An Investigation On Junior High English Unit Homework Design In Double Reduction Context

Homework is the extension of classroom teaching and an important channel for students to improve their ability.It is also the key link of curriculum,teaching and evaluation.Homework includes rituals like analysis,design,evaluation,and feedback,etc.,among which design is the core.Homework design is beneficial to students’ core competence,but researchers found that there are some problems in homework design such as scattered content,neglect of students’ individual needs,and lack of context,which easily contribute to consequences like students’ excessive homework load and heavy burden.In 2021,Double Reduction policy was issued,which clearly pointed out that students’ heavy homework burden should be relieved by reducing the amount and time of homework and improving the quality of homework.The 2022 edition of the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education proposes that teachers should have an integrated concept of "teaching-learning and-evaluation",and homework,a key link in this concept,should also be valued.In recent years,researchers have conducted research on unit homework and found that unit work can increase the efficiency of homework and reduce students’ academic burden compared with traditional scattered homework.Based on aforementioned background,this research puts forward two research questions: 1.What is the current situation of junior high English unit homework design in Double Reduction context? What are the difficulties junior high English teachers have in unit homework design in Double Reduction context? In order to explore these questions,qualitative and quantitative research methods to conduct a semi-structured interview with five English teachers in Grade 8 of X Middle School in Ziyang,a questionnaire survey on 424 eighth-grade students,and unit homework sampling were applied to get data.Findings on the current situation of junior high English unit homework design are as the following.In analyzing stage,teachers’ analysis of relevant factors is not systematic and comprehensive.In designing stage,the content and form of the unit homework involved are not heuristic to thinking,not integrative,and not coordinative.In feedback stage,the subject and methods of feedback are relatively unitary and not personalized,thus some students cannot get progress from the feedback.In addition,for various reasons,teachers lack reflection on unit homework design.Therefore,the teachers’ complete chain of unit homework design has not formed yet.Substantially,the teachers pay too much attention to the time requirement of Double Reduction policy so that other aspects of unit homework are ignored.In Double Reduction context,the difficulties junior high school English teachers have in designing English unit homework can be divided into three aspects: deviation of unit homework conception,deficiency in professional ability,and obstruction of management mechanism.Based on the results,this research provides some suggestions on unit homework design and tries to offer some ideas for front-line teachers and schools.