The Development And Practice Of English Literature Teaching As An Optional Course Under The Latest English Curriculum

The latest English Curriculum Criteria of Secondary Education was issued in April of 2003. It has put forward and adopted the course mode that compulsory course combines with optional course in high schools of our country. This curriculum stipulates literary appreciation as an optional course. It is a meaningful job to study the fixing instruction aim. instruction contents, implementation, evaluation, etc. and to make a scientific, effective and feasible instruction design. The design in this thesis can be used to guide instruction practice in senior high schools and to guide the compiling of teaching materials.The thesis first list the changes that have taken place in the English texts for the past few decades and analyze the reasons for these changes. After that the thesis carries out a questionnaire concerning the status quo of literary elements in the English teaching of senior high schools. The result shows that the students are poor at appreciating literary works, as a result of the misleading NEMT and their teachers' ignorance of literature. The thesis then analyzes the problems exposed by the questionnaire to show it is necessary and important to practice literature teaching.The necessity and importance of developing English optional courses is emphasized then. It provides theoretic supporting for us to set optional courses. The theory of humanistic thinks that the current humanistic education is to make an integral person, while English literature as an optional course in senior high schools can be the very vehicle to improve the students' personalities as well as their linguistic competence.An experiment with the teaching of literature has been carried out so as to explore the teaching objectives, contents and methods. The results show that setting of the English literature optional course can broaden span of view, boost up study interests and promote development of capability, enhance self-confidence.Finally, several suggestions about the compiling work of new teaching materials under the latest Curriculum Criteria of Secondary Education are given.