A Survey On The Primary English Curriculum Implementation In Houma

In 2001，the Education Ministry of the PRC promulgated Advice on PromotingPrimary English and New English Curriculum for Chinese Primary Schools andJunior/Senior Middle Schools which provided guidelines for the primary schools allaround China, since then English has been one of the compulsory subjects in primaryschools. And at the same time, Guideline for Offering English Classes in Primary Schoolswas announced to guide the practical teaching and learning, which included curriculumaims, grades beginning with English and learning time(per week and total learning time),teaching objectives and requirements, teaching methods, teaching materials andassessment. Primary English teaching has got much concern and will be focused on.In this paper, by questionnaires and interviews, the author tries to describe thecurrent situation of the English implementation in primary schools in Houma, includingteacher’s thoughts on education, attitude to the curriculum reform, the degree offamiliarity to New Curriculum, ideas about teacher’s educational learning, and byclassroom observation, the author observed how teachers managed class and dealt withmisbehaviors in class and found some successful measures to improve the effectiveness ofEnglish teaching in the classroom.In this thesis, by questionnaires and interviews, general information about teachersand students are collected such as teacher’s age, sex, education level, their theories aboutteaching and learning and their thoughts about local in-service education and the currenttextbook New Standard English，students’grade, habits of learning English, attitude to English book, ideas about activity class and their confidence in themselves. By classroomobservation, the author observed how the teachers managed the class, dealt withmisbehaviors in class, used and explored teaching materials and how much the students inthe classroom participated in the learning task and in what way.It is found that all the teachers are confident in the basic education reform, andwould like to adapt themselves to the new educational situation. The majority of theteachers are young and over 72% of all the teachers are below 40 years old. The number offemale teachers is far bigger than that of the male teachers. There are 76 female teacherswhich takes up 86.4%. Most teachers have promoted their educational level in differentways and the average level is college degree, which has met the national requirements forprimary school teachers.12 teachers are English major, which take up 13.6%. Teachershave great need of English teaching knowledge and skills; Teacher’s in–service traininghave made great progress in the past years, teachers’theoretical level of educationimproved greatly. However, the lack of English teaching knowledge and skills can notmeet the teachers’need, teachers’English skills especially in speaking and listening quiteneed improving. Teachers have narrow understanding of curriculum. There is much roomto develop in developing resources and classroom management. Better environment andplatforms for English curriculum implementation needs building.