On The Development Of A Student-centered School-based English Course

School-based Curriculum Development ( SBCD), which was attached great importance by a couple of western countries like the U.S.A. and the U.K., was initiated in the 1970s. As a reaction to national curriculum planning which used to be over-centralized, SBCD, based on each individual school, can be a kind of progressive strategy that can fully meet students' and teachers' demands. Most of countries are trying to keep a balance between School-based Curriculum Development and National-based Curriculum Development so as to seek a new model for the curriculum reform.With the formulation of a documentary on secondary educational curriculum reform in June, 1999, an attempt is being made to establish a new curriculum system of secondary education in China. One of the major tasks of secondary educational reform is to implement a new policy of "three-level curriculum" administration, which is expected to gradually change the over-centralized curriculum system to a more democratic one, with local and school-based curriculum as an indispensable supplement to the national curriculum planning. Therefore, SBCD is in the spotlight in the new round secondary educational curriculum reform. More and more researchers are trying to devote themselves to the studies of SBCD.In recent years, a couple of secondary key schools in China have pioneered in the reform of SBCD and achieved good results and gained rich experience. However, the researches into school-based English course development at secondary school level are rare. The author of this thesis tries to explore the suitable ways to develop students-centered school-based English course at secondary school level in present situation through studies of the theoretical basis of SBCD.Moreover, the author investigates the progress of school-based English course between two classes in Grade Nine at Wuhan Zhong Jia Cun Middle School to testify the aim of the school-based course "Chinese and American Culture", which is supposed to develop students' integrated competence. The course has been divided into four parts, namely, the cultural meaning of words and idioms, the comparison between Chinese traditional festivals and American festivals, the rules of spoken English. Each part is further divided into a couple of more specific aspects which are supposed to completely meet students' demands. Flexible utilization of advanced ways of course organization can be found during this course. Students are encouraged to study in groups, in cooperation and they are urged to pursue the truth by themselves. In this way, students can enjoy their success in the process of achieving their tasks and aims. They are expected to learn to control their emotions, come up with good learning strategies and form positive attitudes of study. Moreover, the author has made an interview as well as an investigation by questionnaire with some English teachers and parents in Hanyang District so as to get more information about their attitudes towards SBCD.This course, on the one hand, is testified to be feasible and can arouse most students' interest of learning English to a certain extent. Teachers can help students to foster the ideas of intercultural communication, develop their integrated competence of learning and using English and guide them to study in cooperation. On the other hand, the course has a few deficiencies as well. The experiment was only carried out for one semester in two classes in one grade in one school. The theory can be more systematical and more perfect if further investigations can be made.