and the evaluation methods of culture learning. The second part is the factors that teachers believe affect the integration of local cultures in their English teaching. The third part is the demographic information of teachers. The specific dimensions are shown in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2 Dimensions of the questionnaire
Dimension of the first level Dimension of the second level Questions
Senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching 1.The objectives of local cultural integration
2.The choices of local cultural topics
3.The activities for local cultural integration
4.Evaluation methods of culture learning 1(1)-1(6)
2; 3(1)-3(14)
4(1)-4(14)
5(1)-5(3)
The factors that affect teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching 1.Self-characteristics of local cultural integration in senior high schools
2.Subjective factors from the aspects of teachers, students and schools
3.Objective factors 6(1)
6(2)-6(6)
6(7)-6(11)
Demographic information of teachers Years ofteaching experience, city, school type, contact details 7-10
Moreover, the question forms of this questionnaire refer to those of Gonen and Saglam's (2012) questionnaire. Question One is a ranking question, designed with six objectives addressing the knowledge dimension, the attitudinal dimension and the skills dimension of intercultural competences (Byram, 1997). Teachers were asked to rank these objectives in order of importance. An objective was granted six points if it was ranked first. And if an objective was ranked the last, it received one point. Question Two to Question Six are three-point scale questions. Question Seven to Question Nine are multiple-choice questions and Question Ten is an open-ended question. The whole questionnaire is presented in Appendix I.
The section of senior high school teachers' practices of local cultural integration includes four dimensions. The first one is the objectives of integrating local cultures into English teaching. Byram (1997) divided intercultural competences into three levels, which are knowledge, attitudes and skills. And The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020) holds that the aims of cultural awareness include acquiring cultural knowledge, understanding cultural connotations, comparing the differences and similarities of cultures, absorbing cultural essence, building correct values, strengthening cultural confidence, shaping the good personality of self-esteem and self-confidence, equipping intercultural communication ability and the capacity to disseminate Chinese culture. According to these studies, six objectives of integrating local cultures into English teaching can be summarized, namely providing local cultural knowledge, cultivating students' local cultural identity, promoting students' understanding of local cultural connotations, improving students' skills in comparing different cultures, improving students' skills in expressing local cultures in English and improving students' skills in intercultural communication.
The second dimension is local cultural topics. In this dimension, the frequency of teachers' local cultural integration is investigated first to explore the general status of local cultural integration in Guangdong Province. Then the frequency of different cultural topics is investigated. The classification of cultural topics in foreign language teaching in the questionnaire of Gonen and Saglam (2012) is based on Sercu's (2000) study on foreign language teaching textbooks. Based on these studies, this study classifies the topics of local cultures into fourteen types by generalizing the definition of culture in The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020) and previous studies of local cultures.
The third dimension is the activities that teachers adopt to integrate local cultures into teaching. On the basis of the suggestions for teaching cultural knowledge from The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (Ministry of Education, 2020), and the methods and activities of integrating cultures into foreign language teaching proposed by Hu and Gao (1997), Su and Zhuang (1996) and Stern (1992), the activities of integrating local cultures into English teaching can be divided into fourteen kinds.
The fourth dimension is the methods for teachers to evaluate students' learning effect of local cultures. The evaluation methods in this questionnaire are based on the research of Byram and Morgan (1994) as well as Huang (2012). The evaluation methods are divided into three kinds, separate evaluation as part of an exam, evaluation integrated into tests of listening, speaking, reading as well as writing, and formative evaluation.
The factors that affect senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching can be separated into three kinds, namely self-characteristics of local cultural integration, subjective factors of teachers, students and schools, and objective factors. This division is based on previous studies, such as the studies of Gonen and Saglam (2012), Shao and Chen (2011), Wu and Li (2016), Miller and Twum (2017).
In the part of the demographic information of teachers, years of teaching experience, city, school type and teachers'contact details are investigated. Lian (2008) categorized teachers into novice teachers, experienced teachers and expert teachers. He believed that novice teachers should have five years or less of teaching experience, experienced teachers should have six to fourteen years of experience and expert teachers should have fifteen years or more of teaching experience. Based on his research, this study classifies the years of teaching experience into three kinds, which are five years or less, six to fourteen years and fifteen years or more. Additionally, the school type is divided into ordinary schools and key schools. And the cities of teachers are separated into 21 cities in Guangdong Province.
4.3.2Interview
A semi-structured interview was carried out to obtain some qualitative data. The outline of the interview can be seen in Appendix II. First of all, some demographic information of interviewees was collected, including their cities, school type and years of teaching experience. Then the questions in the interview outline were asked to the interviewees. All the questions in the interview are based on the research questions.
Question Three investigates the objectives of integrating local cultures into English teaching. Question Two and Question Four aim to get information about the frequency of teachers'practices of local cultural integration and the frequency of local cultural topics. Question Five is related to the activities that teachers carry out to integrate local cultures into English teaching. Question Six is about the methods that teachers use to evaluate students' learning of local cultures. Besides, Question One and Question Seven are used to explore the influential factors that affect teachers' practices of local cultural integration.
4.4Research Procedures
The research procedures are as follows. In the first stage, based on previous studies, the questionnaire was designed during the summer vacation to deal with the research questions. And it was modified with the guidance of the supervisors and the suggestions from two front-line English teachers, which ensured the content validity of the questionnaire.
In the second stage, to assure the reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire, a pilot survey of the questionnaire was held in two senior high schools in Heyuan City, Guangdong Province in October 2021. Totally 86 English teachers were recruited to participate in the pilot survey. The questionnaire was given out to these teachers online. After the collection of all the data, the data of scale questions was inputted in SPSS 24.0 software program to examine the reliability and the validity. The Cronbach's Alpha was employed to test the reliability of the questionnaire. Generally speaking, if the Cronbach's Alpha is higher than 0.7, the questionnaire is acceptable (Qin, 2003). As shown in Table 4.3, the Cronbach's Alpha of the questionnaire is 0.955 (a>0.7), indicating that the questionnaire has good reliability.
Table 4.3 Reliability statistics of the questionnaire
Cronbach's Alpha N ofItems
.955 43
 
For the purpose of analyzing the construct validity of the questionnaire, an exploratory factor analysis was performed. Before the factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Barlett's test of sphericity were used to test the sample's suitability for factor analysis. According to Qin (2003), the value of KMO signals whether it is suitable to conduct factor analysis. The value over 0.9 means excellent, 0.8-0.9 means good, 0.7-0.8 means acceptable, and the value under 0.7 means bad. As is shown in Table 4.4, in the pilot survey, the KMO is 0.860, which is higher than 0.8. And the Sig. in Bartlett's test of sphericity is 0.000 (p<0.05), which indicates that there is a correlation among observed variables. Thus, the samples meet the requirements for factor analysis.
Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's test of the questionnaire
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure ofSampling Adequacy.
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square
df
Sig. .860
3175.035
861
.000
 
To establish the scale's construct validity, the following criteria were taken as reference (Wu, 2010): (1) the eigenvalue of each factor must be at least 1.00; (2) the factor load value of the items loaded to each factor must be positive and have value of at least 0.4; (3) the total variance explained by the factors must be greater than 50%. The results of the factor analysis can be seen inTable4.5. Based on the factor analysis, the evaluation of the explained total variance and the common factor variances indicates that there are four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00. The total variance explained by these four factors concerning the scale is 67.36%, which is greater than 50%. An evaluation of the variance explained by these four factors shows that the variance contributed by these factors are 23.81%, 22.37%, 14.87%, 6.32%, and eigenvalues of 9.998, 9.393, 4.255 and 2.094, respectively. It is observed that the first factor loads of the items of the scale varies between 0.736 and 0.869, the second factor loads between 0.706 and 0.837, the third factor loads between 0.577 and 0.873, andthefourthfactorsloadsbetween0.83and0.887.Itindicatesthatthequestionnaire has good construct validity.
Table 4.5 Results of the factor analysis of the questionnaire
Factors Items Eigenvalue Variance Cumulative variance
1. Topics of local cultural 3(1)-3(14) 9.998 23.81% 23.81%
integration
2. Activities for local 4(1)-4(14) 9.393 22.37% 46.17%
cultural integration
3. Influential factors 6(1)-6(11) 4.255 14.87% 61.04%
4. Evaluation methods 5(1)-5(3) 2.094 6.32% 67.36%
 
In the third stage, the questionnaire was formally distributed online to senior high school English teachers in Guangdong Province. All data of the questionnaire was collected before January 2022. Totally 603 questionnaires were collected, in which 6 invalid questionnaires were eliminated. Totally 597 effective questionnaires were used for further analysis. The effective questionnaire returns-ratio was 99%.
