A Study of Strategies to Incorporate Humanities Education into English Teaching at Junior High Schools

Bai Xue

School of Foreign Languages,Bohai University,Jinzhou,China

Email:2392276736@qq.com

Feng Haoda

School of Foreign Languages,Bohai University,Jinzhou,China,

Email:178862677@qq.com

[Abstract] "Qualification" is a long-term and fundamental task in Chinese education.In order to implement the high priority given by the Ministry of Education to school education at all levels,school leaders and grassroots teachers are actively exploring measures to incorporate humanities education into classroom quality education.Taking junior high school English teaching as an example,this paper analyzes the present situation of junior high school English teaching,and puts forward some improvement measures.

[Keywords] Humanities Education;Practical English Teaching;Educational Applications

Introduction

In the current educational form,in order to make students establish the correct world view,life view and value,we should start to implement the cultivation of this aspect from the secondary education.From the perspective of educational psychology,we emphasize that English education should also conform to the law of students' physical and mental development,strive to achieve the competition between seeking knowledge and humanistic education,and at the same time enable students to acquire knowledge and shape their personal behavior through practical English.Infiltration of personal behavior through practical English teaching is not only the work of social education,but also a long way to go in English education.

Humanities Education in the Context of the New Era

Insisting on education-based and focus on its practical utility

Education is to cultivate talents,but is often confined to the classroom,resulting in a disconnection between education and the real life of society,creating a sense of distance,or not being able to "apply the world",relying too much on the classroom around grades and being too detached from the classroom,all of which go against the concept of quality education,resulting in the phenomenon of dumb English.Language training can not be separated from the cultural soil in which it is rooted.Imagine the process of learning Chinese,in addition to the recognition of characters and reading in school,there is also the daily use of communication,so that complement each other,so that we master this language.English teaching also has the same shortcomings,such as inculcating knowledge points,paying too much attention to test scores,lacking practical English knowledge,and being limited to"Hello,what's your name,my name is Kangkang",etc.,which can only achieve simple communication,thus causing the entanglement of learning English.We tend to explain English in Chinese,so it does not increase our memory of English knowledge.We should think from the perspective of a real society.This society can not weaken the necessary process of learning a language because of the importance of scores.We should pay attention to the important role that English plays in the combination of life and personal behavior,so as to undertake the important task of training talents for society.

Focus on the cultivation of humanistic quality in English education

Education,as a fundamental task,must be rooted in the soil of culture,both traditional and Western,and humanistic education is essential,while basic compulsory education is closely related to the development of the country and plays a fundamental role in the physical and mental development of young people.Humanities education includes spelling competition,English poetry readings and volunteer activities,which focus on ethical practices in English use.In daily humanities teaching activities,teachers should keep up with students' psychological development,actively explore new ways of humanities education for middle school students,and"button the first button of life"for them.If,for example,a secondary school student does not know the difference between washing room and toilet,or if a secondary school student has no knowledge of the common sense of law and public morality under the English expression,this is enough to show the imperfection of education.

The connotation and function of"Humanities Education"

"Humanities Education"is not a specific course or course category,but an educational philosophy.As an educational philosophy,"Humanities Education"takes humanistic qualities as the main concept and the curriculum as the main form of humanities education.With the unique educational function and value orientation of the curriculum,the traditional curriculum edge is diluted,so as to try to transform disciplinary resources and academic resources into educational resources(Wang,2019,p.54)."Humanities Education"advocates that courses should assume the function of educating people,and teachers should shoulder the responsibility of educating people to achieve the organic unity of"knowledge transfer"and"value leadership".

Exploration of Humanities Education in Middle School English Teaching

The provisions in the English syllabus of junior high school

Feasibility analysis of implementing humanities education in English teaching

English courses have outstanding intellectual and ideological characteristics.It is an important platform for humanities education and a critical part of humanities education.The theoretical basis for the integration of English courses with humanities education is the synergy theory.Synergy theory mainly studies the common characteristics of different things and their synergy mechanism.As a humanities course,although English course and the practical course both have their own unique curriculum characteristics,the two types of courses also have similarities in the nature of the courses,the overall goals of education,and the objects of education,so that the two types of courses can go in the same direction and generate educational synergy.

