A Study On Effectiveness Of English Reading Course In Junior High Schools Under The Background Of Cultivating Core Competencies

The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022-Edition)clearly states that the overall objective of the English curriculum during the compulsory education stage is to develop linguistic competence,cultivate cultural awareness,improve thinking quality,and enhance learning ability,that is,cultivating students’ English core competencies.Reading teaching plays an important role in broadening students’ horizons and improving their linguistic competence,thinking quality and learning ability and cultural awareness.Reading teaching and cultivating students’ English core competencies complement and promote each other.Based on the above-mentioned situation,the researcher wants to investigate the effectiveness of English reading courses under the background of cultivating core competencies.On the basis of the classroom observation and questionnaires,supplemented by interview and test,this thesis focuses on the following questions.1.What is the current situation of English reading teaching in the junior high school under the background of cultivating core competencies? 2.What are the reasons due to the current situation of English reading teaching in the junior school under the background of cultivating core competencies ? 3.How effective is the implementation of the core competencies in English reading teaching in junior high schools?Based on the above three questions,306 students and 6 teachers from a municipal junior high school in Zhucheng have participated in questionnaires,interviews and tests.The researcher and 4 other English teachers participate in 18 reading lessons of 6 teachers and finishes the classroom observation.The data is analyzed by SPSS26.0 statistical software,and the following conclusion are drawn upon through the collected data with qualitative and quantitative methods used in the text analysis:Teachers explore the cultivation of students’ core competencies actively and have their own understanding of them.It can be seen that core competencies have been taken into the practice instead of theory,which was compared with the first proposal.But there are still some problems in English reading teaching classes."Free-style" reading teaching model has still been carried out by some teachers and a small number of teachers still adhere to the theory of textbooks and experience-orientation to decide the content and goals.At the same time,grammar translation approach has been deeply rooted in some teachers’ reading teaching model.What’s more,homework after reading is a mere formality and the assignments have nothing to do with the reading material itself.However,the reasons which cause the current situation are summarized as follow in two aspects.Objective Reasons:Firstly,in the background of educating for examination,most teachers select teaching contents according to paper tests.However,grammars and vocabulary are the main objects of examination.So parsing grammars and teaching vocabulary are occupying vast time.Secondly,lacking of training opportunities and incomplete training content,teachers cannot comprehend core competencies thoroughly.On the other hand,that is subjective reasons:Some teachers would not like to accept new things and hold an attitude of exclusion to change their teaching methods which have been used for many years.SO teacher-centered teaching classes textbook-decided teaching contents and test-guided teaching objectives are the situations of English teaching classes.In the light of the above three questions,some teaching suggestions are proposed,on the basis of Holistic Education and Communicative Teaching Method,under the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022-Edition)and the researcher’s understanding,teaching practice and experience.The researcher puts forward some suggestions for reading teaching under the background of cultivating core competencies.Firstly,giving full play to the dominant position of students and insisting on educating students.Secondly,insisting on implementing and designing in teaching-learning-evaluation consistency.Teaching refers to design teaching goals and activities on the basis of objectives and contents of cultivating core competencies.Learning refers to the dominant role of students,the leading role of teachers in learning process.Evaluation refers to the monitoring role during teaching process.Teachers should advocate pluralism of evaluating subjects,models and contents,and the evaluation must reflect the request of cultivating students core competencies.Thirdly,strengthening the links between teaching materials,and adhere to the overall teaching of the unit.Fourthly,studying the text material in a in-depth way,adhering to reading teaching on a real meaning.Fifthly,holding onto the theory of English-activity view,persevering in the implementation of various English activities in before-during-after reading segments.Generally speaking,teachers have abandoned the traditional English reading-teaching models,and explored ways to develop linguistic competence,cultivate cultural awareness,improve thinking quality,and enhance learning ability actively.It’s a long route to convert ideas and put them into practice,but the English reading courses,under the background of cultivating core competencies,are carried out notably in terms of cultivating students’ core competencies.