In the fourth stage, twelve English teachers were selected randomly to take part in the semi-structured interview. With the agreement of the interviewees, some relevant teaching plans and students' work were collected to help analyze teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching.
In the fifth stage, the data of the questionnaire was imported to SPSS 24.0 to have further analysis. And the recording of the interview was transcribed and analyzed. Then the thesis was composed based on these statistics.
4.5Data Collection and Analysis
For the purpose of investigating senior high schools teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching, relevant data of the questionnaire survey was collected. Totally 597 effective questionnaires were used. The data was transferred to SPSS 24.0, and was analyzed through descriptive statistical analysis, mainly calculating the frequency, the percentage and the mean of different items. Additionally, an independent samples t-test was carried out to determine whether teachers' understanding of different objectives of local cultural integration differed according to the school type variable. One-way Variance Analysis (ANOVA) was also used to see whether it was different according to the years of teaching experience and the cities variables.
In order to get more thorough information regarding the research questions, 12 teachers were selected randomly to take part in the interview. The interview was carried out during the interviewees' spare time and was finished through phone or WeChat. In order to make sure the authenticity and effectiveness of the data, the recording was used with the permission of the interviewees. After that, the recording was transcribed and then analyzed according to the research questions, combined with the results of the questionnaire survey.
Chapter Five Results and Discussion
After the questionnaire survey and the interview were conducted, all the collected data was analyzed with SPSS 24.0. This chapter presents the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview, and makes a discussion based on the results. It consists of two parts. First, the results of senior high school teachers' practices of local cultural integration and the results of the influential factors are demonstrated. Second, the discussion of the results is done to answer the research questions.
5.1Results
5.1.1Results of senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching
In this section, the results of senior high school English teachers' practices of local cultural integration are presented in four sections, namely the objectives of local cultural integration, local cultural topics, the activities for local cultural integration and the evaluation methods of culture learning.
5.1.1.1Results of the objectives of local cultural integration
All teachers should set teaching objectives when preparing their lessons. However, teachers have different emphases on teaching objectives. Question One in the questionnaire is about teachers' views on the objectives of local cultural integration. The results are presented in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1 Results of the questionnaire survey in the objectives of local cultural
integration in senior high school English teaching
Item Description N Mean
1 Cultivate students' local cultural identity 597 4.30
2 Promote students' understanding oflocal cultural connotations 597 3.97
3 Provide relevant local cultural knowledge 597 3.68
4 Improve students' skill in expressing local cultures in English 597 3.55
5 Improve students' skill in comparing different cultures 597 2.99
6 Improve students' skill in intercultural communication 597 2.51
Valid N (listwise) 597
According to the results, the mean of “cultivate students' local cultural identity” is 4.30, which is the highest among the six objectives. Then, the mean of “promote students' understanding of local cultural connotations” is 3.97, “provide local cultural knowledge” is 3.68, “improve students' skill in expressing local cultures in English” is 3.55, “improve students' skill in comparing different cultures” is 2.99, and “improve students' skill in intercultural communication” is 2.51. It shows that teachers integrated local cultures for the main purpose of improving students' local cultural identity, belonging to the aspect of attitudes of Byram's intercultural competences. Besides, teachers put less emphasis on the cultivation of skills. In spite of the importance of the ability to tell Chinese stories in English, the objective to improve students' ability to express local cultures in English was of only fourth importance. The objectives of improving students' abilities to compare different cultures and improving intercultural communication skill were ranked at last.
To determine whether teachers' perspectives on the objectives of local cultural integration were different according to the school type, an independent samples t-test was carried out. As presented in Table 5.2, the Sig. of the item “cultivate students' local cultural identity” is 0.019 (p<0.05). It means that teachers differed significantly in their views on the objective of cultivating students' local cultural identity according to the school type. The mean of key schools is 4.53, which is greatly higher than that of ordinary schools. It means that teachers in key schools put more emphasis on cultivating students' local cultural identity than those in ordinary schools. Besides, the Sig. of other items are higher than 0.05, which indicates that there was no significant difference between ordinary schools and key schools in other items. Teachers from both ordinary schools and key schools held similar views on the other five objectives.
The one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine whether teachers' views on different objectives of local cultural integration differed according to their years of teaching experience. The results are presented in Table 5.3. The Sig. of the item “improve students' skill in intercultural communication” is 0.04 (p<0.05), which means that there was significant difference in teachers'views on this objective among teachers with different years of teaching experience.
 
Table 5.2 Results of the independent samples t-test of the objectives of local cultural
integration in different school types
Item Ordinary schools Key schools t df Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation
1 4.20 1.562 4.53 1.529 -2.351 595 .019
2 3.98 1.306 3.95 1.285 .299 595 .765
3 3.71 1.927 3.60 1.946 .648 595 .517
4 3.56 1.604 3.52 1.564 .344 595 .731
5 2.97 1.396 3.03 1.361 -.478 595 .633
6 2.57 1.798 2.38 1.663 1.244 383.830 .214
 
Note: The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). The order of the items is the same as that in Table 5.1. Item 1 refers to “cultivate students' local cultural identity”, item 2 refers to “promote students' understanding of local cultural connotations”, and so on.
Table 5.3 Results of one-way ANOVAfor the objectives of local cultural integration
in different years of teaching experience
Item Sum of
Squares df Mean
Square F Sig.
1. Cultivate students' Between Groups 7.503 2 3.751 1.548 .213
local cultural identity Within Groups 1439.013
1446.516 594
596 2.423
Total
2. Promote students' Between Groups 5.748 2 2.874 1.708 .182
understanding of local Within Groups 999.709 594 1.683
cultural connotations Total 1005.457 596
3. Provide relevant Between Groups 7.455 2 3.727 .999 .369
local cultural knowledge Within Groups 2216.797 594 3.732
Total 2224.251 596
4. Improve students' Between Groups 5.837 2 2.918 1.154 .316
skill in expressing local Within Groups 1501.956 594 2.529
cultures in English Total 1507.792 596
5. Improve students' Between Groups 11.457 2 5.729 3.010 .050
skill in comparing Within Groups 1130.435 594 1.903
different cultures Total 1141.893 596
6. Improve students' Between Groups 19.900 2 9.950 3.245 .040
skill in intercultural Within Groups 1821.279 594 3.066
communication Total 1841.179 596
 
Note: The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
For the purpose of comparing teachers' views on the objectives of local cultural integration in different cities, another one-way ANOVA was carried out. The results are indicated in Table 5.4. The value of Sig. of the item “cultivate students' local cultural identity” is 0.021, which is lower than 0.05. It means that the difference in teachers' views on the objective of cultivating students' local cultural identity in different cities was significant. However, the Sig. of other items are greater than 0.05, which indicates that there was no significant difference in the other five objectives.
Table 5.4 Results of one-way ANOVA for the objectives of local cultural integration
in different cities
Item Sum of
Squares df Mean
Square F Sig.
Between Groups 83.483 20 4.174 1.764 .021
1. Cultivate students'
Within Groups 1363.033 576 2.366
local cultural identity
Total 1446.516 596
2. Promote students' Between Groups 44.118 20 2.206 1.322 .158
understanding of local Within Groups 961.340 576 1.669
cultural connotations Total 1005.457 596
3. Provide relevant Between Groups 95.274 20 4.764 1.289 .179
local cultural Within Groups 2128.977 576 3.696
knowledge Total 2224.251 596
4. Improve students' Between Groups 64.365 20 3.218 1.284 .182
skill in expressing local Within Groups 1443.427 576 2.506
cultures in English Total 1507.792 596
5. Improve students' Between Groups 27.230 20 1.361 .704 .824
skill in comparing Within Groups 1114.663 576 1.935
different cultures Total 1141.893 596
6. Improve students' Between Groups 46.898 20 2.345 .753 .771
skill in intercultural Within Groups 1794.281 576 3.115
communication Total 1841.179 596
Note: The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
 
In the interview, the third question is about the objectives of local cultural integration. Most teachers talked about the objectives from the perspective of cultural awareness. Teacher Wu, Fan, Liang hoped that the integration of local cultures can improve students' cultural identity and pride in their hometown. Teacher Yuan, Li, Zhao and Chen expected that students can learn more about local cultures. Some teachers emphasized students' ability to express local cultures inEnglish. Teacher Wu hoped that students can learn more English expressions about local cultures in Jiangmen City of Guangdong Province, so that they can introduce Jiangmen City to foreigners or they can write essays about Jiangmen. Teacher Peng articulated, “By integrating the culture of Foshan City into English teaching, I hope that students can use authentic English expressions in speaking or writing to introduce Foshan well” (FS-20211229-P). Teacher Hu from Guangzhou City added, “I hope that they can better understand their Guangzhou culture, and express their own culture in English. Most importantly, they can use such expressions to convey and spread the local culture to other people or even to international friends” (GZ-20211227-H). From the interview, it can be seen that teachers paid attention to the objectives of cultivating students'local cultural identity, strengthening their understanding of local cultures and improving their skill in expressing local cultures in English.
