A Study On Aesthetic Education In Junior High School English Teaching

Aesthetic education is a kind of education to cultivate the healthy view of aesthetics and to develop the students’ ability to appreciate and create beauty. Aesthetic education plays an important role in cultivating the students’ all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical body, aesthetics and labor. Aiming to meet the demand of human all-round development and explore the relationships between aesthetic education and quality-oriented education, this thesis studies the current situation of implementing aesthetic education in junior high schools in China.This study is conducted by employing the documentary method, textual analysis, questionnaire and interview in the light of input hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis, reception aesthetics theory, and subjectivity education theory. The procedure of this study contains three steps: elaborating on questionnaires from Yantai Foreign Language Experimental School, Tashan Middle School and Huangguan Middle School in Weihai City to analyze the collected data and information concerning aesthetic education in junior high schools; analyzing the interviews with 10 junior high school English teachers and the questionnaires that have been collected, and sorting out the problems existing in the aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching; adopting appropriate strategies to work out effective ways of implementing aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching on the basis of the interviews, questionnaires and relevant theories.There are three interrelated questions in the thesis:1. How much do the English teachers in junior high school understand the importance of integrating aesthetic education in English teaching?2. What is the current situation of aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching?3. What measures should be adopted to implement aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching to correspond to the quality-oriented education?The analysis of the questionnaires and interviews has revealed three points, that is, the junior high school English teachers’ understanding of aesthetic education, the implementation of aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching process, and the awareness of improving junior high school English teachers’ qualities. Although English is one of the major subjects in junior high schools, its teaching is still conducted in the traditional way to impart the basic knowledge and to cultivate the basic language skills. In order to meet the demand of quality-oriented education and to cultivate the students’ all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical body, aesthetics and labor, it is of great necessity and significance to make an in-depth study of aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching. Through the analysis of the result from the questionnaires and interviews, this thesis proposes that junior high school English teachers can better integrate aesthetic education into the English teaching process by taking such effective measures as promoting their awareness of the importance of aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching, by attaching equal importance to knowledge and language skills and the beauty of English in terms of literary and aesthetic connotations as well, by making better use of the textbooks in use to figure out the aesthetic elements for explanation and analysis in classroom teaching, and by adopting various methods of lead-in to stimulate the students’ sense organs for images of aesthetic beauty which can effectively arouse the students’ interest in learning English. The results of this study indicate that, under the guidance of English Curriculum Standard and the requirements of the quality-oriented education, the teachers’ capacity of implementing aesthetic education has improved, though there are still many problems in implementing aesthetic education in junior high school English teaching.In short, aesthetic education is so important that it should not be separated from the English teaching in junior high schools. In order to meet the requirements of quality-oriented education, it’s high time for us to reform the traditional English teaching mode by taking positive steps to make aesthetic education and English teaching fully integrated in junior high schools.