On The Study Of Middle School English Homework Assignment In The Context Of Reducing The Student Burden

With the rapid development of education in our country, the study of teachers alsoincreases year after year，but papers and articles about the homework assignment areseldom. In1994, American homework study expert Cooper, together with hiscolleagues, summarizes the influence of homework on students. In Cooper’s opinion,homework can enhance the memory of the students, and can help them graspknowledge more deeply, which is beneficial to the development of their criticalthinking, concept formation and information processing. Homework assignment canalso enrich their curriculum, improve their attitude on study, and encourage them tostudy in their spare time. All these practices play an important part in encouragingparents to participation in the children education. What is more, according to the Leovan Lier’s theory of avoiding “Gardening in a Gale"(1996), homework assignment isthe point of indispensability in the teaching process. However, in the context ofstudent unloading, how to deal with homework assignment still remains a researchissue as far as middle school teachers are concerned.This thesis mainly adopts questionnaires, observation and interviews as the researchmethodology，and the four research questions are proposed as follows:1. What is the most suitable English homework in the Chinese context of studentunloading?2. What is regarded as the most suitable English homework, according to middleschool English teachers?3. As far as students are concerned, what is the most suitable English homework?4. As far as parents are concerned, what is the most suitable English homework?The study is based on Leo van Lier’s theory on the interaction of awareness,autonomy and authenticity (triple A theory), which is a theory of curriculum and theteaching practice. Learning a foreign language is a long journey from the students’ first exposure to the linguistic knowledge, to full proficiency or to where they happento get. It is a process of exposure--engagement—intake—proficiency. Theseconditions should not be seen as successive in a linear fashion, but rather partlyparallel and partly cyclical, determining one another in a reciprocal fashion.The conclusions of this study are: Homework assignment has been influenced bythe students and their parents in the context of student unloading. The traditional modeof homework assignment might make students produce anxiety. Teachers should payattention to the students ‘autonomous learning ability, making use of their parents‘auxiliary guide, so to assign the most suitable homework.The results of this study indicate that English homework assignment in the contextof student unloading should include the following features:1）To assign students somehomework which occupies their mind between lessons, not to make the students justcopy something for several times.2) Strengthen the internal participation ofhomework.3) With the teachers’ guidance, students are encouraged to finish theirhomework with a certain degree of autonomy4) Homework assignments should pay attention to the continuity of theinterdisciplinary contents.