Research On The Design Of Senior English Homework In The New Curriculum

With the development of new English curriculum reform and the approval of New 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.Based on rich literature review about homework studies and relevant theories of English homework design such as New English Curriculum Standards, Zone of Proximal development Theory and Multiple Intelligences Theory and adopting such research methods as interviews questionnaire survey. The present study attempts to investigate the status of English homework design of senior high students under the new curriculum background and explore how to design English homework effectively. At the same time, the author aims at accounting for the existing problems of homework design and the aspects which teachers consider most when it comes to English homework design. And therefore three research questions are put forward:(1) What aspects do teachers consider most when they design senior English homework?(2) What’s the status of present senior English homework?(3) How should we design senior English homework in line with NECS? The study employed both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The data about teachers’ perceptions of English homework design is collected by the first round interview to five English teachers; the data about the status of Senior English homework design under the new curriculum background is collected by teachers’ responses to questionnaire as well as students’ responses to questionnaire. After the questionnaires survey, the author conducted group interviews with three teachers and five students respectively.The general research findings are as follows:(1) When they design English homework assignments for their students, the following five elements of homework design are of great significance according to interview:the purpose of homework, the type of homework, the content of homework, the amount of homework and the difficulty of homework.(2) The main problems of Senior English homework:the purpose is not definite, which didn’t cover t the requirements of the New English Curriculum Standards; the types of homework assignments are monotonous; the content of homework are not interesting and close to students’life; the amount of homework is pretty much; the same homework assignments are assigned without considering learners’ differences.(3) Finally, the author according to the cases of homework assignments of some teachers, combined with modern educational theory and the basic idea of the new curriculum standards and the recommendations of teachers and students in the interviews and questionnaires to explore the design of Senior English assignment under the new English curriculum standards.