A Study Of The Application Of Graded English Homework In Junior High Schools

In junior high schools, the objective of English teaching is to improve students’ ability of using language comprehensively. It is also important to develop students’ emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness. As the complement of class teaching, English homework is an important process in English teaching and learning. Homework is helpful for students to understand the learning points that have been taught in class. Homework is also a good way for teachers to know students’ learning. However, in the past few decades, many researchers have devoted to the creativity of teaching methods and ignored the importance of homework, so English homework has been a weak point in English teaching and learning. The writer has been working on the application of graded English homework in junior high schools. The purpose of the paper is to study students’ learning interest motivated by graded English homework and the effectiveness of graded English homework. The subjects are 97 students from two parallel classes in a junior high school. The instruments such as questionnaire, interview and experiment have been employed in the study. The study lasts for two months. Based on the Humanism, Zone of Proximal Development, Multiple-intelligence theory, the writer designed graded English homework in the experimental class. In the control class, the writer still employs the traditional homework. According to students’ scores in the pretest and daily performance, the writer has divided the students into three grades. Grade A refers to higher level students, grade B refers to medium level students and grade C refers to lower level students. According to students’ reality, the writer designed different homework for students in different grades. The homework for grade A is a little harder, for grade B is moderate and for grade C is easier. Two months later, the writer collects and analyzes data from the interview and the experiment. The findings show that the graded English homework can motivate students’ learning interest and has a positive effect on students’ learning achievement. In general, the students have made progress in the experimental class compared with the control class. Besides that, in the experimental class, students in each grade have made much progress compared with pretest especially the lower and higher level students have made much progress.