Research On The Design Of English Homework In Senior High School

With the development of new English curriculum reform and the approval of English Curriculum Standards, in the phase of basic education, English teaching aims to foster students'ability of using English synthetically by achieving the five curriculum goals: language knowledge, language skills, emotional attitude, learning strategies and cultural awareness. English assignment serves as an effective addition to classroom teaching and is an important process of English teaching, besides, it can help students to fulfill the above goals. However, traditional English assignment can not catch up with the new English curriculum reform and it must be developed.To make a thorough study of the homework design in senior high school, this research, based on the rich literature review, by absorbing the advanced educational theories, introduced Multiple intelligences (MI), Constructivism, and zone of proximal development into the English homework design and adopted such research methods as data studies, questionnaire survey, interview and empirical study. Through the questionnaire on two classes of students and the interview with 12 students of grade one in Shang He High School, it was found that there existed some problems in English homework. There was so much homework that students had to spend a lot of time finishing it. Besides, the type of homework was monotonous. In addition, the means teachers employed to assess homework were not reasonable. To address these issues, combining modern educational theories and guiding ideas of new course theory, the author put forward the new assignment mode, that is, the content of homework should be related to students'practical life and be interesting, the level of difficulty should be proper, and it should be aimed at the students'synthetic development. Besides, the type of homework was classified into three categories: basic knowledge/skill training homework, practical homework, and synthetic homework to ensure the variety of homework. Furthermore, the author suggested that teachers should adopt various strategies to assess homework. Besides the product of homework, the process should also be paid attention to.To testify the effectiveness of the new assignment mode, the author made an empirical study within two classes. In practical teaching, the experimental class adopted the new assignment mode, while the control class still did traditional homework. When the empirical study was over, the author found it scientific and effective to execute the new assignment mode through the contrastive analysis of the pre-test and post test of the two classes. Finally, positive effect of the present study was discussed and reflections were stated as well. Homework design should abide by six principles: the principle of interest, the principle of typicality, the principle of stratification, the principle of variety, the principle of development and the principle of cooperation. Besides, the limitations of this research should be avoided in the following teaching practice.To sum up, this research aimed to explore the scientific methods of designing high school English homework and put forward the idea of improving the quality of it to reduce students'heavy burden, help students to arouse their interests in English learning, enhance their ability to learn and use English, cultivate their ability to innovate and cooperate, and foster students'ability to use English appropriately.