An Investigation Of Advance With English Project Section Teaching

Since 2005, Advance with English has been widely used in high schools in Jiangsu, China. In this edition, a new section named Project became a highlight. This section takes the idea of Project-based Learning, which happens to share the same view with the concepts of the new curriculum reformation in our country. That is to emphasize active learning attitude, integrative and interdisciplinary learning, information gathering and synthesizing, problem solving and the ability to communicate and cooperate with others. However, in all these years teaching practice, the author finds that most schools do not make full use of this new section. They either lay less emphasis or totally ignore it. Thus, after Advance with English has been used for five years, the author carried out an investigation, trying to figure out how teachers in Wujiang City deal with this section in their teaching process. The investigation includes questionnaire and interview on some teachers and students in three high schools of Wujiang, aiming to answer the following questions:(1) What are teachers'and students'comments on the design of Project section?(2) What are the teaching methods in teaching Project section?(3) How are students stimulated to take part in learning and doing projects?(4) Are the design objectives of Project section realized in the teaching process?(5) What are the defects or problems in the teaching process of Project section?The whole thesis consists of six parts. The first part is an introduction of the research background, and it also deals with the purpose and significance of the study, the research methods and some relevant concepts used in the thesis. The second part (Chapter One) is a literature review of Project-based learning both in China and abroad. The third part (Chapter Two) concerns the theoretical study, discussing about constructivism learning theory, Dewy's "Learning by doing" concept and the role of teaching materials in the new curriculum reformation. In the fourth part (Chapter Three), an investigation was conducted to learn about how Project section was dealt with in Wujiang City, Jiangsu Province by means of questionnaire and interview. After an analysis of the data, the causes which affect the effective conduction of Project section is trying to be found out in Chapter Four. Meanwhile, Chapter Five draws the conclusions and offers some suggestions to the teachers and the redevelopment of the textbook.From the investigation and interview, the author has found that the majority of the teachers acknowledge the degisn of Project section and realize that it is good for students'overall development by using English while doing projects. However, with the current college entrance examination system and the limited teaching periods, neither the teachers nor the students are enthusiastic about carrying out projects in their English classes. Therefore, the author thinks it is necessary to redesign the textbook in a proper way and to give teachers more instructions and guidance in teaching Project section. Besides, it is time that teachers updated their teaching concepts and used the textbook in a more suitable and creative way.