English Curriculum Research Articles

Single National Curriculum English 2020 Implementation Determinants: Intended and Enacted Curriculum Perspective at Primary Level in Punjab

The current study was designed to determine the gap between the intended curriculum and enacted SNC English 2020 implementation determinants: instructional materials, teaching methods, formative assessment techniques, and professional development. The study was quantitative and descriptive based on the survey method. A self-developed questionnaire was used to collect the data from the teachers in Punjab. Five English curriculum experts ensured the content validity of questionnaires, and reliability was calculated employing Cronbach’s Alpha score of .926. A simple random sampling technique was used to collect from a sample of 268 teachers. The collected data were analyzed employing descriptive and inferential statistics. The result of the study revealed that overall, 62% of the curriculum was implemented, and a 38% gap existed. The results declared that 54% of instructional materials were in use and a 46% gap existed. The results affirmed that 59% of teaching methods were in use and 41% of the gap existed. The results showed that 62% of teachers were trained, and a 38% gap existed. The results asserted that 71% of formative assessment strategies were in use, and a 29% gap existed. Furthermore, results delineated a significant difference in locale regarding teaching methods and teachers’ professional development. Based on the study results, it was recommended that the government should provide funds for English instructional materials and English curriculum-based teacher training on using instructional materials, teaching methods, and assessment. The education department and head teachers may bind teachers to use English curriculum-based implementation guidelines.

Exploration of the Teaching Path about English Reading Enabled by Internet + Technology of Senior High School

“ordinary high school English curriculum standard” points out that teaching should attach importance to the modern information technology under the background of teaching mode and learning mode change. So how to effectively apply information technology in English reading teaching? The writer selected FLTRP (2019) B2U1 “Neither pine nor apple in pineapple?” as an example to explain how to use information technology to help English reading teaching.

Analysis of the Use of Speech Act Theory in English Teachers' Language

The English curriculum standard emphasizes the cultivation of students' core literacy, which cannot be developed without the construction of language environment. Among the many elements affecting the efficiency of English teaching, teacher's discourse occupies an important position. Teachers' discourse has an important influence on the issuing of instructions, the construction of questions, the promotion of activities and the interaction with students in the English classroom. Therefore, based on verbal behavior theory, it is of great significance to explore teacher discourse in the English classroom to improve the teaching ability of English teachers, enhance students' learning efficiency, and realize the teaching goals with high quality.

Survey Study on the Use of Lexical Chunks in High School Students’ English Writing

The study aims to investigate the use of lexical chunks in English compositions among Grade 2 students at a high school in Pan Zhihua, Sichuan Province, involving 100 students. Research instruments encompassed student writing samples, questionnaires, and interviews. The study employed AntConc, EXCEL, and SPSS 26.0 for data analysis. The research questions addressed are: (1) What types of lexical chunks are employed by high school students in their English writing, and what is the frequency of their usage? (2) In comparison to the English Curriculum Standard (2017 Edition, 2020 Revised Edition) for high schools, which lexical chunks are underutilized in students' English writing? Findings reveal that senior high school students predominantly utilize four types of lexical chunks in their English compositions: discourse organizers, stance bundles, topic chunks, and institutionalized expressions. Among these, topic chunks and stance bundles are the most frequently used, while discourse organizers are the least utilized. Furthermore, in comparison to the English Curriculum Standard (2017 Edition, 2020 Revised Edition) for high schools, these lexical chunks are underused, primarily due to high repetition rates, monotony, and misapplication by students. These issues reflect deficiencies in language fluency, accuracy, diversity, and authenticity.The main reasons for students' inadequate use of lexical chunks include lack of motivation, learning strategies, influence of prior learning experiences, and teaching methods. In light of these challenges, this study proposes corresponding teaching strategies with the aim of informing English instruction.

Research on the Cultivation of Cross-Cultural Awareness in High School English Reading Teaching

English reading instruction plays a vital role in English language teaching, particularly in the high school stage where reading materials often encompass diverse cultural backgrounds. The revised 2017 edition of the “The New English Curriculum Standards” further emphasizes the importance of cross-cultural communication skills in English teaching. This study seeks to analyze the present state of high school students’ cross-cultural awareness and communication abilities, while also exploring the significance of fostering cross-cultural awareness through reading, as well as the challenges faced in this process. The study also provides suggestions to enhance students’ cross-cultural awareness and communication abilities.