Some interviewees also put forward their views on the objectives of integrating local cultures into teaching from other perspectives. Firstly, in the aspect of language competences, Teacher Ren and Li required that students make use of local cultures to understand and master the language knowledge better. Teacher Yuan and Zhao expected that students can increase their interest of learning English through the learning of local cultures.
Secondly, in terms of thinking qualities, Teacher Wu, Fan and Hu hoped that students can improve their thinking qualities when they learned local cultures. Teacher Fan explained, “The most significant thing is to improve students' critical thinking. How should the local culture be inherited? Should its essence be preserved and its dross be discarded? Through these questions, students can develop critical thinking, which belongs to thinking qualities” (SZ-20211228-F).
Additionally, Teacher Ren discussed the objective from a unique perspective. She hoped that students can learn how to independently solve some problems which they met in their study and life after they learned how to solve the problems about local cultures.
5.1.1.2Results of local cultural topics
Before investigating the frequency of local cultural topics, Question Two in the questionnaire was used to investigate teachers'frequency ofintegrating local cultures into English teaching with the aim to grasp the overall situation of teachers' practices of local cultural integration. The results are demonstrated in Table 5.5. 36.5% of the teachers often integrated local cultures into English teaching, 62.6% of the teachers integrated local cultures once in a while, while only 0.8% never integrated local cultures into English teaching. It can be seen that most teachers were willing to integrate local cultures into English teaching. However, for some reason, many of them didn't integrate local cultures very often.
Table5.5 Results of the questionnaire survey in teachers'frequency of integrating local cultures into English teaching
Item Frequency Percentage
Often 218 36.5
Once in a while 374 62.6
Never 5 0.8
Total 597 100
 
The second question of the interview also explored whether teachers integrated local cultures into English teaching. Among these interviewees, only three teachers held that they often integrated local cultures into English teaching. Other teachers claimed that they just integrated local cultures once in a while. The results of this part of interview are consistent with those of the questionnaire survey.
After investigating the fundamental situation of the frequency of local cultural integration in English teaching, the frequency of local cultural topics was investigated by Question Three of the questionnaire. As demonstrated in Table 5.6, the topic of local customs was most frequently integrated into English teaching. 58.1% of the teachers often integrated local customs into English teaching. The second frequent topicwas touristattractions. 55.4%ofthe teachers often integrated tourist attractions. And the topic of local food was often integrated into teaching by 49.9% of the teachers. Then, in order of frequency, the topics of local cultural integration were successively daily lifestyle, history, values, famous people, art, buildings, transport, folklore, social system and organizations, clothes and science. What's more, it can be seen that only the topics of local customs, tourist attractions and local food were often integrated into teaching by half of the teachers or more.
Table 5.6 Results of the questionnaire survey in the frequency of local cultural topics in senior high school English teaching
Often Once in a while Never
Item N P N P N P
Local customs 347 58.1 229 38.4 21 3.5
Tourist attractions 331 55.4 247 41.4 19 3.2
Local food 298 49.9 277 46.4 22 3.7
Daily lifestyle 285 47.7 277 46.4 35 5.9
History 217 36.3 332 55.6 48 8.0
Value 202 33.8 354 59.3 41 6.9
Famous people 200 33.5 361 60.5 36 6.0
Art 160 26.8 369 61.8 68 11.4
Local buildings 155 26.0 384 64.3 58 9.7
Transport 152 25.5 351 58.8 94 15.7
Folklore 135 22.6 386 64.7 76 12.7
Social systems and organizations 114 19.1 370 62.0 113 18.9
Clothes 105 17.6 365 61.1 127 21.3
Science 99 16.6 375 62.8 123 20.6
Note: N refers to the number of teachers; P refers to the percentage.
 
The fourth question of the interview is about the topics of local cultural integration. Ten interviewees held that they often integrated local food and local tourist attractions into English teaching. However, some teachers had different opinions. Teacher Li reported that she also integrated the local customs sometimes. Teacher Hu and Yan mentioned that they introduced the local customs of some festivals. Teacher Fan enumerated that he introduced local famous people and local news. From the interview, it can be seen that teachers integrated local food, tourist attractions, customs, famous people and news into English teaching, which was in accord with the results of the questionnaire survey to some extent.
 
5.1.1.3Results of the activities for local cultural integration
As for how to integrate local cultures into English teaching, teachers used different ways. Question Four in the questionnaire investigated the activities that teachers carried out to integrate local cultures into teaching. The results are presented in Table 5.7.
Table 5.7 Results of the questionnaire survey in the activities of integrating local cultures into senior high school English teaching
Once in a
Often Never
Item while
N P N P N P
1. Introduce local cultures based on the cultural knowledge in textbooks. 279 46.7 304 50.9 14 2.3
2. Use videos or other network resources to present local cultures. 249 41.7 318 53.3 30 5.0
3. Integrate local cultures when teaching words, phases and grammar. 190 31.8 353 59.1 54 9.0
4. Provide relevant extra-curricular audio-visual materials. 187 31.3 358 60.0 52 8.7
5. Let students to compare local cultures and other cultures. 174 29.1 368 61.6 55 9.2
6. Design writing tasks about local cultures. 161 27.0 392 65.7 44 7.4
7. Integrate by role play, songs and dramas. 152 25.5 355 59.5 90 15.1
8. Let students learn local cultures by tasks of solving local cultural problems. 135 22.6 378 63.3 84 14.1
9. Let students explore and report one aspect of local cultures. 127 21.3 381 63.8 89 14.9
10.Let students participate in after-class English activities related to local cultures.
11.Organize Chinese and foreign school 93 15.6 346 58.0 158 26.5
fellowship activities to let students express local cultures in a real context. 88 14.7 253 42.4 256 42.9
12. Bring local products to the class. 79 13.2 314 52.6 204 34.2
13. Let students experience local cultures through field trips. 76 12.7 303 50.8 218 36.5
14. Decorate the classroom with posters about local cultures. 69 11.6 300 50.3 228 38.2
 
Note: N refers to the number of teachers; P refers to the percentage.
According to the results, most teachers integrated local cultures based on the cultural knowledge in the textbooks. 46.7% of the teachers often integrated local cultures into teaching in this way, while only 2.3% never did so. Besides, teachers also tended to use videos or other network resources to present local cultures. 41.7% of the teachers often integrated local cultures into teaching using videos and other resources, while only 5% never did so. Only these two activities were often carried out by nearly half of the teachers.
However, some activities were less taken to integrate local cultures into teaching. 26.5% of the teachers never let students participate in after-class English activities related to local cultures, such as speech contests and writing contests. 34.2% of the teachers never brought local products to the class. 36.5% of the teachers never let students experience local cultures through field trips. 38.2% of the teachers never decorated the classroom with posters about local cultures. And 42.9% never held Chinese and foreign school fellowship activities to let students express local cultures in real contexts. It indicates that teachers tended to ignore after-class activities to some extent.
The above results present the general situation of the activities for integrating local cultures into English teaching, whereas the interview can give more details about these activities. The fifth question of the interview investigated what activities teachers designed to integrate local cultures into teaching. And the interviewees were hoped to share a teaching example to explain how they integrated local cultures into teaching. The results of this part can be analyzed according to different lesson types.
