Research On The English Overall Unit Homework Design Based On Big Ideas In Junior High Schools

Homework is an integral part of English teaching as well as an important way to test the effectiveness of teaching,and discover and diagnose students’ learning problems.At present,many problems lie in the design of English homework in junior high schools,such as the amount and the content of homework.The Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards: English(2022 Edition)advocates the overall unit homework design and lesson assignments based on unit teaching objectives.As a result,the overall unit homework design of junior high school based on big ideas comes into being,which effectively improves students’ core competencies of English discipline.Based on the framework of big ideas,the author,taking the eighth-grade students of a junior high school in Anhui Province as the research subject and adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires,interviews,and case analysis,aims to explore the following three research questions:(1)What are the current problems of English homework design in junior high schools?(2)How can English teachers of junior high schools design the overall unit homework based on big ideas?(3)How does the English overall unit homework design based on big ideas affect students’ core competencies of English discipline?The findings are as follows:(1)The current problems in English homework design in junior high schools lie in the monotonous and quite similar homework form,the fragmented homework content,and the single homework evaluation.Teachers have a biased understanding of homework functions,resulting in a lack of internal logic in unit homework design,which accordingly cannot help improve students’ core competencies of English discipline effectively.(2)When designing the overall unit homework based on big ideas,teachers construct small ideas of each lesson under the guidance of the big idea of the unit,clarifies the unit learning objectives and homework objectives,designs different types of homework,and evaluates students’ homework to promote their learning according to the various evaluation rubrics.(3)The overall unit homework design based on big ideas has a positive effect on improving students’ core competencies of English discipline.Specifically,it can effectively improve students’ language skills including listening,speaking,reading,writing,and viewing skills in terms of language ability;It can deepen students’ cognition and understanding of Chinese and western cultures to a certain extent,and promote the development of students’ cross-cultural communicative competence in terms of cultural awareness;It can help cultivate students’ logical,critical and creative thinking ability through the type of mind expansion assignments in terms of thinking skills;It can help cultivate students’ awareness and ability of autonomous learning in terms of learning capacity.In view of this,pedagogical suggestions are proposed:(1)Teachers should optimize homework design based on core competencies.(2)Teachers should clarify homework objectives and content based on big ideas,enrich homework form and reinforce homework evaluation,so as to stimulate students’ interest in learning and cultivate their ability to think actively and learn autonomously.