Adventures with Anxiety: Gender bias in using a digital game for teaching vocational English

AbstractBackgroundIn Norway, games were introduced into the 2020 English curriculum; acknowledging games as language learning resources alongside other text‐based material. However, little is known about the type of games selected by English teachers, reasons for doing so, or how games are actually used in teaching. This is particularly relevant in gendered vocational classes, with mainly girls or boys respectively in different programmes, as national surveys show that while most teenage boys play digital games, comparatively few girls do.ObjectivesThe primary aim was to investigate how the digital commercial game Adventures with Anxiety was used during naturally occurring English teaching in four gendered vocational classes: one Technological and Industrial Production class (boys only) and three Healthcare, Childhood and Youth development classes (girls mainly).MethodsParticipants involved 36 students (aged 16–17) and two English teachers. Using a mixed methods design (Brevik, 2022), we combined quantitative and qualitative analyses of classroom video recordings (5.5 h), student screen recordings during gameplay (8 h) and retrospective teacher interviews (1.5 h). Analyses relied on the validated PLATO observation protocol (Grossman, 2015) and reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022).Results and ConclusionsEnglish teachers expressed a dual aim in using the game for teaching English; to improve students' language skills and provide experiences of how to live with anxiety. Although the game offered relevant vocabulary and virtual experiences with anxiety; anxiety emerged as a professional component of caring professions in the girls‐mainly classes, while being used to help boys acknowledge anxiety in their own lives.

A Study of College English Curriculum under the Guidance of the Core Concepts of Professional Certification—A Case Study of Baoding University

With the continuous proceeding of professional certification in colleges and universities, college English, as a compulsory course for almost all majors, is an indispensable part of the process. This paper discusses how college English should take advantage of professional certification and build a diversified curriculum system under the guidance of the three core concepts of professional certification: “student-centered”, “outcome-oriented” and “continuous improvement”, and actively carries out reforms from the aspects of curriculum objective setting, teaching objects classification, classroom teaching activity reform, quality control system building etc. It is expected to play a positive and supporting role in the professional certification of colleges and universities, and help each major to meet the standards in the normal major certification and engineering major certification.

Merits and Demerits of English Language Coursebooks Designs: A Scoping Review

The evaluation process of English coursebooks in Saudi schools began long back when the English curriculum was updated in the 1980s. This paper reviews the works that have surveyed the Saudi English syllabi from the 1990s to the present. It aims to explore the timeline of the most prominent evaluation endeavors. The findings reveal that the common components of evaluations include content, form, learning tasks, and instruction methods. The majority of these attempts were executed using standardized checklists but implemented on a relatively small number of respondents. However, one study was conducted as part of a project launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE) for the development of the English curriculum. The distinctive satisfaction themes of merits among all evaluations were the visuals, syllabi appearance, and overall content. While teaching methods and the difficulty of tasks were highlighted as demerits. From a cultural perspective, syllabi tend to be contextualized in a Western way, based on the local Saudi culture. This paper recommends conducting a more comprehensive evaluation process online to cover more participants, developing a well-tailored checklist that suits the content and culture of Saudi Arabia, and considering the new technological changes in coursebooks.

진학계 고교 영어과의 진로별 과목 분화 방안 연구

Objectives The purposes of this study is to develop career-differentiated English subject syllabus necessary to implement a career-differentiated curriculum in academic high school. Methods To achieve this, the researcher presented a career-differentiated design proposal for English subjects to 130 teachers who specialized in English or educational curriculum. The approach involved obtaining feedback from them and tentatively finalizing the design proposal based on their opinions. Results This study drew the following conclusions. Firstly, it is necessary to differentiate English subject according to career course and as the grade goes up, English subject can be further differentiated according to the courses that require specialization. Secondly, English subject should be differentiated according to its level and function. Lastly, in terms of course completion system, adopting large-scale unit system will be able the career-differ-entiated English curriculum to operate well. Based on these results, English subject syllabuses were developed for literacy course, science course, art course, and athletics course. Conclusions The developed career-differentiated English subject syllabus will provide students with learning op-portunities that align with their diverse career inclinations. Students will have the chance to experience in-depth learning tailored to the characteristics of English curriculum subjects, enabling them to make informed decisions about their career paths through the selection and completion of English courses.

Competence based curriculum in practice: English curriculum implementation prospects and challenges in Mtama District secondary schools in Tanzania

Competence based curriculum in practice: English curriculum implementation prospects and challenges in Mtama District secondary schools in Tanzania

English as a global language in China

While the first decade of the 21st century witnessed an unprecedented level of popularity in English across China, the last ten years have seen a fall in the status of English and a meteoric rise of the importance of the Chinese language and culture in the education system (Feng & Adamson, 2019; Pan & Wang, 2024). The changed status of English was exemplified in the 2017 English curriculum standards (2017 ECS) for senior high school students (aged 16–18). A few years after the implementation of this curriculum, this paper explores how teachers and students perceive the changed status of English as prescribed in the 2017 ECS, and what this means for the role of English as a ‘global language’ in China.

