New Curriculum and New Teaching Materials: Strategies for Teachers' Preparation. Junior High School English (Upper and Lower)

Author: Zhang Keli, Chief Editor / Li Xiaoming, Sub-series Editor
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: With the continuous deepening of the curriculum reform in basic education, people have increasingly recognized the crucial role and sacred mission of teachers in the curriculum reform. Teachers' understanding and participation in the new curriculum are the prerequisites and foundation for its implementation, and they will ultimately determine the direction of the new curriculum's implementation and the depth of the advancement of quality education. In a certain sense, teachers are the most important curriculum resources. The quality of teachers and their level of professional development determine the identification, development, and utilization of curriculum resources, as well as the level at which the benefits of the new curriculum standards and new textbooks should be realized. Currently, the status of the teaching staff in China's basic education field cannot effectively follow the large-scale expansion of curriculum reform. Short-term general training and limited training on new curriculum standards and new textbooks only serve as guidance and enlightenment for teachers. In the context of classroom teaching, teachers must use new concepts, adopt new curriculum standards and new textbooks, enter the classroom, face all students, and deliver every lesson in a practical manner. They will encounter various confusions and difficulties, such as the scarcity of new teaching materials, how to prepare lessons, how to organize teaching, how to conduct teaching evaluations, how to carry out teaching and research activities, and how to innovate traditional teaching methods. As curriculum reform has developed to this stage, teachers must fully exert their subjective initiative, deeply understand and experience the essence of the new curriculum standards in teaching practice, fully grasp the new textbooks, and continuously reflect on teaching to improve teaching behavior, creatively use new textbooks, prepare lessons well, deliver lessons effectively, and seriously address every problem that arises in education and teaching. Only in this way can the requirements of curriculum reform be implemented. To help frontline teachers quickly adapt to the new curriculum reform and effectively use the new curriculum standards and new textbooks, we have organized the writing of the "Strategies for Teacher Lesson Preparation under the New Curriculum Standards and New Textbooks" series. With the actual needs of teaching and teachers as the starting point, the series provides assistance and services to teachers in teaching by interpreting teaching objectives, creating teaching scenarios, providing teaching materials, showcasing teaching cases, and improving teaching evaluations.
I. Principles and Requirements for Writing
This book is written under the guidance of advanced educational concepts and the principles advocated by the new curriculum, aiming to promote the implementation of curriculum standards in various subjects, deepen the implementation of quality education, and promote the development of educational research, especially school-based teaching and research activities. It seeks to promote the professional development of teachers, improve their practical teaching abilities and levels, and enhance the quality of education and teaching. The writing process emphasizes four unities:
1. Systematicity and Scientificity
This series is written by subject, and each subject follows the content specified by the first-level and second-level themes of the curriculum standards, combining the main knowledge system of each version of the textbook to structure the book in units. Each unit begins with an overview, highlighting the systematic network of knowledge, the original perspective, and the comparison with the new curriculum standards. The series uniformly sets up columns, with each column providing scientifically accurate knowledge content, systematically clear teaching objectives, scientifically reasonable activity designs, practical and innovative scenario creation, and detailed and reliable selection of quality education.
2. Practicality and Feasibility
The writing of the book establishes a service-oriented awareness for frontline teachers, effectively addressing difficulties teachers face when preparing lessons, such as finding materials, collecting resources, designing activities, and creating scenarios, thereby reducing their workload. Unlike general teaching reference books, this series comprehensively covers the needs of teachers when preparing lessons, serving as an indispensable assistant and guide for teachers. The writing process fully considers the current status of teaching staff, students, teaching design, and various educational resources in China, making the series highly practical. Teaching requirements, activity designs, and scenario creation are all highly feasible.
3. Timeliness and Innovation
When writing each subject, the authors carefully analyze the new trends in educational reform at home and abroad, striving to stay at the forefront of curriculum reform in basic education. The content and materials selected closely align with the actual developments in politics, economy, science, technology, culture, and education in China and the world, reflecting the demands of the times. Innovation is emphasized, from content to form, from knowledge presentation to question design. The three-dimensional educational objectives of "knowledge and skills, processes and methods, and attitudes and values" run throughout the book.
4. Inquiry and Leadership
When writing each subject, attention is paid to the professional leadership role of teachers, helping them broaden their knowledge horizons, enhance practical abilities, and guide and encourage them to conduct educational research. It advocates a spirit of scientific inquiry, promotes research-based learning, and strengthens the evaluation and reflection of teaching. The selection of content in each column and the allocation of various questions reflect foresight and leadership, appropriately increasing inquiry-based, open-ended, applied, and comprehensive topics.
This series is the crystallization of collective teaching research in curriculum reform.
