Abstract: With the development of the society and the frequency of cross-cultural communication, people gradually find that due to the lack of profound knowledge of the Western culture, embarrassments, misunderstandings and even conflicts often arise when they communicate with Westerners, which indicates that foreign language teaching cannot keep pace with the development of the society. Culture teaching should have an important place in English classroom teaching. It is impossible to learn English well without knowing its culture. Through the survey conducted in primary schools, the author has found that students lack the knowledge of the differences between their own culture and the culture of the target language. Therefore, it is concluded that culture teaching is indispensable to English teaching in primary schools. Teachers ought to enable students to know the culture of English-speaking countries so as to improve students’ cultural awareness and lay foundations for their future learning.

Key words: language and culture; English teaching; primary schools; culture teaching

摘要：随着经济的发展，对外交流频率的增加，人们逐渐发现：由于缺乏对西方文化的了解，我们在与英美人士进行交流的过程中常常出现各种各样的交流问题，这使得纯粹的语言教学无法适应社会的发展需求。“文化教学”已成为一种必要，并且应该在小学英语教学中占有重要地位。学习英语就必须了解目的语文化。本文通过对小学英语教师以及小学生的调查研究，发现小学生缺乏对中英文化差异的了解，语言能力差，在交际方面，因语言使用不当常发生失误。因此，笔者认为，小学阶段英语教学中应包含文化教学，教师应让学生了解英美文化，从而增强学生的文化意识，为学生今后更高阶段的学习打下扎实的基础。

关键词：语言与文化   英语教育   小学   文化教学