A Research On The Application Of Hierarchical English Homework In Junior High School

In middle schools, the aim of English teaching is to develop students’ comprehensive language skills. The National English Curriculum of 2011 also advocates quality-oriented education and students’ all-round development; besides, students are put at the center of the curriculum and their individual differences are respected. English homework, as the extension of the classroom teaching, plays an important and indispensable role in achieving the goals of English curriculum. However, considering the size of the class and other reasons, most teachers assign the same homework to all the students in a class regardless of the level they are at. The top students often find the homework too easy, thus their comprehensive skills are not well developed. Weak students, however, fail to finish the homework as it is hard for them. In order to solve this problem, at the same time, develop individual student’s potential, there is a need to assign hierarchical English homework to students at different levels.The subjects are 81 students from two parallel classes in Cui Yuan Middle School. Based on theories like teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, the theory of multiple intelligence, zone of proximal development theory, and Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, the author designs hierarchical English homework in the experimental class. Non-hierarchical English homework design is still employed in the controlled class. This author puts forth two research questions: (1) How does the implementation of hierarchical English homework influence students’ performance in English examinations? (2) What are students’ attitudes towards English homework after the study?The instruments include pre-questionnaire, post-questionnaire, a pre-test and a post-test. The experiment lasts two months. Before and after the experiment, both the controlled class and the experimental class have an examination, the results of which serve as the data of the pre-test and post-test. Furthermore, questionnaires are distributed to both classes before the experiment and then after the experiment, the experimental class does the questionnaire again. By analyzing data collected from the questionnaire and test results with the help of SPSS, the author finds that hierarchical English homework is effective in improving students’ academic performances in English examinations and students’ interest in English homework is activated and the attitudes towards English homework changes a lot.