First, the importance of junior high school English homework
With the in-depth reform and effective implementation of the new junior high school English curriculum, the concept of the new curriculum has gradually taken root in people's hearts. The teaching process, methods and strategies have been greatly improved than before, and the teaching effect has been obviously improved. However, an important link in teaching-homework assignment is often ignored by some English teachers.
Homework after class is a natural continuation and supplement of classroom teaching, and it is an important basis for teachers to understand students' learning situation, check teaching effect and adjust teaching methods. It enables students to better absorb and digest what they have learned, and is an indispensable means to consolidate, master and deepen what they have learned in class. It can improve students' learning skills, develop students' ability of self-guidance and self-responsibility, cultivate students' good study habits and urge parents to care about their children's study and education. However, for a long time, the arrangement of English homework still runs counter to the new curriculum concept: many teachers have problems in the form, level and completion of homework, which restricts the improvement of English teaching quality and is not conducive to the cultivation and development of students' personality.
Two. Findings and analysis
At present, most English teachers only follow the traditional exercises and test papers in the arrangement of English homework after class, regardless of whether the students accept it or not, and whether the homework is suitable for the students' reality, which makes the homework only reflect the teachers' will and lack the students' personality. So what are students' evaluations and expectations of English homework?
According to the situation of English homework after class, the author conducted a random sampling survey on 300 students in Grade One and Grade Two of Senior High School in our school by questionnaire. The survey results show that most students don't like the traditional form of homework, they don't feel happy in the process of completing homework, and some students are bored, which makes it difficult for them to implement the effectiveness of homework. Then, this is contrary to the new goal of English course teaching task that we are advocating now. Students all said that they prefer various forms of homework, which is both interesting and practical. This requires us to reform the traditional form of operation and seriously explore new forms of operation. To this end, we must emancipate our minds, renew our ideas, and arrange homework in a form that students like to see and hear, so as to improve the effectiveness of English homework.
Third, the optimization design strategy of junior high school English homework
Under the background of "reducing burdens and increasing efficiency", it is particularly important to cultivate students' autonomous learning and self-management ability. The optimization of homework is one of the effective means to cultivate students' ability. Through recent attempts and explorations, the author has explored the following new ways of English homework design:
(A) homework design should pay attention to fun, novelty and diversity.
Suhomlinski said in his book "Suggestions for Teachers": "The so-called classroom is interesting, that is to say, students are engaged in learning and thinking with high excitement, surprised and shocked by the truth presented to them, aware of their wisdom and strength in learning, and feel the joy of creation, and proud of the greatness of human will and wisdom." Interesting homework problems are attractive to some extent, which can stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning and promote students to play their intellectual level to complete them. By designing diverse and practical homework, students can feel happy in homework and learn in homework. For example, the reading part of Yilin Oxford English 7aunit5shopping is about how to shop in simple English. In this class, I adopted a different teaching method from other classes, so that students can make full use of the English foundation they have learned in primary schools, preview the learning content of this class first, and then practice in class. The preview assignments are as follows:
1. Ask students to find and remember some everyday expressions related to shopping according to the contents of the textbook and some knowledge they have learned before. Like canihelpyou? What can you do? how much is it? Here you are. Wait a minute.
2. Get students ready to buy the "currency" needed in class. The requirements for currency are: you can't use real RMB, but you can prepare currencies that have appeared in history, such as shells. If you really can't find it, you can also make it out of paper yourself.
As I expected, this assignment was very popular and enhanced students' thirst for knowledge. Due to the high enthusiasm of the students, the subsequent courses were very effective. It can be seen that homework is interesting, novel, effective and reasonable, which will not only attract students' efforts, but also promote the improvement of classroom teaching efficiency and penetrate students' hearts.
(B) homework design should focus on openness, inquiry and cooperation.
"Curriculum Standard" points out: "Teachers should create various cooperative learning activities to encourage students to learn from each other, help each other and develop the spirit of cooperation." Students and students, students and teachers, students and parents can learn from each other and cooperate with each other to finish their homework. From independence to cooperation is the inevitable trend of homework reform. Teachers can consciously divide students into study groups, or let students pair freely and seek help from peers, parents and teachers in the process of completing homework.
For example, before learning the reading part of Yilin Oxford Edition 7aunit3halloween, the author asked the students to preview the text and understand what people often do on Halloween. After learning Halloween, you can give students the following homework:
1. Introduce western Halloween to your classmates and teachers. (Oral English)
2. Students team up to make Halloween props: for example, pumpkin lanterns, candy, fancy clothes and so on.
Students practice Halloween activities in teams after class, and then let them experience Halloween in the west and play trick-or-treating.
This kind of homework can make students know more about western culture and exercise their ability to really use English. From the author's attempts in teaching practice, it can be seen that the homework with various forms, content close to students' life and enabling students to apply what they have learned is most popular with students, thus stimulating students' enthusiasm for learning.
(C) homework design should emphasize hierarchy and autonomy
In order to face all students, homework should be designed in layers according to students' learning motivation, foundation and ability. We can design the homework into two levels: "mandatory" and "optional". The "must do" question requires all students to complete in order to meet the basic requirements of teaching. For the "optional" exercise, students can try their best to complete it according to their own situation. In addition, the students in the class can be divided into three grades: A, B and C from high to low, and the hierarchical goals can be set scientifically and clearly, and the hierarchical homework can be designed. Students of different levels in the classroom choose different levels to practice, and teachers check in groups to guide C-level students to implement "double basics", inspire B-level students to complete exercises independently, and guide A-level students to further develop their creative potential. After-school homework is arranged in layers, and C-level students are encouraged to do some B-level homework, and B-level students are encouraged to do A-level homework. According to individual differences, hierarchical homework can make students at different levels get their proper places and improve and develop on different foundations.
(d) The operation design should reflect reproducibility.
The forgetting curve of the famous German psychologist Ebbinghaus tells us that before forgetting, we should consolidate, review, reproduce and apply what we have learned quickly and in time, so as to better strengthen the effect of memory. When consolidating new knowledge, combine the old and new language materials in a planned way, so that students can see that the new language materials and the knowledge they have learned are interrelated. This will enable students to review the past and learn new things, conform to the cognitive law and help improve the learning effect. In addition, students learning new knowledge in familiar topics will make him feel that the topic has been done, and "I can do it" will invisibly increase his confidence.
In a word, the design of homework should be guided by the basic theory in curriculum standards; We should focus on the teaching requirements, broaden our horizons, and strive to start from the angles of listening, speaking, reading, writing, acting and audio-visual. Optimizing homework gets rid of the traditional single written homework, which can give students an imaginary space, create a positive learning environment and an open and relaxed learning atmosphere, and provide them with a platform to show their elegance and realize their self-development, so that they can master various methods of finding and collecting information and learn how to cooperate with others while completing their homework. In addition, in the collection of materials, preparation and performance of activities, students' vocabulary has been subtly expanded, and their cross-cultural awareness has also been enhanced. This kind of homework improves students' interest in learning English, arouses their autonomy and enthusiasm in learning, and more importantly, cultivates their comprehensive language use ability.
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