An Investigation On The Current Situation Of Cultivating English Key Competencies In Senior High Schools

The Opinions on comprehensively deepening the curriculum reform to establish moral values and cultivate students(hereinafter referred to as Opinions)issued by the Ministry of Education in March 2014,points out that the development of key competencies aims to establish moral values,cultivate students and train international talents.English key competencies refer to the students' language ability,cultural awareness,thinking quality and learning ability,all of which are the necessary qualities and the key capacities for their life-long development through English education.However,the current situation of students' English key competencies cultivation cannot reach the requirements of English curriculum in teaching practice.So,it is of great necessity to investigate the status quo,find out the problems and put forward the countermeasures to cultivate students' English key competencies.Based on the related studies and English Curriculum Standard for Senior High School(2017),teachers and students in five senior high schools in Tianshui are chosen as the research subjects.Questionnaire,interview and classroom observation are adopted to investigate the current situation of students' English key competencies cultivation in senior high schools.The results show that the current situation of students' English key competencies cultivation is not optimistic.In terms of language ability,without excellent language environment and effective strategies,students' listening and speaking abilities cannot be well developed,as well as their discourse analysis skills and vocabulary learning methods.As for cultural awareness,because the expansion of cultural knowledge in English teaching was neglected,students lack sensibility in cultural differences and cross-cultural communication awareness.As for thinking quality,lack of hierarchy in question setting and exploration in thematic meaning can make students have difficulties in analysis and inference,as well as induction and construction.In the aspect of learning ability,the development and utilization of learning resources were ignored,so the students cannot adjust their learning plans properly and make full use of the learning resources.To solve the problems above,it is essential to promote school management and set up the correct value of student education.Besides,English teachers should update their teaching concepts.What's more,it is necessary to develop school-based English teaching materials and enhance English teachers' theoretical knowledge.In addition,exploring the effective English teaching strategies plays an important role in the cultivation of English key competencies.