In English grammar teaching, Teacher Wu provided an excellent teaching example, which is shown in Appendix IV. Teacher Wu often used pictures and videos to introduce local cultures. In her lesson of teaching attributive clauses, she also used the video of Bird Paradise in her lead-in stage. And then she presented a passage which included attributive clauses about Bird Paradise in Jiangmen City of Guangdong Province, so that she could teach students how to describe a place using attributive clauses. After that, she presented some useful expressions and asked students to describe a place to their partners. In her lesson, because of the integration of the familiar local culture, students were interested in learning attributive clauses and they were able to use attributive clauses to introduce a place.
In teaching language points, Teacher Li from Heyuan City shared a simple example. When she taught the phrase “be home to”, she gave an example “Heyuan is home to dinosaurs”. In this way, the local culture was integrated into teaching easily, and students mastered the new words or phrases better.
In reading lessons, the interviewees reported that they often integrated local cultures in the lead-in stage and post-reading stage. Teacher Zhao shared her reading lesson, which can be seen in Appendix IV. When she taught the reading lesson in Unit 1, Book 2 of the new PEP version, she showed some pictures of Heyuan culture in the lead-in stage, and asked students what they should do if these cultural relics would be pulled down for economic development. It was naturally connected to the topic of the text. In the post-reading stage, she asked students to think of some cultural relics in Heyuan City which needed protection and development, and then she gave an example of Bajiao Building. Teacher Liang from Qingyuan City also asked students to make travel brochures about Yingde, a place in Qingyuan City of Guangdong Province, when she taught the reading lesson in Unit 2, Book 1.
Many teachers integrated local cultures into writing lessons. When Teacher Zhang taught the writing about tourist attractions, she introduced Yangtze River Water World and other places in Zhongshan City of Guangdong Province. Teacher Ren asked students to write an essay to introduce tourist attractions and the history of Maoming City of Guangdong Province when she taught the unit “travel around the world” in Book 1. Teacher Peng explained that when she taught the unit about festivals, she introduced the dragon boat festival in Foshan City of Guangdong Province. She asked students to write invitation letters to invite foreigners to join the dragon boat festival.
There were also many teachers designing some speaking activities to integrate local cultures into teaching. Teacher Peng once asked students to make a speech to introduce Foshan's dragon boat festival. Teacher Yan in Dongguan City of Guangdong Province also integrated Dongguan's dragon boat festival when she taught relevant units. She played a video about Dongguan's dragon boat festival. After the video, she asked students to share their feelings or discuss whether there were similar activities in their towns. And then she invited some groups to make a dialogue.
Furthermore, some teachers designed after-class activities to let students learn local cultures. Teacher Hu often integrated Guangzhou culture into her teaching. She shared her project on local food, in which students made posters about local food in Guangzhou City, presenting its cooking procedure and the cultural features.
5.1.1.4Results of the evaluation methods of culture learning
What evaluation methods teachers often use to evaluate students' learning effect of local cultures is the issue this study deals with. Question Five in the questionnaire investigated the ways for teachers to evaluate students' culture learning.
As illustrated in Table 5.8, most teachers chose the evaluation integrated into tests of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and formative evaluation. 20.9% of teachers often evaluated the effects of local cultural integration through tests of listening, speaking, reading and writing. 18.6% often used formative assessment. However, fewer teachers adopted separate evaluation as part of an exam, such as cultural knowledge tests. 39.4% of the teachers never used this evaluation method.
Table 5.8 Results of the questionnaire survey in the evaluation methods of students' culture learning in senior high schools
Item Frequency Percentage
Evaluation integrated into tests Often 125 20.9
of listening, speaking, reading Once in a while 362 60.6
and writing Never 110 18.4
Often 111 18.6
Formative evaluation Once in a while 373 62.5
Never 113 18.9
Separate evaluation as part of an Often 81 13.6
exam, such as cultural Once in a while 281 47.1
knowledge tests Never 235 39.4
Total 597 100
 
The sixth question of the interview is about the evaluation methods. And the results of the interview are consistent with the results of the questionnaire.
First, teachers mainly evaluated students' achievements in learning local cultures by formative evaluation. Teacher Fan didn't put the evaluation of local cultural learning in examinations. He just used formative evaluation to check students' mastery of local cultures as one part of English competences. Teacher Wu and Peng evaluated students' achievements through observation. They observed whether students were interested in learning local cultures and their acceptance level. Teacher Chen added that she would evaluate the effects by asking questions. Other teachers agreed that they would evaluate students' learning effect from their output, such as speaking and writing. Teacher Hu elaborated,
We usually use the way of writing, like the project mentioned before, to check whether they can express Guangzhou culture more freely in the process of writing. I think the output of speaking is another way to evaluate the effects of culture learning. For example, we will design role plays to see whether these cultural points can be conveyed fluently by students. (GZ-20211227-H)
Teacher Yan gave more details on the standards of the evaluation. She mentioned that when students had speaking tasks about local cultures, she would check their expressions about local cultures and their fluency.
Second, evaluation of culture learning integrated into tests of writing was also mentioned. Teacher Zhang stated that once in a final examination in Zhongshan City of Guangdong Province, the writing part required students to write an essay about tourist attractions in Zhongshan City.
In a word, teachers tended to integrate the evaluation of students' culture learning into tests of writing. They also chose formative evaluation, where they evaluated students'learning by observation, questioning and the output in speaking and writing.
5.1.2Results of the influential factors of local cultural integration
For the purpose of finding out the influential factors that affect teachers'
practices of local cultural integration, Question Six in the questionnaire was asked.
The results are presented in Table 5.9.
Table 5.9 Results of the questionnaire survey in the influential factors of local cultural integration in senior high school English teaching
Item Frequency Percentage
Agree 438 73.4
There is limited time in class. Undecided 94 15.7
Disagree 65 10.9
There are limited English Agree 410 68.7
teaching resources of local Undecided 134 22.4
cultures. Disagree 53 8.9
There is insufficient teacher Agree 354 59.3
training in society and Undecided 176 29.5
schools. Disagree 67 11.2
There is the lack of local Agree 348 58.3
cultures in textbooks. Undecided 159 26.6
Disagree 90 15.1
There is schools' ignorance of Agree 343 57.5
local cultures. Undecided 186 31.2
Disagree 68 11.4
There is the lack of local Agree 321 53.8
cultures in examinations. Undecided 186 31.2
Disagree 90 15.1
It may be dangerous for Agree 300 50.3
students to experience local Undecided 207 34.7
cultures after class. Disagree 90 15.1
Teachers are not familiar with Agree 276 46.2
local cultures. Undecided 225 37.7
Disagree 96 16.1
Teachers lack abilities to Agree 235 39.4
integrate local cultures into Undecided 234 39.2
teaching. Disagree 128 21.4
Teachers think that local Agree 133 22.3
cultural integration is not Undecided 139 23.3
important. Disagree 325 54.4
Students are not interested in Agree 118 19.8
local cultures. Undecided 184 30.8
Disagree 295 49.4
Total 597 100
Among these factors, seven influential factors were agreed upon by more than half of the participants. The most important factor was limited time in class. 73.4% of the teachers believed that limited time in class influenced their integration of local cultures into English teaching. The second important one was the limited English teaching resources of local cultures. 68.7% of the teachers agreed that the limited English teaching resources of local cultures influenced their practices. 59.3% of the teachers agreed that insufficient teacher training in society and schools was one of the influential factors. 58.3% agreed on the lack of local cultures in textbooks. 57.5% believed that schools' ignorance of local cultures was an influential factor. 53.8% of the teachers agreed on the lack of local cultures in examinations. And 50.3% believed that it may be dangerous for students to experience local cultures after class.
Additionally, four factors were less important, which were agreed upon by less than half of the teachers. 46.2% of the participants thought that teachers were unfamiliar with local cultures. 39.4% of the participants believed that teachers lacked the abilities to integrate local cultures into teaching. 49.4% of the teachers disagreed that students were not interested in local cultures. 54.4% of the teachers disagreed that it was unimportant to integrate local cultures into English teaching.
According to the interview, teachers' practices of local cultural integration had little to do with teachers' views of the significance of local cultural integration, which was consistent with the results of the questionnaire survey. The first question in the interview investigated teachers' attitudes towards the integration of local cultures in English teaching. All the teachers interviewed believed that it was meaningful and significant to integrate local cultures into English teaching. They mentioned the significance of integrating local cultures mainly from two aspects. One was to improve students' English learning, the other was to promote students' cultural awareness.
