An Investigation Into The Senior High School English Integrative Unit Teaching Based On The Thematic Meaning

It is proposed in the English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017Version 2020 Revised)that importance should be attached to the thematic meaning in English teaching.Meanwhile,the integrative unit teaching objectives should be set to develop students’ core competences.Besides,textbooks should be compiled in the theme-oriented and activities-focused way in order to change the long-existing phenomenon of fragmented teaching which only values knowledge and skills.So far,most of the related researches have focused on demonstrating the significance of integrative unit teaching and discussing its design strategies.Although both teachers and students are the main participants in the teaching process,teachers play a decisive role in putting the method of integrative unit teaching into practice.However,for front-line teachers,attention has rarely been paid to their understanding and practice situation of integrative unit teaching based on the thematic meaning and the factors that influence their choice of this teaching method.The development of integrative unit teaching on theory and practice can only be better and more effectively implemented by keeping close to the teaching reality and clarifying the problems and influencing factors in the implementation.Therefore,it is of great significance to analyze high school English teachers’ understanding and practice situation of this teaching method and find out the factors that affect their choice.This research aims to answer the following three questions: 1.How do high school English teachers understand integrative unit teaching based on the thematic meaning? 2.How do high school English teachers practice integrative unit teaching based on the thematic meaning? 3.What are the factors that affect teachers’ use of integrative unit teaching based on the thematic meaning? Questionnaire survey and interview analysis have been adopted in this study to investigate teachers’ understanding situation and the influencing factors.As to the practice of integrative unit teaching,the method of questionnaire survey supplemented by classroom observation has been taken to deal with the following aspects: using frequency,attention to the thematic meaning,integration of teaching content,setting of teaching objectives,logic in the teaching process and situation of unit output activities.The findings of this study are as follows:Firstly,the vast majority of teachers have a certain understanding of integrative unit teaching,but the degree of understanding varies.Most teachers hold a positive attitude towards it and they acknowledge its role in deepening students’ understanding of knowledge,promoting orderly teaching,promoting students’ critical thinking ability,and improving students’ interest in learning.But some teachers also question its time consumption and the efficiency in improving students’ language proficiency.Teachers have learned about this teaching method mainly through lectures and foreign language teaching publications.Secondly,the frequency of using integrative unit teaching is not high,and there are also problems such as lacking attention to the thematic meaning,neglecting the integration of teaching content,ignoring the evaluation of teaching content and lacking logic in the teaching process.However,most teachers do better in setting teaching objectives according to the English Curriculum Standards,taking output and evaluation activities,and paying attention to be student-centered.Thirdly,the most important factors that affect teachers’ use of integrative unit teaching are lack of awareness of its effectiveness,lack of time and energy,and lack of designing strategies.In actual teaching,teachers are perplexed about the designing strategies of integrative unit teaching,the integration of teaching content and the design of logical teaching activities.Based on the above findings,the implementation of integrative unit teaching can be promoted from the perspective of deepening teachers’ understanding and optimizing practice strategies.Schools can help teachers to know more about it by holding academic lectures,encouraging publication of the related papers and preparing lessons together so as to solve teachers’ confusion in designing strategies and teaching processes.Teachers should break the traditional ideological concepts centered on the training of listening,speaking,reading and writing and pay more attention to the process of students’ knowledge construction.In practice strategies,the existing problems can be solved by foregrounding the thematic meaning,integrating unit content according to thematic meaning,formulating teaching objectives according to the English Curriculum Standards and teaching content,focusing on the logic of the teaching process,optimizing the evaluation system and promoting the consistency of teaching,learning and evaluation.