From Cultural Cognition to Global Competence: A Teaching Design for Cultivating Intercultural Communicative Competence through Festival Discourse

Abstract

Festival-themed discourses are important carriers of cultural connotations in high school English textbooks. However, current teaching practices often remain at the level of language knowledge explanation and superficial cultural comparison, lacking systematic cultivation of intercultural communicative competence and global competence. Taking the reading lesson Spring Festival from the Beijing Normal University High School English Textbook (Book 1, Unit 3) as a case study, and drawing on the three-dimensional framework of intercultural competence (cognitive understanding, affective attitudes, and behavioral skills) proposed by the Intercultural Research Center of Shanghai International Studies University, this paper designs layered and progressive teaching activities. It guides students from interpreting cultural differences between China and other countries to exploring the global dissemination of local culture, achieving an advancement from "cultural cognition" to "cultural identity" and then to "intercultural action," ultimately aiming at the cultivation of global competence. Teaching practice shows that this design effectively enhances students' cultural critical thinking, national pride, and international perspective, providing a feasible paradigm for festival-themed teaching in high school English.