As for the aspect of language learning, first of all, local cultures had the advantage of connecting with students' experiential world, which helped students learn better. Teacher Yuan, Ren and Yan believed that the integration of local cultures can connect language learning with students' daily life, and create a language learning environment which was familiar to students. Teacher Chen also mentioned that the integration of local cultures can help students accumulate relevant background knowledge, broaden students' horizons and improve their reading skill. Additionally, local cultural integration helped increase students' learning interest. Teacher Li, Zhao and Ren emphasized that the integration of local cultures was good for increasing students'interest in learning English.TeacherRenadded,
It is significant to integrate local cultures into teaching. Firstly, local cultures can be used to deepen students' understanding of the text and expand their background knowledge. Secondly, local cultures are close to students' life and thus stimulate students' interest in learning. (MM-20211229-R)
In terms of cultural awareness, all interviewees believed that the integration of local cultures can cultivate teachers' cultural awareness and local cultural identity. Teacher Yuan and Hu thought that the integration of local cultures was a kind of practice of core competences. Teacher Wu, Li and Chen reported that it helped students learn more local cultural knowledge. Teacher Zhang, Zhao, Peng, Fan and Hu mentioned that the integration of local cultures can improve students' ability to express local cultures in English and spread Chinese culture all over the world. Additionally, Teacher Li and Fan also mentioned that if students' ability to express local cultures was improved, local cultures could be protected and developed.
In brief, teachers' understanding of the role of local cultural integration was not the main factor that influenced their practices. For the purpose of getting a thorough understanding of the influential factors of local cultural integration, Question Four investigated what affected teachers' choices of local cultural topics and the last question in the interview was asked to explore other influential factors that affected teachers'practices of local cultural integration.
One of the important factors was the limited time in class. Many teachers complained that they didn't have enough time to complete the contents of the textbooks. Teacher Yuan explained,
English textbooks of new PEP edition are new for many teachers and contain abundant teaching contents. It takes a lot of time to finish teaching the contents in the textbooks, which makes us have little time to do other tasks, such as integrating local cultures into teaching. (ZS-20211223-Y)
Teacher Yan and Li shared the same viewpoint. Teacher Yan mentioned that there were only 40 minutes in a lesson. When integrating local cultures into teaching, she would comprehensively consider the design of the whole lesson, because she had to achieve other teaching objectives not just only the cultural objectives. Teacher Li also agreed that because of the abundant contents in a textbook, teachers had to carefully distribute the limited time to finish teaching the textbook. Teacher Ren believed that it was more difficult to control the limited time in a lesson when expanding the knowledge of local cultures. So they might ignore the integration of local cultures in their teaching sometimes in order to accomplish the teaching tasks timely. Besides, the limited time in class also influenced teachers' choices of local cultural topics. When it came to the factors that influenced teachers' choices of cultural topics, Teacher Hu reported, “The first influential factor must be the class hours. I will consider whether I can convey the cultural topic through one or two lessons” (GZ-20211227-H).
The second factor was the English teaching resources of local cultures. Regarding the influential factors, Teacher Liang mentioned the lack of the authentic English introduction and expressions of local cultures. Teacher Chen and Ren believed that the English teaching resources of local cultures were insufficient. Teacher Zhang and Wu also mentioned that their choices of local cultural topics depended on whether they could find the relevant teaching resources online.
The third factor was the requirements of examinations. Teacher Peng claimed that if the exams didn't contain the contents of local cultures, she would pay little attention to local cultural integration. Teacher Liang mentioned that whether the local cultural knowledge could be used in students'writing and reading would influence her practices of local cultural integration.
The fourth factor mentioned was the lack of local cultures in the textbooks. Teacher Yuan considered it as the main influential factor. She explained,
What influences me most is the textbooks. There exist few contents about local cultures in English textbooks, which hinders the integration of local cultures in teaching. I believe that if there is a characteristic course about local cultures, it will be meaningful for students. (ZS-20211223-Y)
Teacher Ren held the same opinion. She mentioned that because local cultures were rarely included in the textbooks, teachers had to prepare related teaching materials by themselves if they wanted to integrate local cultures into their teaching. However, teachers didn't have enough time to search for the teaching materials about local cultures.
The fifth factor was related to teachers' familiarity with local cultures. Teacher Wu believed that one of the influential factors was whether teachers were familiar with local cultures. Teacher Zhang added, “Because I am not the local people in Zhongshan City, I am not familiar with Zhongshan culture, which greatly influences the frequency of local cultural integration in teaching and my choices of local cultural topics” (ZS-20211229-Z).
The sixth factor was the requirements and the willingness of schools. Teacher Fan reported, “Many schools in Shenzhen City of Guangdong Province have strict requirements for teachers' teaching, including the teaching contents, teaching procedures and so on. Teachers have little freedom to choose the integration of local cultures in class” (SZ-20211228-F).
Students' interest was also an influential factor. Teacher Yuan explained, “I will integrate local food and tourist attractions into teaching because students are interested in these topics” (ZS-20211223-Y). Teacher Ren and Fan also agreed that they would choose the cultural topics in which their students were interested.
Last but not least, teachers also mentioned the self-characteristics of local cultures, which included the value of different local cultural topics and their connection with the topic of the teaching unit. Teacher Hu mentioned that she considered whether local cultures were representative and whether they had the value of cultivating students. Besides, more than half of interviewees believed that whether local cultures were related to the topic of the unit was also important. Teacher Chen articulated, “The topic of the teaching unit mainly influences my choice of local cultural topics. If the local culture is relevant to the unit, it will be integrated into teaching” (HZ-20211228-C). Teacher Ren gave more details. She added that if the unit was about history, she would integrate local history into teaching; if the unit was about language, she would integrate the content about the local language.
5.2Discussion
5.2.1Discussion of senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching
Based on the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview, the discussion of senior high school English teachers' practices of local cultural integration in this part is also presented from the following four aspects.
5.2.1.1Discussion of the objectives of local cultural integration
Byram (1997) mentioned that the factors in intercultural communication include knowledge, attitudes and skills. Knowledge is divided into two kinds. One is knowledge about social groups and their own cultures, and similar knowledge of other countries. The other is knowledge of the processes of interaction. Attitudes mean relativising one's own and valuing others' experience. Skills can also be divided into two categories, skills of interpretation and building relationships between two cultures, as well as skills of discovery and interaction. According to the results of the questionnaire, the mean of the objective “cultivate students' local cultural identity” was the highest, which belonged to the aspect of attitudes. What followed was the aspect of skills, which was the objective “promote students' understanding of local cultural connotations”. The next important objective was “provide local cultural knowledge”, which belonged to the aspect of knowledge. The last three important objectives were all the aspect of skills. They were “improve students' skill in
expressing local cultures in English”, “improve students' skill in comparing different cultures” and “improve students' skill in intercultural communication” in sequence. It showed that when teachers integrated local cultures, they were inclined to place more emphasis on cultivating students' attitudes towards local cultures rather than the skills.
This result can be attributed to many factors. First, The English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (2020: 2) required that “English courses should cultivate Chinese feelings and strengthen cultural confidence”, and the term “cultural confidence” appeared thirteen times, which influenced teachers' perceptions. Since Chinese cultural aphasia was put forward, cultivating students' cultural identity and cultural confidence has become necessary in language teaching. Besides, when it came to the role of integrating local cultures, over half of the interviewees connected the integration of local cultures with students' pride in their hometown and their local cultural identity. Therefore, most teachers tended to focus on cultivating students' local cultural identity when they integrated local cultures into English teaching.
Teachers' views on the objective “cultivate students' local cultural identity” differed according to the school types and cities. One of the possible reasons is that schools of different school types or schools in different cities may have diverse requirements for students' English learning. Key schools may pay more attention to students' overall development and thus emphasize cultivating students' cultural identity, while ordinary schools may focus more on improving students' scores. Schools in a city with more local cultural characteristics may require cultivating students' local cultural identity out of abundant teaching resources and the attempt to protect and develop local cultures.
Second, the development of attitudes and skills should be based on the learning of local cultural knowledge. In other words, providing local cultural knowledge for students is not the final goal but the process of achieving other objectives. Thus, providing local cultural knowledge was not the most important objective.
Third, cultivating students' skills about local cultures is not easy, which should be based on students' English level, teaching conditions and other factors. That was the possible reason why many objectives about skills were ranked behind the objective of knowledge. And in those skills, strengthening students' understanding and interpretation of local cultural connotations is comparatively easier to achieve, because it is directly linked to learning local cultural knowledge. The more students are exposed to local cultures, the more easily they may strengthen their understanding of local cultural connotations. Thus, the objective of strengthening students' comprehension of local cultural connotations was the second important one.
