An Investigation On Junior High School English Homework For The Cultivation Of Thinking Quality

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)clearly puts forward thinking quality as one of the core competencies of the English curriculum for the first time,making the cultivation of thinking quality a universal goal for all students to learn English at the primary education stage.As an important part of English teaching and a significant way for students to develop their thinking in English,English homework needs to serve the core competence objectives of English language subject to promote the development of students’ thinking quality.However,in teaching,the role of English homework in developing students’ thinking ability is not valued and there are only a few studies that relate the cultivation of thinking quality to English homework.In order to arouse teachers’ awareness of the cultivation of students’ thinking quality and to further play the role of homework in developing students’ English thinking ability,research was conducted on the status quo of junior high school English homework.Based on the above,this research focuses on the following questions:(1)what is the status quo of English homework in junior high school,and is it conducive to cultivating students’ thinking quality?(2)in terms of thinking quality cultivation,what are the problems in the current junior high school English homework design and what are the causes of the problems?The research first involved 150 students answering a questionnaire.Then 5 students and4 teachers were interviewed respectively based on the results of the questionnaire.The research found: first,the homework objectives all point to the cultivation of low-order thinking,that is,most of them stay in low-level cognitive processes and focus on the cultivation of logical thinking ability;second,the difficulty level of homework seldom takes the laws and differences of students’ thinking development into consideration,that is,on one hand,the cultivation of thinking ability focuses merely on low-order thinking;and on the other hand,due to the lack of stratified homework,students with strong learning ability lack opportunities to further improve their thinking skills,while students with weak learning ability cannot develop their thinking quality for their language ability,and thus homework is not effective;third,homework content is always mechanical and repetitive.To be specific,most activities are designed for learning and comprehension,such as word transcription,word conversion exercise,grammar practice,etc.,and few activities designed for application,transfer,and innovation are included,which also results in the rigid form of the homework product and the participant.The main reasons for the above problems are: first,due to teachers’ lack of understanding of the concept of thinking quality,the objectives of homework are influenced by teaching objectives,resulting in a narrow focus and utilitarianism;second,there is a lack of interaction between teachers and students,that is,teachers do not provide homework options based on the analysis of students and students themselves are less likely to feedback problems in homework to teachers;third,teachers lack the awareness of designing homework of their own and rely on exercise books that are similar to the senior high school entrance examination.Hence,the research makes the following suggestions for teachers to design junior high school homework for the cultivation of thinking quality,that is,first,take the curriculum standard as the guide in homework design and strengthen the awareness of thinking ability cultivation;second,take the unit as the basis to consider homework objectives as a whole to reserve space for the homework aiming to the development of high-order thinking;third,choose diversified activities to gradually promote students’ thinking ability from low-order to higher-order.