Curriculum Resources Developed In Primary School English Teachers

The past few years have witnessed the giant strides in the primary school English teaching in China. In this period, English had become a required subject in the majority of our primary schools. However, many problems, especially lack of qualified teachers, good language environment, and satisfactory class instruction, render it difficult for the primary school students'advantages of learning a language to be brought into full play and hinder the improvement of primary school English teaching. Effective development of curriculum resources is one of the feasible ways to solve these problems; however, there exist quite a number of shortcomings in the current research: some researchers'narrow understanding of curriculum resources prevents a lot of important resources from being exploited; the current research lacks adequate theoretical and empirical support, and the research methodologies need to be refined; the teachers'role in developing curriculum resources has not enjoyed prominence; and the specific characteristics of developing primary school English curriculum resources (PSECR) are not highlighted.In view of the above problems, the present study, first of all on the basis of literature, defines the core concept PSECR through induction and deduction, and then explores the theories for developing PSECR. Secondly, the study investigates and analyzes how primary school teachers in Shanghai develop curriculum resources by combining both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Finally, the study expounds the concrete strategies for developing PSECR on the basis of the theoretical and empirical researches.PSECR are resources of forming curriculum elements and direct necessary conditions of implementing curriculum. According to the purpose of this study, PSECR are further classified into student resources, teaching contents resources, instructional environmental resources, and instructional methods and activities resources. The following theories are of great importance in the practice of developing curriculum resources: four influential theories of children's language learning, Krashen's second language acquisition theory, humanism and primary school students'cognitive characteristics.The findings from the empirical method reveals that (1) in spite of their universal awareness of the importance of curriculum resources, many teachers do not have an appropriate understanding of curriculum resources, which has exerted a negative influence on the development and utilization of PSECR; (2) some teachers attach importance to curriculum resources such as modern teaching media and textbooks while failing to pay due attention to many other resources; (3) it is quite common that curriculum resources are developed and utilized at random and in simplistic ways; (4) the channels through which teachers develop and utilize curriculum resources are rather limited, and particularly they overlook some important channels, colleagues, students and libraries, to name a few; and (5) teachers are constrained from developing PSECR effectively by the scarcity of curriculum resources, their heavy work load and so on.Based on the findings and the theories, this study puts forward the following strategies for developing PSECR: (1) teachers should enhance their awareness of curriculum resources and establish their right outlook of curriculum resources; (2) to develop PSECR effectively, teachers should follow correct principles, i.e., the principles of learner-centeredness, suitability, practicality, and cooperation; (3) teachers should apply a variety of ways and means to developing rich curriculum resources, especially student resources, teaching contents resources, instructional environmental resources, and instructional methods and activities resources; and (4) teachers should enrich the channels of developing PSECR, which can help develop the resources more easily, comprehensively, and effectively.