Fourth, with the rapid development of China and globalization, it is more and more necessary for Chinese people to tell Chinese stories well and spread Chinese culture. Over half of the interviewees agreed that the integration of local cultures was helpful for protecting, developing and spreading local cultures. Thus, except for the skill of understanding local cultural connotations, teachers paid more attention to the objective of improving students' ability to express local cultures in English.
Fifth, many teachers didn't realize the role of local cultural integration in the ability to compare different cultures and the ability of intercultural communication. As shown in the interview, when talking about the significance of local cultural integration, only two interviewees mentioned the ability to compare different cultures and few mentioned intercultural communication. Therefore, there was no doubt that these two objectives were ranked last in the questionnaire survey. However, the integration of local cultures does have positive effects on improving learners' skills in comparing different cultures and intercultural communication. Saraswati and Fadwati (2018) proved that local cultures served as a benchmark and departing point for teaching intercultural communication to students. While as a departing point, local cultures served as the initial knowledge of students before getting to understand the concept of international communication further. According to Li, Wang and Dong (2014), local cultural integration enables students to accept and understand cultures of different regions with a broader vision and an open mind, establish a correct multicultural view, and develop multicultural adaptability. Thus, teachers should realize the role of local cultural integration in these two aspects.
Teachers' views on the objective of “improve students' skills in intercultural communication” differed according to years of teaching experience. This objective was ranked last in order of importance. Not all teachers can connect the role of local cultural integration with the skill in intercultural communication. Teachers with different years of teaching experience may have various teacher training about local cultural integration and hence they may have different levels of understanding about this objective.
Although the questionnaire didn't mention the objective of improving learners' language competences, three interviewees still hoped that the integration of local cultures can increase students' learning interest and help them understand language knowledge. It reflected teachers' affirmation of the role of local cultures in language learning. It also indicated that some senior high school English teachers focused on students'language learning, considering local cultural integration as the lubricant.
Last but not least, three interviewees also mentioned that they hoped students can promote their thinking qualities through learning local cultures. It reflected that they may have a more overall comprehension of the role of local cultures.
5.2.1.2Discussion of local cultural topics
Most teachers integrated local cultures into English teaching. That was because teachers realized the significance and role of local cultures. In the interview, all teachers believed that integrating local cultures into English teaching was of great significance. However, there also existed some factors influencing teachers' practices, which will be further analyzed at the end of this chapter. Thus, many teachers just integrated local cultures into teaching once in a while rather than integrated them often, which was consistent with the findings of Wu and Li (2016), who believed that teachers integrated local cultures into teaching at a low frequency.
According to the questionnaire survey and the interview, the topics of local customs, tourist attractions and local food were most mentioned, while the topics of social systems and organizations, clothes and science were ranked in the bottom three respectively. Other local cultural topics were integrated occasionally. It indicated that the diversity of local cultures may not be well presented in teaching. It was shown from the interview that when teachers chose the topics of local cultural integration, they considered teachers' familiarity with local cultures, English teaching resources of local cultures, students' interest, the limited time in class, the relations between local cultures and the topic of the teaching unit, and significance of local cultures, which can be used to analyze the results of local cultural topics in English teaching.
Above all, many teachers considered whether the local cultural topics were relevant to units' topics in the textbooks, which was in accordance with Gonen and Saglam's (2012) findings that the strict curricula which all the teachers had to follow influenced their choice of cultural topics. According to education department of Guangdong Province, totally six editions of English textbooks are adopted by senior high schools in Guangdong Province. Take the new PEP edition as an example, seven units in all textbooks contain the contents about tourist attractions, two units are about food, while no unit is about social systems and clothes. This was one of the reasons why the topic of social systems and organizations and the topic of clothes were less integrated into teaching.
Teachers' familiarity with local cultural topics is also one of the causes of the results. If teachers are not familiar with local cultures, it will cost them much time to learn and prepare related teaching materials. And the teaching effect may be badly influenced. Thus, teachers chose their familiar topics to integrate into teaching. In those topics, local customs, tourist attractions and food are relatively more familiar and easier to master for most teachers, while the topic of local science or social systems may be more difficult and need teachers to have enough relevant knowledge to support their teaching. Besides, there are special local customs, tourist attractions and local food in almost every city in Guangdong Province. Abundant resources about these topics can be found online, which saves teachers time to prepare for a lesson. Thus, it may be easy for teachers to integrate these topics into teaching.
What's more, students' interest is important. Dang (2015) mentioned that local cultures were integrated into the basic education curriculum following the interest dominance principle, which involved selecting and structuring curriculum content based on the interest of children. According to Estuarso, Basthomi and Widiati (2017), students are most interested in tourism spots. Oyarvide and Rodtiguez (2021) found that the cultural topics in the classroom were tourism spots, festivals, traditional food, traditional dance, traditional clothes, oral discourses and traditional poems from more to less. The topics about local customs, tourist attractions and food are close to students' life, which can arouse their interest. Therefore, it was reasonable that these three topics were most frequently integrated into teaching by the participants.
5.2.1.3Discussion of the activities for local cultural integration
From the results of the questionnaire, most teachers used these activities once in a while. This finding is parallel to that of Gonen and Saglam (2012), who found that teachers didn't devote extra time to teaching culture but successfully implemented relevant aspects of culture to ease students'target language learning process.
The results showed that nearly half of the teachers often introduced local cultures based on the cultural knowledge in textbooks and used videos or other network resources to present local cultures. Teachers designed different activities to integrate local cultures into teaching in different lesson types. Besides, totally five activities were less frequently carried out by teachers.
Firstly, as for the activities that teachers used to integrate local cultures, most teachers integrated local cultures based on the cultural knowledge of textbooks. Gonen and Saglam (2012) discovered that teachers touched upon the relevant aspects of the culture when they appeared in the textbooks or when they felt the need to provide information regarding the target culture. According to the interview, when teachers considered the integration of local cultures, they would consider whether the topics of local cultural integration were relevant to the topic of the teaching unit. Besides, teachers designed teaching procedures based on the textbooks. Therefore, most teachers tended to integrate local cultures only when there was relevant cultural knowledge in the textbooks.
Secondly, no matter what lesson type, teachers liked using videos, photos or other network resources to present local cultures. It meant that teachers followed the intuitive teaching method, which was a simple way to give students intuitive visual feelings and attract their attention.
Thirdly, teachers also sometimes carried out other activities to integrate local cultures. According to the interview, teachers integrated local cultures when they teach grammar, language points, reading and writing. And they also designed some speaking tasks for students to practice expressing local cultures in English, such as role plays, discussions, speeches and dialogues. In different lesson types, teachers used different activities.
In teaching grammar, teachers created a new text about local cultures, and then used the text to teach specific grammar, or transferred the text into an exercise through which students practiced using the grammar. In teaching language points, such as new words and phrases, teachers led students to utilize these new words or phrases to make sentences about local cultures. This finding is supported by Golshan and Ranjbar (2017), who mentioned that instruction for cultural understanding was completely integrated with the assimilation of vocabulary and syntax, and it won't take time from the essential work of language learning. In reading lessons, teachers presented videos or photos about local cultures in the lead-in stage. And they also designed a task asking students to discuss something about local cultures in the post-reading part. In writing lessons, teachers asked students to write an essay or invitation letter about local cultures. Additionally, teachers also asked students to give a speech about local cultures at the start of a lesson. Because of the lack of local cultures in the textbooks, the contents of textbooks were not enough for students to understand local cultures. Sometimes teachers would give students extra-curricular audio-visual and textual materials. It can be concluded that there were no fixed forms of activities for integrating local cultures into teaching. Teachers designed the activities according to different lesson types and other teaching conditions.
Besides, in light of the interview, local cultures were integrated into different stages of the teaching procedures, which was consistent with the opinions of Wu and Li (2016). They believed that different local cultures can be organically integrated with various teaching activities. Local cultures were integrated into several teaching stages in the class, such as the lead-in, presentation and consolidation stages. According to Li, Wang and Dong's (2014) opinions on the role of local cultures on teaching procedures, local cultures, as the advance organizer in the lead-in stage, activate students' learning interest. Then, local cultures can adjust the learning rhythms of students, maintain their learning motivation, and keep them in a joyful and relaxed learning state by establishing an emotional atmosphere in the classroom during the teaching process. Moreover, as an extension of the teaching process, local cultures can also play a role in broadening learning. They explained the rationality of local cultural integration in different stages of a lesson.
