A Study Of Overall Unit Instructional Design For The Cultivation Of English Key Competencies

English Curriculum Standards for General High School(2020 Revised Edition)clearly states that the specific goal of the English curriculum for general high schools is to cultivate and develop students’ English key competencies.In this context,high school English teachers should reflect the cultivation of English key competencies in their teaching design.However,senior high school English teachers often lack the awareness of integrated arrangement in class design.As a result,many classrooms occur imperfection or conflicts,such as fragmentation of teaching contents,rigid teaching methods and less variable assessment methods.Overall unit instructional design,on the other hand,is goal-oriented and can effectively construct connections between units and sections within the unit,which is helpful for developing students’ key competencies.It provides a breakthrough for the effective implementation of key competencies.Based on this background,this study takes a key senior high school as a case study to investigate the current situation of overall unit instructional design and students’ English key competencies in this school.It also explores a model of overall unit instructional design suitable for the key senior high school and investigates the effectiveness of the implementation of this model of overall unit instructional design for the cultivation of students’ English key competencies in this school as well.Students in two sophomore classes(one experimental class and one control class)participant in this study as research subjects.The author first confirms that the two classes are eligible for the experiment based on the independent t-test results of the pretest.At the same time,the author conducts questionnaire investigation and interviews among the teachers to find out their perception of overall unit instructional design and the current situation of its implementation.Questionnaires are also administered to the students in both classes to find out the current situation of students’ English key competencies.During the teaching experiment,the author implements overall unit instructional design in the experimental class and non-overall teaching method in the control class.Finally,the author compares and analyzes the results of the questionnaires and students’ interviews in the experimental class to investigate the effects of the implementation of overall unit instructional design on the students.The major findings demonstrate that:(1)In the key senior high school,English teachers have a more superficial perception of overall unit instructional design,and the implementation of the approach is less than ideal.The overall status of students’ English key competencies is at an intermediate level.(2)Key senior high school students prefer overall unit instructional design to non-overall teaching approach.Based on this,a model of overall unit instructional design for the cultivation of English key competencies is summarized and constructed.The model includes four phases: analysis,design,implementation and evaluation.And a teaching experiment is conducted.(3)After a semester-long experiment,students’ performance in the classroom becomes more positive and all four dimensions of English key competencies has improved,especially in the areas of language ability and thinking quality.It is proved that the model of overall unit instructional design for improving English key competencies is effective.Based on the above findings,this study suggests several pedagogical implications.There is still room for improvement in key senior high school English teachers’ perception of overall unit instructional design and the English key competencies of key senior high school students.This still needs to be given attention.Teachers need to be flexible in designing the model of overall unit instructional design that is suitable for different students’ English learning according to their individual characteristics and differences.Teachers should make full use of the positive impact of overall unit instructional design on cultivating English key competencies.Teachers use overall unit instructional design as the basis for integrating the content of teaching materials.In the meantime,the English optional compulsory students’ book 4 of New Senior English for China(2019 Edition)published by People’s Education Press is chosen as an example and the author designs a case study based on the model of overall unit instructional design to provide some suggestions for English teachers.