5.3 Limitations and Further Research Suggestions 17

References 

I. Introduction

1.1 Research Background 

    With the booming of global economy and information age, English, as an international communication method, has already become vital than before. In China, several politics about English education have evoked heated discussion. For instance, there will be two chances in a year for students to take the college entrance examination of English rather than the fate opportunity in June. Some believe English is not as important as before while others hold the view that English education nowadays is more for quality-oriented other than exam-oriented. However, educators say these politics, on the one hand, have been made to reduce students’ burden and let students accumulate knowledge little by little, and on the other hand, these can give students more chances to challenge themselves. Therefore, the role that English takes cannot be replayed by others and more attention should be paid to it. 

There is no doubt that some teachers and educators have already realize the problems in nowadays’s English education. And the reform and innovation in class design as well as reading teaching, vocabulary teaching can be found more and more. However, the English homework assignment is not that centralized. Students in China are working hard with all sorts of homework including English homework. Today’s English teachers seem to pay more attention to teaching rather than students’ learning. Surely, homework assignment, a necessary and useful part of lesson plan, is a bridge of inside and outside class learning. The effectiveness of homework assignment has a great relationship with students’ achievements. Homework is not only the main way to check students’ degree of understanding, digesting, consolidating the knowledge learned in class, but also a direct way that teachers get feedback from students and timely adjust their teaching methods and progresses. 

Years’ English education has also seen several shortcomings, and homework assignment is one of that should be promoted. At present, most Junior high school English homework are traditionally mainly copying words and phrases, reciting the text as well as doing grammar exercises, though Cooper and others (2006) have found that homework improves test and exam results and therefore helps student with gaining higher marks. Students who are doing such kind of long term boring homework are losing their interests to learn English. The heavy burden homework not only cannot cultivate students’ learning confidence but also restricts their development of personality and creativity. Some parents also believe the homework load is too large. Cooper (2011) reported that even less homework assignment make students improve their self regulation and academic achievement. Therefore, some improvements have to be made about English homework assignment in Junior high school English classes.   

1.2 Research Purpose

During my two-month field trip in Hangzhou Fengtan middle school, I have great interest about English homework assignment of my class that is Grade 8, class one. I remember one day, one of the students was complaining that copying these new words was such a boring work. While copying, he didn’t learn it by heart. And another top student told me the English homework assigned by teacher was so easy. At that time I tried to find out how can English teacher assign homework effectively. 

This article aims to find out how the English teachers assign homework for their students. Various types of homework should be designed for students, not only to master grammar points, but also to communicate with each other in reality, to cultivate the self-learning habits. The purpose of this thesis is to draw teachers’ attention that attitudes towards homework assignment should be changed and innovated.