There were five activities ranked the last, which were never carried out by over one fourth of the participants. The first one was “let students participate in after-class English activities related to local cultures”. Over one fourth of teachers never used this activity. In senior high schools, teachers have lots of tasks to do, so they may have no time to organize after-class English activities. Besides, senior high school students aim at being admitted to an ideal university. They have many subjects to learn and thus have great study-induced stress. Thus, most of them didn't have spare time to take part in those activities. The second one was “bring local products to the class”. Over one third of teachers never did so. One of the possible reasons was that not every teacher had the condition to bring the local products. And the function of bringing local products can be replaced by resources of videos and photos. The third one was “let students experience local cultures through field trips”. Organizing field trips is one of the teaching methods of PBE. Miller and Twum (2017) mentioned that some security problems may exist in the implementation of place-based activities. Field trips should be carried out in outdoor settings, it may cause dangers to students, especially after the outbreak of COVID-19. Therefore, many teachers were unwilling to organize field trips. The next one was “decorate the classroom with posters about local cultures”. Although it was simple to carry out, there were also more than one third of teachers who never did so. The difficulties for students to collect suitable resources online about local cultures was one of the reasons. “They do not have such authentic material to use in the classroom and the sources on the Internet may sometimes be misleading” (Gonen & Saglam, 2012). The last one was “organize the Chinese and foreign school fellowship activities to let students express local cultures in real contexts”. Almost half of the teachers never carried out this activity. Because of the limited funds, space and resources, it may be difficult to organize the Chinese and foreign school fellowships. Although it can create real contexts for students to express local cultures in English, it is often replaced by writing and speaking tasks from which teachers can easily carry out and evaluate students' culture learning.
Last but not least, the results also indicate that teachers tended to pay more attention to the activities in class, but ignored after-class activities to some extent. Learning is a course in which the learners construct the significance actively. Knowledge is not conveyed by teachers, but acquired by learners in a given circumstance with the assistance of others. Therefore, teachers should organize after-class English activities about local cultures, where students can better construct local cultural knowledge actively.
5.2.1.4Discussion of the evaluation methods of culture learning
From the results of the questionnaire survey, most participants just used these evaluation methods occasionally. It meant that many teachers didn't pay attention to the evaluation of students' learning effect of local cultures. This part discusses the results ofthe evaluation methods of students' culture learning.
First of all, the evaluation integrated into tests of listening, speaking, reading and writing was just a little bit more frequently used than formative evaluation. Teachers sometimes integrated local cultures into examinations. However, in light of the interview, most teachers were inclined to design writing tasks about local cultures in an examination to evaluate students' learning effect, with less focus on tests of listening, speaking and reading to some extent. One of the possible reasons was that teachers can easily evaluate students' local cultural learning through the accuracy and richness ofrelevant English expressions oflocal cultures in their essays.
Next, many teachers adopted formative evaluation to evaluate students' learning effect of local cultures. They observed students' interest and acceptance level of local cultures. Some teachers asked questions about local cultures and checked whether students can provide correct answers. Additionally, some teachers evaluated students' learning effect through their output of speaking and writing. There are many reasons. On one hand, examinations about local cultures only evaluate students' mastery of local cultural knowledge, which may not reflect the improvement of their cultural awareness. However, through formative evaluation, teachers are able to observe students' understanding of local cultural knowledge and their attitudes towards local cultures. On the other hand, it is a convenient and timely way to evaluate students' learning of local cultures.
Then, separate cultural knowledge tests were less used to evaluate students' learning effect. Cultivating students' cultural awareness is not the only teaching objective, and many teachers believed that the task of senior high school students was to be admitted to an ideal university. Besides, in the national college entrance examination, there is a lack of local cultures. As a result, many teachers may not take the evaluation of local cultural learning as the summative evaluation.
Last but not least, the evaluation approaches teachers often used reflect that teachers were inclined to focus more on students' knowledge of local cultures and ignored their attitudes and behaviors to some extent. Byram and Morgan (1994) claimed that students' knowledge, attitudes and behaviors should be considered in the assessment of cultural learning. However, even in the formative evaluation, teachers mainly observed whether students can correctly answer the questions about local cultures or whether they can use authentic English expressions to convey local cultures. Few teachers mentioned the ways of using students' portfolios, and carrying out questionnaire surveys and interviews to evaluate students' local cultural learning.
5.2.2 Discussion of the influential factors of local cultural integration
According to the results, the important influential factors were mainly the objective factors. Because only “limited time in class” and “limited English teaching resources about local cultures” were agreed by over two thirds of the participants, and the percentage of these two items was much higher than that of other items, this study believes that these two factors were the most crucial influential factors.
Above all, most teachers agreed that their practices of integrating local cultures were mainly influenced by limited time in class. This finding is parallel to that of Gonen and Saglam (2012), who found that teachers didn't devote extra teaching time to teaching culture because of the tight syllabus they had to follow. In senior high schools, plenty of contents should be taught in a lesson. If the teacher doesn't control the time well, the integration of local cultures may influence the realization of other teaching objectives. Additionally, according to the interview, senior high school students have a strong will to be admitted to their ideal universities, so they tend to learn more English learning strategies to improve their scores. There is insufficient time to integrate all these contents in a lesson, thus some teachers are unwilling to integrate local cultures into teaching.
Then, the second main influential factor was the limited English teaching resources of local cultures. Teachers said that it was not easy to find the authentic English expressions of local cultures and the related teaching resources. Teachers also didn't have enough time to find and prepare those suitable resources because they had lots of teaching tasks. Many schools use the new PEP edition, which costs teachers much time to research because they are not familiar with this edition. So they may ignore the integration of local cultures with the difficulties in finding relevant teaching resources.
Another five factors were also agreed upon by over half of the teachers. First, the limited teacher training was one of the influential factors. Due to the lack of teacher training, teachers may use traditional teacher-centered teaching methods to integrate culture in class (Shao & Chen, 2011). The training is very important to improve teachers' awareness of integrating local cultures into teaching and help them master the methods of local cultural integration. Thus, lack of training might influence teachers'frequency of local cultural integration and their design of relevant activities.
Second, the lack of local cultures in textbooks was an influential factor. Teachers prepared teaching materials and designed teaching procedures according to textbooks. Whether the textbooks contain the contents of local cultures influenced the frequency of local cultural integration.
Third, schools' willingness to integrate local cultures into teaching, as a subjective factor, greatly influenced teachers' practices. Though quality-oriented education has long been advocated, some schools still focus on the scores of students ignoring the cultivation oftheir cultural awareness. They focus on improving students' scores and enrollment rate, thus they perhaps just emphasize the teaching of language knowledge. According to Guo (2014), the integration of local cultures in the curriculum has not been adequately implemented due to the deep-rooted influence of exam-oriented education. Besides, some schools have strict rules on teachers' teaching procedures, and even they use consolidated teaching plans and courseware in teaching. Teachers have little freedom to adjust the teaching contents and integrate local cultures into teaching. Therefore, schools' attitudes towards local cultural integration can be a factor that influenced teachers' practices of local cultural integration.
Fourth, the lack of local cultures in examinations was also agreed by most teachers, which was in alignment with the study done by Moore (2006), who found that one of the constraints in teaching culture was that culture was not tested. Many teachers choose teaching contents according to the contents of the national college entrance examination. The lack of local cultures in examinations may decrease teachers' motivation to integrate local cultures into teaching. Besides, it also influences the methods that teachers use to evaluate students' culture learning. In English examinations of senior high schools, separate parts of testing local cultural knowledge rarely appear. As a result, most teachers were likely not to use this approach to evaluate students' local cultural learning.
Fifth, half of the teachers agreed that it was dangerous for students to experience local cultures in an outdoor environment. Miller and Twum (2017) interviewed the teachers who practiced PBE, and those teachers also mentioned safety issues. When students have field trips to learn local cultures, they may meet dangers which can be caused by weather, transport and so on. Thus, for many teachers, they wouldn't lead students to experience local cultures out of doors, which influenced their choices of activities for local cultural integration.
