Research On Present Situation Of English Picture Book Instruction In Primary School

As one of the most widely used languages in the world,English has become an important tool for international communication and interaction.According to the English Curriculum Standards,English learning at primary stage should pay attention to raising pupils' interest in English learning,cultivating their thinking ability,and making them read,understand,retell and write the story with the help of pictures(2012).With the development of English education,English picture book(EPB)has received more and more attention among primary school English teachers.The application of EPB in English teaching will expand pupils' knowledge on English,develop their personality and improve their humanities.However,in reality,EPB instruction faces a lot of defeats due to different reasons.Based on Input Hypothesis Theory,Multiple Intelligence Theory,and Cognitive Development Theory,through questionnaires and interview,the author tries to investigate the present situation of EPB instruction in primary school.This research was carried out in the first semester of 2017-2018 academic year.Fifteen questionnaires were distributed and fourteen questionnaires were collected.Three of the participants also were invited casually to support the interview.The fifteen participants in this study are the teachers(grade five and six)in Xi'an Foreign Language School(XFLS).After analyzing the collected data some existing problems have been discussed: imperfect knowledge of EPB and EPB instruction;rigid EPB instruction method;insufficient external support of EPB instruction;improper evaluation of EPB instruction.After putting the relevant theories into practice,some suggestions of EPB instruction are given as follows: deepening teachers' knowledge of EPB and EPB instruction;improving the diversity of English instruction methods;strengthening the support of EPB instruction,and perfecting the evaluation of EPB instruction as to improve primary school teachers' EPB instruction ability thus to meet the requirements of the English Curriculum Standards.