A Study On The Application Of The Teaching Approach-"Learning Before Teaching, Having Test In Class" In Yongwei High School

The New English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School proposes to "develop the learners'self-learning ability" and it emphasizes "learners-centered". The New Curriculum Reform emphasizes "theteacher's role is no longer a source of information or the transmitter of knowledge, but should be the leaderand organizer in the learning process". In order to make response to the New Curriculum Reform, anationwide teaching reform campaign is on going in a large number of senior high schools in China.This teaching approach——"learning before teaching, having test in class" was formed during thisnationwide teaching reform campaign. This teaching approach has made an indispensable contribution torelease students' pressure after class. Since it has been firstly introduced to Yongwei High School in2006,this school's English performance has been greatly improved. This teaching approach was confirmed by thenoted educator Gu Mingyuan and it also received the affirmative from Guo Zhenyou, the Executive VicePresident of the Chinese Society of Education. It was reported on the newspaper of China Education onJune7and June9of2010and People Education in2009.While a large number of schools are following the steps of this teaching approach, yet there is fewpeople notice its disadvantages. Strictly speaking, there has been no one systematical research on thedrawbacks of this teaching approach. This thesis, based on the confirmation of this teaching approach, findsits disadvantages by classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. Based on the research results,this thesis tries to answer the following two questions:1. What are the disadvantages of this teaching approach?2. How to improve it based on the present research?243students of Grade One in high school and10English teachers are interviewed in this research.Both the students and teachers are from Yongwei High School. After data collection analysis, the followingdisadvantages of this teaching approach have been found:1. It is knowledge-centered.2. The students in Yongwei High School lack questioning ability.3. The teaching method is non-creative. Thus, the following strategies are proposed based on the research.1. Changing the teaching method that merely focused on the symbol teaching2. Cultivating students' consciousness of questioning3. Paying more attention to individual differences of studentsThis thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction of the research motivation andobjectives. Chapter two is the literature review. Chapter three includes the research subjects, methods andprocedures. Chapter four is the results and analysis. And Chapter five is the major findings, pedagogicalimplications, limitations of this research and suggestions for future studies.