On English Homework Design And Its Practice In Junior High School Based On English Core Competencies

The English core competencies covers four aspects: language competencies,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability,aiming to improve students’ awareness of lifelong learning and improve their overall quality.This concept has been gradually applied in the field of English teaching.In recent years,students’ heavy homework burden and learning pressure have caused wide attention of society.Homework is an important tool to consolidate knowledge and learning but lacks innovation and perfection.Therefore,how to improve English homework design has also attracted the attention of front-line teachers.The main research questions in this study are as follows:(1)What are the English homework design problems existed in current junior high school ?(2)How should teachers design English homework based on English core competencies to solve these urgent problems?(3)Whether the English homework design based on English core competencies was effective in improving students’ English academic performance?To answer these questions,the present study recruited 108 students and 7teachers from Qu Jiang Junior High School in Shao Guan city,Guangdong Province as research subjects,analyzed the current situation of homework design in junior high school by questionnaires and interviews and tried to adopt tests to verify whether the homework design based on English core competencies effectively improved students’ English academic performance.Through the analyses of questionnaires and interviews,the results showed that there were problems with the current junior high school English homework design.Firstly,the homework type was too simple and lacked flexibility,and meanwhile,homework was still based on supplementary materials.Secondly,the homework content was not rich and creative enough to relate to students’ real life.Thirdly,the burdensome amount of homework should attract people’s attention as it may lower students’ learning enthusiasm.In view of the above problems,the author advised that English teachers shouldcomprehensively consider all kinds of factors.Under the guidance of the English core competencies,the Multiple Intelligence and Constructive theory,different types of homework should be designed for fostering students’ learning ability,language ability,thinking quality and cultural awareness in order to improve students’ academic performance.Based on the students’ learning ability,the author proposed self-exploration homework to develop students’ ability of self-motivated studying.Based on the students’ language competence,the author argued that it was necessary to design accumulative homework and skills-training homework for fostering their language competence.For the cultivation of creative thinking ability,teachers should pay more attention to homework design: thinking-training type.As for the cultivation of students’ cultural character,much significance should be attached to mutual cooperative and pragmatic homework for the sake of students’ overall development.Through the analyses of pre-test and post test between control class and experimental class,the English homework design based on English core competencies effectively improved students’ academic results.