Instructional Design And Analysis Of The Unit Of Language In Use In The New Standard English Textbooks For Junior High Schools

The New English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education (2011) clearly points out that the general goal of English Curriculum in compulsory education is to cultivate students’ preliminary comprehensive language competence; students should form comprehensive language competence through a large number of special and comprehensive language practice activities, which can lay the foundation for the real communication. The unit of Language in Use in the New Standard English Textbooks for junior high schools embodies this requirement. However, because of some objective factors (such as teaching hours), teaching of this unit is often conducted as a simple grammar or vocabulary class in the real practice. This kind of teaching cannot meet the requirements of the New Curriculum Standard. Based on the present teaching situation and underlying the Whole Language Approach, this study has done the instructional design and analysis taking one unit of Language in Use in the New Standard English textbook for Grade Seven as an example. It aims at exploring how to use the Whole Language Approach to teach the unit of Language in use; trying to find out whether the implementation of this instructional design can improve students’English learning interest and cultivate their comprehensive language competence.The participants of this study come from Class 7, Grade 7 in Meijiang High School in Tianjin. At first the author did an instructional design underlying the Whole Language Approach based on the analysis of learners and teaching contents. Then the author put the instructional design into teaching practice and invited anEnglish teacher to be the advisor. After this class, the author got students’ feedback through questionnaires and interviews, analyzed the data and made some modifications based on advisor’s suggestions and author’s self-reflection. At last the author obtained some corresponding teaching implications.Through the study, the author has got the following findings. Firstly, it is feasible to use the teaching model, designed by the author in this study according to principles of Whole Language Approach, to teach this unit. Secondly, the implementation of this instructional design can improve students’ English learning interest. Thirdly, if the unit of Language in Use can be taught in the author’s teaching model in a long run, it can be helpful for cultivating the students’ comprehensive language competence.There are some pedagogical implications in this study. English teachers should make the best use of textbooks and pay more attention to the instructional design of the unit of Language in Use. What’s more, teachers should collect related teaching aid resources in daily life which can offer more authentic language materials and make classroom teaching more vivid and effective.