A Case Study Of English Exemplary Lessons From The Perspective Of Activity-Based Language Learning Approach

Cultivating students' core competences has become a new issue of curriculum reform in elementary education.The core competences of English education include language ability,culture awareness,thinking quality and learning ability.The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High School(2017)(The Standards for short)points out that the activity-based language learning approach(ABLLA for short)is an important route and measure to foster students' core competences in English instruction.However,core competences are not only required for students in senior high school but also for junior middle school students,even though The Standards for Junior Middle School has not been updated recently.It is as important for junior middle school teachers as those in senor high school to implement ABLLA in teaching so as to facilitate learners to construct knowledge and develop language ability through practical language activities.Most of junior middle school teachers have been imbued with ABLLA in the municipal teaching and research forum in our country.It is highly necessary to learn how ABLLA is implemented in junior middle school to examine the situation of curriculum innovation and find the gap between the recognized practice of ABLLA and the standard interpretation of it.Therefore,in this study,eight cases of exemplary lessons from a National Conference on Junior High School English Exemplary Lessons are chosen to answer the following three questions: 1)Is the ABLLA reflected in junior high school English teaching objectives? 2)Is the ABLLA reflected in junior high school English classroom teaching? 3)Does junior high school English classroom teaching match the teaching objectives?Text analysis and classroom observation were employed as the research methods.The author first recorded the teaching objectives of the eight lessons and analyzed whether they reflected the ABLLA.Then the six elements of English lessons and the three levels of activities were analyzed to see how consistent the lesson goes well with the Standards.The results of the case analysis show that the teaching objectives among three lessons reflect the ABLLA,and four out of eight classroom teaching implemented the ABLLA.Regional divergence lies in the implementation of the ABLLA across different provinces.Based on the results,suggestions are made in terms of teaching objective setting,activity designing and their responding relationship.The research findings are expected to bring evidence to the administrative section in different provinces for follow-up activities in training programs for curriculum reform.