A Study On Classroom Activities In Senior High School English Reading Class Under The English Disciplinary Competence Framework

The National English Curriculum Standard for General High School(2017Edition)highlights the specific contents of English subject core competencies and clarifies the collect values,essential characters and key competencies.As an important part in English teaching in senior high school,reading class is of great significance in terms of cultivating students’ competence.On the basis of activity-based approach to English learning,this study investigated the cultivation of students’ English disciplinary competencies in senior high school English reading class under the English disciplinary competence framework constructed by professor Wang.Twenty-one demo-classes were chosen from the National Association of Foreign Language Education of the Chinese Society of Education.By classroom observation and content analysis,the research aimed to explore classroom activities in senior high school reading class.Specifically,this study attempted to answer the following two questions:(1)What are the features of classroom activities implemented by senior high school English teachers in terms of type,time allocation,and interactive modes under the English disciplinary competence perspective?(2)How effective are these classroom activities in cultivating students’ English disciplinary competencies?The major findings are presented as follows:(1)There were some obvious characteristics of classroom activities in senior high school English reading class.In terms of activity type,there existed a big gap between the comprehension activities(CA)(50.78%)and the other two kinds of activities,application activities(AA),26.15% and innovation activities(IA),23.07%.In terms of time allocation of these activities,the average percentages of the three first-level activities per class were 44.12%,35.29%,20.59% respectively.As for the interactive modes,most teachers adopted the T-SS interactive mode and T-S interactive mode.However,the interactive mode that students liked most was Ss-Ss.To some extent,this reflected that the implemented classroom activities targeted more at students’ competence at lower cognitive level,with those of at higher order being neglected.In addition,the distribution of interactive models showed teacher-centered classroom activities were still prevalent.(2)Among one hundred and thirty classroom activities,57.69% of them were between effective and very effective.On the whole,the effectiveness of CA was better than that of AA and IA.Based on the above findings,this study proposed three suggestions for high school English teachers:(1)Keep pace with curriculum reform and upgrade their theoretical knowledge.(2)Design classroom activities at different levels to cultivate students’ disciplinary competencies.(3)Be student-centered and encourage students to participate in the classroom activities.