Compared with the above influential factors, the subjective factors of teachers and students may have less influence on teachers' practices of local cultural integration. Less than half of teachers agreed that teachers were not familiar with local cultures and they lacked the ability to integrate local cultures into teaching. Besides, nearly half ofteachers disagreed that students were not interested in local cultures and local cultural integration was insignificant. This finding is supported by the study of Estuarso, Basthomi and Widiati (2016), who found that most students were preferable to learn familiar local cultural contents. Although many teachers may be familiar with local cultures, for some teachers who were not the local people, the familiarity with local cultures did influence their frequency of local cultural integration. And the familiarity with different local cultural topics influenced their choices of the topics of local cultural integration, because teachers may be unwilling to spend time in learning and understanding the unfamiliar local cultural topics. Additionally, in many teachers' opinions, students were interested in learning local cultures. But their levels ofinterest in different cultural topics influenced teachers' choices oflocal cultural topics.
Last but not least, in the interview, teachers also mentioned some self-characteristics of local cultures. The value of different local cultural topics and their relations with the teaching units of textbooks greatly influenced their choices of local cultural topics. Teachers tended to choose some representative and valuable local cultural topics based on the topics and contents ofthe teaching units.
Chapter Six Conclusion
After the analysis and discussion of the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview, this chapter highlights the major findings of this study. And then it presents the pedagogical implications. Additionally, the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research are also mentioned.
6.1Major Findings
This study aims to find out senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching in Guangdong Province and the influential factors. According to the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview, some major findings are summarized as follows.
To begin with, in terms of the objectives of integrating local cultures into English teaching, teachers tended to emphasize cultivating students' attitudes towards local cultures rather than skills and knowledge. Teachers attached great importance to the objective of cultivating students' local cultural identity, with their views on this objective differing according to school types and cities.
Regarding the objectives of skills, teachers concentrated on enhancing students' understanding of local cultural connotations and improving students' skills in expressing local cultures in English. Fewer teachers connected the integration of local cultures with the ability to compare different cultures and the ability of intercultural communication. It indicated that teachers' understanding of the role of local cultural integration may be not comprehensive enough. Teachers should realize that the integration of local cultures in English teaching is beneficial to help students compare different cultures and improve their intercultural communication. Moreover, teachers' views on the objective of improving students' skills in intercultural communication differed according to teachers' years of teaching experience.
Second, from the aspect of local cultural topics that teachers selected to integrate into teaching, there were three topics that teachers favoured, which were local customs, tourist attractions and local food. Because of teachers' familiarity, students' interest, the relevance to the textbooks and rich teaching resources online, most teachers chose these topics. However, other topics were just integrated into teaching occasionally, so the diversity of local cultures might not be well embodied in teaching.
Third, from the perspective of the activities that teachers adopted to integrate local cultures into teaching, teachers carried out various activities in different lesson types. They often integrated local cultures based on the cultural knowledge of textbooks, and used videos and online resources to present local cultures. Besides, they were inclined to focus on the activities in class but often ignored after-class English activities to integrate local cultures into teaching to some extent.
Fourth, when it came to the evaluation methods of culture learning, most teachers just evaluated students' local cultural learning once in a while. They didn't place a high value on the evaluation of students' learning of local cultures. Many teachers combined the evaluation with the tests of listening, speaking, reading and writing. They also evaluated the effects through formative assessment, such as observing students' learning interest, asking questions about local cultural knowledge and evaluating students' output in speaking and writing. Fewer teachers adopted the separate evaluation as part of an exam, such as tests of local cultural knowledge. Besides, teachers were inclined to evaluate students' local cultural learning through speaking and writing tasks, ignoring the listening and reading tasks to some degree. What's more, the evaluation of culture learning tended to focus on students' mastery of local cultural knowledge, often ignoring the evaluation of their attitudes and behavior towards local cultures.
Fifth, most teachers were willing to integrate local cultures into English teaching, because they realized that the integration of local cultures was beneficial for students' language learning, cultural awareness and thinking qualities, and was useful to spread local cultures. However, teachers just integrated local cultures occasionally. Several factors affected teachers' practices of local cultural integration. The most significant factors were the limited time in class and limited English teaching resources about local cultures. Besides, some subjective factors, including teachers' familiarity with local cultures, teachers' abilities to integrate local cultures into teaching, students' indifference to local cultures and teachers' views on the role of local cultures, may have less influence on local cultural integration.
In conclusion, senior high school teachers' practices of local cultural integration in English teaching in Guangdong Province have yet to be improved.
6.2Pedagogical Implications
The integration of local cultures has been proven to be beneficial to students' language learning and cultural awareness. This study not only finds out senior high school teachers' practices of integrating local cultures into English teaching in Guangdong Province, but also identifies the influential factors. Considering all the results and findings, the pedagogical implications on the integration of local cultures in senior high school English teaching are summarized as follows.
First, the ministry of education, senior high schools and English teachers should pay more attention to the integration of local cultures into English teaching. Under the concept of core competences and quality-oriented education, it is required that English teaching should undertake the responsibility of cultivating people. The integration of local cultures can not only improve students' language skills but also promote their cultural identity and thinking qualities. However, the integration of local cultures in senior high school English teaching in Guangdong Province isn't frequent, which remains to be improved. According to Li, Wang and Dong (2014), for a long time, China's school education has attached great importance to universal knowledge, and ignores local knowledge, marginalizing or even excluding the knowledge closely related to students from the curriculum system. In this context, the preservation of local cultures and the advancement of local cultural identity need to be given high priority. Therefore, relevant departments, teachers and researchers should put the emphasis on local cultural integration.
Second, English teachers are suggested to comprehensively realize the value of local cultural integration. Though teachers agreed that local cultures were significant for English learning, some of them didn't realize the role of local cultures in improving students' skills in comparing different cultures and intercultural communication. Only when teachers have a thorough understanding of the role of local cultural integration can they set up suitable objectives of integrating local cultures into teaching and design reasonable activities. Thus, it is suggested that teachers promote their understanding of local cultural integration through reading monographs, attending lectures, participating in related teacher training and so on.
Third, teachers could not only integrate local cultures in class but also organize more after-class English activities for students to learn local cultures. Because of the limited time in class, many teachers don't have enough time to integrate local cultures into teaching. Therefore, teachers could try integrating local cultures after class. For instance, teachers could hold English art festivals, where students have English speech contests and writing contests about local cultures. If conditions permit, teachers could lead students to attend field trips, from which students experience local cultures themselves. After the field trips, students are required to have a discussion or report about local cultures in English.
Fourth, teachers are advised to work together to collate the English teaching resources of local cultures. Or the local education sector and schools could invite professionals to develop relevant teaching materials, and even set up English optional courses or school-based curricula on local cultures. In this way, teachers can save their time to find and prepare the teaching resources of local cultures, which brings convenience for them to integrate local cultures into English teaching. It may also create a positive atmosphere for learning local cultures.
Last but not least, it is suggested that teachers should pay more attention to the evaluation of students' local cultural learning and adopt more diversified evaluation methods. For example, teachers could try designing listening and reading tasks about local cultures for students. Besides, teachers are advised to focus more on the evaluation of students' attitudes towards local cultures as well as their behaviors. Questionnaire surveys and interviews can be carried out to get a deep understanding of students' changes in attitudes and behavior towards local cultures. And portfolio assessment can also be used to evaluate students' learning of local cultures.
6.3Limitations
Although the study has been finished, there are still some limitations that need to be improved.
Firstly, due to the limited time and interpersonal network, the research samples and range are limited. The research participants are restricted to senior high school English teachers in Guangdong Province. Only 597 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey and 12 teachers took part in the interview. Besides, there are not enough participants in some cities, such as Chaozhou City, Shanwei City, Yunfu City and Zhaoqing City. The results and findings can't be generalized to other provinces of China.
Secondly, this study just adopts a questionnaire survey and an interview to collect relevant data. The data is limited, and more detailed information can't be collected for further discussion.
Thirdly, because of inadequate knowledge, the discussion of the results of the questionnaire survey and the interview may be on a superficial level and not comprehensive.
6.4Suggestions for Further Research
In light of the above limitations, some suggestions for further studies are presented. First of all, the samples and range of the study can be enlarged. More participants from different cities of Guangdong Province should be involved in the study. If condition permits, the range of the study can be extended to the whole country. Secondly, in order to collect more information, more instruments can be adopted, such as classroom observation. And more teaching designs can be collected for further research. Thirdly, in the future study, a relevant questionnaire survey can be designed for students to ascertain the general situation of local cultural integration in senior high school English teaching.
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