Student Assessment in Formal Education: Nepali Community School Teachers’ Perspectives

The present secondary level English curriculum of Grade 9 and 10 in Nepal has made the provision of 25 marks internal assessment system as part of summative evaluation. In this context, this study examines the existing internal assessment practices adopted by the English language teachers in the Secondary Education Examination of the community schools in Nepal. Employing the qualitative phenomenological research design, five secondary level English language teachers were selected purposively as research participants. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation were used as tools for collecting data. The data were analyzed inductively as content analysis using the internal assessment criteria of participation, listening, speaking, and score from terminal examinations as determined by the curriculum as part of summative evaluation. The result was interpreted through the perspective of Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development and the theory of scaffolding in relation to the assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. The prominence of assessment of learning as the dominant practice has resulted in the marginalization of the other two purposes of assessment. The findings of the study highlight the need for a more balanced approach that encompasses assessment for learning and assessment as learning, ensuring a comprehensive and holistic evaluation of students’ progress and development.

Enacting a Global Englishes and Critical Pedagogy Integrated Curriculum in Korean High School English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

AbstractThis study examines the enactment of Global Englishes (GE) curriculum in public high school English as a foreign language classrooms in South Korea. Data collection involved pre‐ and post‐course surveys (N = 217, nine classrooms), students' written responses, and their oral presentations. The findings highlight the necessity of adopting a critical perspective as the initial step to incorporate GE in these classrooms. They also recommend integrating GE curriculum within the existing assessment framework. After curriculum enactment based on critical pedagogy and GE took place over the course of a year, the results from the post‐course survey indicated positive changes in students' receptiveness to GE, their perceptions of Outer Circle varieties, and their confidence in engaging in intercultural communication. Students' written responses also demonstrated an enhanced critical awareness of GE‐related issues. However, there was no significant change in their perceptions regarding the exclusion of GE in listening tests, their low preference for Expanding Circle varieties, and their limited multicultural communication skills. The pedagogical implications of this study are relevant not only for GE educators but also for those who enact locally driven curriculum innovations within test‐oriented contexts.

Research on the Status Quo and Countermeasures in Curriculum Ideology and Politics Teaching of English Courses Under the Background of New Liberal Arts Construction

New Liberal Arts, as an innovative development in the field of traditional liberal arts education, is a new form of discipline that takes inheritance and innovation, crossover and integration, synergy and sharing as the main way, and promotes the crossover and in-depth integration of multiple disciplines in a demand-oriented way. Curriculum ideology and politics is an important direction for the construction of English curriculum in colleges and universities at this stage, which can effectively improve the teaching effect of English curriculum, help colleges and universities and English teachers to build a perfect English curriculum system, and effectively play the nurturing value of English curriculum, realizing the synergistic nurturing of English professional knowledge and ideology and politics theory. Based on this, this paper analyzes the significance of English curriculum ideology and politics, discusses the problems of English curriculum ideology and politics at this stage, and then puts forward relevant suggestions in the hope of improving the construction effect of English curriculum ideology and politics, and effectively integrating the elements of ideology and politics into the teaching activities of English curriculum in colleges and universities.

A Practical Study of English Reading Teaching in Senior High School based on Transfer and Innovation Activities

The English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools (2017 edition, revised in 2020) emphasizes the concept of English learning activities oriented by key competences, and makes it clear that the design of English teaching in senior high schools should include transfer and innovation activities. However, in the actual reading teaching, teachers tend to lay particular stress on learning and understanding activities, application and practice activities, and pay little attention to transfer and innovation activities. This paper aims to elaborate the meaning of transfer and innovation activities, and through practical exploration, summarizes the principles of designing transfer and innovation activities in reading teaching, and applies them to practical teaching, so as to improve the teaching quality of teachers and the learning effect of students.

