A Study On The Hierarchical English Teaching In Senior High Schools

The new National English Curriculum Standard was published and started to implement in2001. Its core concept was to adhere to the people-oriented principle, stress teaching for all students at the same time, and respect for individual differences. But in actual teaching, as we find out that, the English basis of high school students in China is still quite uneven at present, and there is a wide gap in their cognitive ability, learning attitudes, habits, and methods, etc. With the learning difficulty increasing, the gap will become more and more obvious and will eventually lead to the situation, which is characterized by "top students do not have enough to eat, moderate students are not improved, poor students can not keep up with". Under the current teaching condition of a large number of students being crammed in one class, how to compensate for the limit of teaching and achieve the goal of raising the overall teaching quality in senior high school? This is an urgent question that demands teachers should give up traditional teaching mode of "one size fits all", and implement hierarchical teaching by adapting to the individual differences of students and making each student fully developed.The so-called hierarchical teaching means classifying students into different levels according to students’ intellectual level, learning proficiency, and non-intellectual factors so as to improve students with different steps. The essence of it is to promote students to achieve maximum development within their ability by taking scientific measures to interfere and adjust those differences. Therefore, guided by Vygotsky’s Theories of Proximal Development Zone, Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and Bloom’s Mastery Learning Theory, this study seeks to respect students’individual differences, and gear to the needs of every student from every aspect. On the basis of analysing related domestic and foreign research literature, and combining the author’s English teaching internship experience, the study proposed the general pattern and teaching strategies of hierarchical teaching suitable for English teaching in senior high schools in China.In order to test the effectiveness of hierarchical teaching, the author carried out the experimental study of hierarchical teaching, using60students in Class3and Class4in Grade2of Xiong Yue High School of Liaoning Province as subjects for half a year. In the experiment, students were classified into three levels---level A(top students), level B(moderate students), and level C(poor students). The teacher tried to design different tasks with different levels in class and homework after class, and then carried out teaching and evaluation on the condition that whether the task assigned could be finished well or not. The study result shows that hierarchical teaching is suitable for the rule of "teaching students in accordance to their aptitude", and it is different from the traditional division of "fast class" and "slow class". Students of different levels remain in the original class, communicate with each other, and improve together. Hierarchical teaching can satisfy students’ needs, cater to their different intelligence levels and different language basis, and be conducive to cultivating participate, and eventually achieve the teaching effect of "poor students caught up, moderate students improved, and top students became top-notch".In sum, hierarchical teaching is a teaching practice that is worthy of drawing lessons from and exploring further in that it is geared to the needs of all students, enhances students’ English skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and fully mobilizes students’ enthusiasm and creativity. In applying this teaching mode, teachers should follow the rhythm of the whole process of teaching, elaborately design the teaching tasks at different stages, and practice constantly. Admittedly, its development and application is still immature so it is worth further exploration and research in the future. Given the complexity of English teaching in China, it is hoped that hierarchical teaching is more feasible and applicable to make students of various levels develope and their comprehensive quality improve.