Abstract: In recent years, State Education Ministry proposes the new English Curriculum Standards and stresses particularly the importance of cultivating students’ cross-cultural awareness. However, at present this cannot be easily achieved, because culture teaching is not given enough attention. This paper is to analyze the problems in culture teaching in middle schools and to emphasize the necessity of culture teaching. It then discusses the contents of culture teaching and illustrates three principles of culture teaching.

Key words: culture teaching, problems, necessity, contents, principles

摘要：近几年，国家教育部提出了新的英语课程标准，特别强调发展学生的跨文化意识。但是，由于文化教学没有受到足够的重视，这种提高学生跨文化意识的目标在目前是不可能完全实现的。本文旨在分析中学文化教学存在的问题，由此强调在英语教学中进行文化教学的必要性，并探讨文化教学的内容，指出文化教学过程中要遵循的三个原则。

关键词：文化教学，问题必要性，内容，原则