An Investigation Into Student Engagement In Junior Middle School English Classroom Teaching

Since the new curriculum reform has been taken into practice, "student engagement" has become the focus in the education field. However, in the practical teaching, teachers'recognition toward student engagement deviates from its original aim and student engagement is not high enough. Under this circumstance, the thesis on an investigation into classroom teaching is of great practical and theoretical importance.This thesis takes English subject as an example, and chooses two classes of one ordinary junior middle school in Shanghai as investigation object. Through questionnaire, interview and literature research, it aims at investigating the current situation of student engagement in junior middle school English classroom teaching. In the thesis, student engagement is defined as the synthesis of behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement and emotional engagement. It mainly focuses on three research contents including the current situation of the three kinds of student engagement, the correlation among the three kinds of engagement and related elements that affect student engagement.Through research, some results are gained:in English class students can concentrate on classroom teaching attentively, but study more assiduously; they prefer deep strategies to shallow strategies and relying on teacher or other classmates to solve the teaching problems; positive emotional engagement is more than negative emotional engagement; there is close relationship between cognitive engagement and emotional engagement while there is not close relationship between behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement and emotional engagement. Students'academic achievement is the key element that affects student engagement; students'gender, character, engagement motivation, classroom type, teachers'character, teachers'teaching style and emotion are also elements that affect student engagement. Finally, this thesis gives some advice according to the results of the research. For example, teachers should try to establish a correct concept of student engagement, and lead students to actively participate in the English lesson; develop students'interest in learning English, and stimulate internal motivation of students engagement; use dispersal mechanism to make every student gain the opportunity for engagement; create a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom to make students happily participate in classroom teaching; design teaching activities fit for students and use flexible teaching methods to enable students to engage in classroom teaching.