A Study Of Differentiated Homework In Junior English Learning

The National English Curriculum For Compulsory Education emphasizes that students should be put at the center of English learning,and all students should be considered during language teaching,at the same time,individual differences should be respected and drawn special attention to.Homework,as the last part of English teaching and a supplement of in-class study,is of great importance in English learning.However,the effectiveness of homework is a major concern in Chinese basic education and English language teaching.The traditional homework arrangement method,i.e."one-size-fits-all",can not meet the needs of students at different levels.Hence,to explore the effective way of homework arrangement,differentiated English homework was conducted in this thesis.The research questions in this study include three parts:(1)How does differentiated English homework affect students’ learning interest in English?(2)What is the impact of differentiated English homework on students’ English achievement?(3)What problems should English teachers pay attention to during English differentiated homework arrangement?In this study,students are divided into three levels based on their English achievement,interest as well as language and learning ability,etc..At the same time,the three levels are dynamically changing according to students’performance,and students’ levels are not informed for insuring the fairness.Students from different English levels can choose different English homework from red,yellow and green cards offered by teacher.And every time,students’ choices of homework are recorded.To explore the effects of differentiated homework on students’ learning interest and English achievement,a pretest-posttest comparison group quasi-experimental design was employed in this study.Two classes were chosen randomly in Guangming District Experimental School.The two classes,with totally 101 students(49 boys and 52 girls,mean age=14 years),were randomly regarded as the experimental class(EC)and the control class(CC)respectively.The study on differentiated homework was conducted in EC from March to July in 2018,whereas the mandatory homework was offered for students in CC.After data collection,paired-samples t test and independent-samples t test were used to test significant differences with SPSS 17.0,and the interview was analyzed to further verify and supplement the effects of differentiated homework.The major findings achieved in this study are as follows:(1)Differentiated homework has positive effects on developing students’ learning interest in English,and most of them are more interested in and satisfied with their homework nowadays compared with before.(2)Differentiated homework is conducive to improving students’English achievement,among which students at advanced level and slow level make great progress while moderate progress is made by students at intermediate level.(3)Many details need paying more attention to during the assignment of the differentiated homework.This study is expected to provide some reference for future implementation of differentiated homework.At the same time,it is expected that limitations in this thesis can be further improved by the future researchers.