II. Writing Format and Column Descriptions
This series is written by subject, including: Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Moral Education, History, and Geography, covering nine subjects in total. The book uniformly sets up six columns:
1. Interpretation of Teaching Objectives
According to the unit content specified by the new curriculum standards, the teaching objectives are interpreted from the three-dimensional perspectives of "knowledge and skills, processes and methods, and attitudes and values." From the professional height of the subject, the knowledge network structure and its internal connections are elaborated in an accessible manner. Necessary explanations are provided in conjunction with specific issues or examples, with a detailed analysis of teaching key points and difficulties. The book points out the key points, breakthrough methods, and thinking processes for solving key issues, reinforcing the requirements for ability and quality education.
2. Suggestions for Activity Design
This column provides all necessary activity designs for the unit teaching (also including teaching ideas, teaching flowcharts, and knowledge links, etc.). To effectively achieve teaching objectives and enable students to actively participate in teaching activities at multiple levels, forms, and angles, thereby realizing efficient and high-quality classroom teaching, this book strives to help teachers design all teaching activities in each unit through effective lesson preparation. Since each unit teaching consists of several teaching and learning activities, only if each activity is designed scientifically and reasonably and is easy to operate can the optimization of the entire unit teaching be guaranteed. When designing teaching and learning activities, two aspects are considered based on the unit knowledge content:
- Classroom activity design (e.g., creating teaching scenarios, equipping teaching tools, multimedia-assisted teaching, student collaboration, teacher-student interaction, instruction and practice, experimental operations, etc.);
- Extracurricular teaching activities closely related to teaching, such as research-based learning activities, experimental inquiry activities (e.g., after-school small experiments, home small experiments, laboratory operations, experimental design, small inventions, small creations, etc.), surveys and interviews, information collection, literature retrieval, social practice and community service activities, etc.
The activity design strives to maximize the use of various educational resources, mobilize the learning enthusiasm of students at all levels, and enable students to become active participants and constructors of knowledge through teaching and learning activities.
3. Reference Teaching Materials
This column provides relevant textual materials needed for unit teaching for teachers, such as background materials, introductions to figures, major events, data resources, scenario materials, supporting examples, the latest developments, and historical evolution. It also recommends relevant books, network resources, and audio-visual materials.
4. Introduction to Teaching Cases
This column provides several teaching cases around the key content of the unit, reflecting the characteristics of various teaching types (e.g., new lessons, problem-solving lessons, review lessons, experimental lessons, activity lessons, inquiry lessons, etc.). It emphasizes the design of various student activities, demonstrating a reform-oriented awareness in lesson preparation, and closely follows three threads:
- The thread of the knowledge network;
- The cognitive thread that aligns with students' psychological activities;
- The developmental thread of ability and quality education.
5. Classic Question Selection
This column provides supporting questions for teachers' lesson preparation. When selecting questions, attention is paid to difficulty gradients, striving for typicality and novelty, and ensuring each question is well-designed in terms of intent, scenario, and question setting. The number of questions is moderate, and the types of subjective and objective questions are determined based on the unit content of the subject.
6. Teaching Evaluation Suggestions
Evaluation serves diagnostic, guiding, and motivational functions. This column provides ideas and methods for teachers to conduct various forms of teaching evaluation.
(1) Basic Achievement Evaluation
Each unit teaching is accompanied by basic achievement test questions, designed according to the requirements of basic knowledge and skills on a percentage basis. If the average test score of all students is below 60, it is considered that the basic teaching has not been achieved. If the average test score is between 60 and 74, it is considered that the basic teaching has been achieved. If the average test score is between 75 and 89, it is considered that the basic teaching performance is good. If the average test score is between 90 and 100, it is considered that the basic teaching performance is excellent.
(2) Ability and Quality Education Evaluation
Ability and quality education evaluation mainly focuses on students' basic qualities, specialized qualities, and comprehensive practical and innovative activities. Based on the unit content of the subject, corresponding requirements for ability and quality education are proposed for students, such as experimental operations, creation, production, drawing, investigation reports, material analysis, thematic discussions, presentations, speeches, audio-visual skills, and talent demonstrations, etc. Each evaluation result is rated as excellent, good, qualified, or basically qualified.
(3) Teaching Reflection
Teaching reflection is essential for teachers in the evaluation process and plays a significant role in improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning. For example: reflections on easily confused content for students, improvements in lesson design, improvements in classroom teaching, new problems discovered in the teaching process, reflections on test results and other feedback information, as well as insights into the unit teaching, etc. Teaching reflection provides teachers with broad space for professional development.
Finally, we sincerely hope that educators and frontline teachers across the country will join us in sailing the ship of basic education curriculum reform, reaching the shore of hope together.