An Investigation Of Developing English Expression Ability Of Junior Secondary Students Oriented By English Core Competences

Since UNESCO presented the concept in the 20th century,"Core competences" has become the main direction of educating talents.It means that talent cultivation transforms the concept from "instrumental" to "humanistic".This change also brings challenges to English language teaching in our country.In 2017,English Course Standards first mentioned four core competences,including "Language competence","Thinking quality","Cultural awareness" and "Learning ability".As the "core" of the four core competences,language competence refers to the ability to understand and express in the scene.As a communicative language,the language expression ability is an important part of language competence.It includes written expression ability and verbal expression ability.These are also the weakness of junior high students under the traditional English teaching model.As an advanced teaching concept and strategy;"Cooperative learning" has been paid attention and widely used in English basic education in China.It is regarded as one of the most effective teaching methods in recent decades.Cooperative learning is a student-centered teaching method.Under teachers’ guidance,students develop their comprehensive language abilities through cooperative learning in groups.In this new era,the cooperative learning may be a solution to improve students’ language expression ability oriented by English core competences.This study aims to verify:1.whether cooperative learning can improve students’language expression ability in junior high school English teaching;2.Compared with traditional teaching methods,how to design teaching plans to carry out cooperative learning;3.Whether cooperative learning can improve students’ leaning attitude and methods oriented by English core competences.This research mainly adopts the research methods of experiment,questionnaire and interview.In experimental class,five new courses are selected from six units,and cooperative learning is implemented for total thirty classes for three months.In the same situation of teaching content,teaching process,learning difficulty and the teacher,the traditional teaching mode is used in the control class.Comparing these two classes,this study argues the hypothesis that cooperative learning is more effective in improving students’English expression ability than traditional English teaching method.The results of this study show that compared traditional English teaching model,cooperative learning can improve students’English expression ability.Through communication and cooperation in groups,good study attitude and leaning habits are formed.In this way,junior high school students develop better learning attitude and methods and improve their English expression ability.