English and Swedish year-one teachers’ number-related learning goals: the influence of intended and received curricula

In this paper, drawing on semi-structured interviews with generalist teachers of year-one children in England and Sweden, we examine comparatively the influence of the intended curriculum (teachers in both countries work within mandated national curricula) and the received curriculum (the collectively assumed efficacious practices and goals handed down from one generation of teachers to the next) on teachers’ expressed number-related learning goals. Analyses, framed by a literature-derived and curriculum-independent set of eight forms of number-related competence each implicated in later mathematical learning, identified both similarities and differences in the two groups’ expressed goals. Key similarities concerned expectations that all children should become additively competent, supported by supplementary goals concerning systematic counting, number bonds, the number line and an appropriate mathematical terminology. Key differences concerned English teachers’ strongly-expressed emphasis on place value and a desire for children to learn to multiply. Overall, the strongly-framed English curriculum appears to influence teachers’ goals more than the weakly-framed Swedish, while Swedish teachers seem to draw on a received curriculum more closely aligned with the literature-derived developmental goals than the English. Finally, when set against the literature-derived and curriculum-independent developmental goals, the English curriculum, unlike the Swedish, expects year-one children to learn much age-inappropriate material.

An Analysis of Holistic Education Models in Mainland China’s Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of College English Curriculum

Over the last four decades, the field of education in mainland China has seen sustained and stable growth. However, the very essence of education has undergone significant changes. In the era spanning from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, the primary aim of education was to serve economic construction and modern development, with a clear emphasis on utilitarian and instrumental characteristics. By the late 1990s, there was a shift towards advocating for quality education that prioritizes the comprehensive development of individuals, gradually embracing the concept of holistic education across the Chinese mainland. College English courses, mandatory for all non-English major undergraduates at Chinese universities, stand as a pivotal component of general education. Amidst the extensive backdrop of educational reform and development in mainland China, college English curriculum have experienced profound changes. The “College English Curriculum Guidelines (2020)” recently released by the Ministry of Education highlights that college English courses possess both instrumental and humanistic dimensions. The instrumental aspect is demonstrated through enhancing students’ comprehensive abilities in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating English, while its humanistic core is rooted in a people-oriented approach that celebrates human values and emphasizes the cultivation of comprehensive qualities and overall development. This paper aims to explore the practical model of implementing holistic education within college English curriculum, adhering to the specific requirements of the 2020 guidelines, across four dimensions: curriculum system, instructional approaches, educational resources, and faculty strength.

Chemical Workers Union Consortium Trains Trainers in Disaster Response While Building Both Resiliency in Disasters and Preparedness.

This paper studies disaster training work of one of the original grantees of the Worker Training Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: The International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) and its consortium of unions and national organizations. The consortium developed disaster train-the-trainer curriculum in English and in Spanish, so worker trainers would be poised to do training during, after, and in prevention of disasters. This paper reviews the program and its impact on affected communities - with both a historical perspective and with interviews of 20 of those who were trained to be disaster response trainers. At least half the trainees actively trained at one or more disaster sites provided important information to keep community residents safer and to help them build resilience in their communities. Other trainers have used their knowledge to improve their workplaces during a disaster or to help prevent mold contamination and other post-disaster hazards in underserved neighborhoods.

The Application of English Grammar Teaching Based on the Thematic Contexts in Junior High Schools

Grammar is an important part of the language. It directly affects the accuracy and appropriateness of language comprehension and expression. English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2022 Edition) offers suggestions for grammar teaching. Students are encouraged to explore grammar in the context based on their understanding of the theme. However, teachers may neglect the role of thematic meaning in grammar teaching, also they fail to create the context in teaching practice. As a result, students have difficulty applying grammar properly in their lives. Based on the concept of three-dimensional dynamic grammar and teaching examples, the paper explores the strategies and specific methods of grammar teaching in thematic contexts. Through relevant literature on the thematic context and the application of some progressive activities in thematic contextualization, it is made clear that the connotation of grammar learning is to perceive grammar forms, explore grammar rules, understand grammatical meanings and further express them in correct ways. The conclusions are summarized as follows. English grammar teaching based on the thematic contexts helps to stimulate students' interest in grammar learning, while students’ ability to transfer knowledge, their cultural awareness and the quality of thinking are all enhanced.

Exploration and Research on the Construction of Vocational English Curriculum in China under the Context of Digital Transformation

This study delves into how digital transformation affects vocational English education in China, revealing the positive impacts of digital tools and strategies on teaching methodologies, curriculum content, and educational quality. The research indicates that the application of online Learning Management Systems (LMS), Virtual Reality (VR), and interactive platforms has significantly enhanced interactivity and practicality in vocational English education. Innovative teaching methods such as flipped classrooms and project-based learning have been effectively employed, enhancing students’ critical thinking and practical skills. However, the study also highlights issues that still need attention and resolution, such as insufficient digital skills among teachers, unequal distribution of technological resources, and a disconnect between teaching practices and student needs. To address these challenges, it is recommended to strengthen policy support, enhance teachers’ digital teaching capabilities, improve curriculum content to better meet student needs, and promote school-enterprise cooperation to strengthen practical teaching.