A Study On Students’ English Classroom Engagement Of Senior High School In Pubei County

With the implementation of the new curriculum reform,quality-oriented education has been given much importance which requires teachers to give priority to students’ subjectivity.Student engagement,as an important part of classroom teaching activities,is the direct manifestation of student subjectivity.However,due to the impact of the examination—oriented education,teachers are inclined to speak all the time with few discussions and interactions with students and provide less chance for students to engage in teaching activities.In the long run,students’ enthusiasm of the involvement would be weakened.Therefore,the present study attempts to investigate the status quo of senior high school student engagement in English classroom in Pubei County,the facilitative factors on student engagement and analyze the differences of students’ English classroom engagement between the ordinary and demonstrative senior high school.On the basis of the results,some effective suggestions are put forward for the improvement of students’ involvement.This study,based on Constructivism and Humanism learning theory,investigates 285 senior high school students and 6 English teachers in Pubei County by adopting questionnaire,interview and classroom observation.The questionnaire with the reliability coefficient being.843 refers to Professor Kong Qiping’s questionnaire.The study aims to answer the following questions:(1)What is the overall situation of senior high school students’ English classroom engagement?(2)What are the differences of student engagement in English classroom between the ordinary and demonstrative senior high school?(3)What are the facilitative factors on student engagement?According to the result,the major findings are presented as follows.(1)The current situation of students’ English classroom engagement in senior high school is relatively satisfactory on the whole.Students’ behavioral engagement is superior to cognitive and affective engagement.Most of the students are concentrative on attending class,taking down notes and responding to teacher’s directions.Yet some of the students tend to rely on teachers and memorize knowledge mechanically so their cognitive engagement needs to be improved.(2)Significant differences of students’ English classroom engagement are found between the ordinary and demonstrative senior high school.The students in demonstrative school perform better.(3)The factors that facilitate students to actively engage in English classroom mainly include three aspects: the respect of teachers(well-designed teaching,humorous teaching style and positive feedback),student aspect(keen interest,strong self-efficacy,confidence)and classroom environment(positive,harmonious class atmosphere,and affective teacher-student relationship).Based on the above findings,some suggestions are put forward for both the teachers and students.For the teachers:(1)creating harmonious and positive class atmosphere;(2)providing positive feedback toward students’ class performance;(3)offering training and guidance to students’ strategy in learning English;(4)Establishing proper teaching view;(5)employing diverse teaching approaches flexibly.As for the students:(1)developing the habit of self-autonomous and inquiry;(2)applying appropriate learning strategies to solve problems they encounter in learning English;(3)strengthening the awareness of subjective status;(4)enhancing self-efficacy.Due to the small size of samples,short time spent on classroom observation and the limited research perspectives,there are some shortcomings in this study.In view of these inadequacies,future studies should enlarge the size of samples,extend the time of classroom observation and carry out the research from more perspectives,such as a case study.