These two kinds of courses are public basic courses,and the nature of the English course is instrumental and humanistic,so it also undertakes the task of humanities education.As far as its instrumentality is concerned,as long as the language carrier is English,there are no special requirements for the professionalism and knowledge of the teaching content,so practical elements can be incorporated into the teaching content.In addition,the English course also has a humanistic function,and the core of the humanistic nature is to put people first,promote the value of people,and focus on the cultivation and overall development of people's comprehensive quality (Gong,2016,p.101),which means that the course undertakes the task of improving students'comprehensive humanistic quality.On the one hand,it cultivates students' patriotism and strengthens their patriotism in the process of English teaching.On the other hand,through the comparison of cultural differences,students can be guided to form good morality.It can be seen that the training direction of English courses and humanities education is to promote students'all-round free development through teaching and to internalize humanities education values into the heart and externalize them into behaviors.

Problems of English Humanities Education in Junior High School

The utilitarian nature of educational purposes and the one-way nature of cultural exchanges

English class is the main place for students to learn and master the basic knowledge and basic skills of English,understand the social and cultural knowledge of major Western countries,and improve their cross-cultural communicative competence.In the traditional teaching in the past,English educators often only paid attention to English grammar teaching,but neglected the humanities education of students.English teachers also seldom paid attention to the influence of Western culture and values on students,much less actively intervened and guided students to critically view Western culture,which led to students'lack of humanities education in language learning,thus seriously damaging the cognitive ecology of students.

Neglect of the practical application of English

In the process of teaching implementation,because most teachers have no professional background and teaching experience in humanities education,they often don't know how to grasp the relevant points of English teaching and humanities education,which leads to the connection between them being too far-fetched or superficial in content,lacking in depth of connotation and failing to realize the organic unity of humanities education and English knowledge system.English,as the most widely used language,is closely related to many practical applications in life,such as the rapid development of the Internet industry,which is closely related to the ubiquitous shadow.For example,in daily communication,students may be able to read English letters and do reading,but it is difficult to identify the logo on a washing machine simply by using English notes.

Lack of innovation in teaching organization form

In the current teaching process,if the teaching organization used is inappropriate,it not only fails to achieve the purpose of educating students,but also affects students'interest in learning English knowledge.For example,the limitations of teacher-led traditional teaching methods lead to the inability to complete the innovation of teaching methods.The lack of students' active participation leads to their inability to reflect and gain insight and consciousness in their minds.Therefore,in the teaching process,we should start from the current situation and take English teaching about practical humanistic quality education as a breakthrough,so that English can be implemented into practical application from life and then back to life,so that students can form an acquired conditioned reflex and pay attention to the cultivation of students'learning subjectivity.

Strategies for implementing"Humanities education"in junior high school English

Using the"First class"to keep the origin of"Humanities Education"

Innovating teaching content and digging deep into humanities education resources

Babansky pointed out that when teachers are teaching,they should also select the content to optimize the teaching content.(Hao,2012,p.17)Therefore,teachers should consciously explore the resources for humanities education,make reasonable use of the existing English teaching materials,and fasten the combination of teaching materials and humanities education.For example,the selection of teaching content can combine macro-thematic sublimation with micro-linguistic integration.On the macro level,according to the different topics involved in different teaching content,the spiritual guidance of ideals and beliefs should be integrated into the teaching of language knowledge.In addition to finding the entry point of humanities education elements from these macro-level article topics,it can also be analyzed from the micro-level language level.Teachers can choose examples and materials related to humanities education when explaining language points,which will truly help humanities education run through the whole process of general English teaching.Besides,teachers should make full use of extracurricular resources to supplement and update teaching materials.

Reforming teaching methods to enhance the sense of the times and attractiveness

In the current teaching process,the traditional teacher-centered teaching method should be transformed into a student-centered teaching method,and the subjective initiative of students should be brought into play,which is more conducive to students'understanding of teaching content.

Then the little ones held each other by the hand, and kissed the roses, and looked at the bright sunshine, and spoke14 to it as if the Christ-child were there. Those were splendid summer days. How beautiful and fresh it was out among the rose-bushes, which seemed as if they would never leave off blooming. One day Kay and Gerda sat looking at a book full of pictures of animals and birds, and then just as the clock in the church tower struck twelve, Kay said, “Oh, something has struck my heart!” and soon after, “There is something in my eye.”

The modern English class can not be separated from audio-visual means.Sensory stimulation of vision and hearing can stimulate students'enthusiasm and interest,and inspire them to think and explore further.Therefore,English teachers should make full use of multi-modal symbol resources,and proficiently use multimedia technology to integrate multi-modal resources,so as to enhance the attractiveness of classroom teaching and improve teaching effects.It can be like introducing a famous foreign literature to students,or it can be combined with English to understand a chemical equation.In short,it is necessary to judge the appropriateness of the method from the student's perspective.

Expanding the"Second class"to enhance the effectiveness of"Humanities Education"

The construction of English"Humanities Education"requires the integration of in-class and extra-class.Under the premise of realizing the main channel of classroom teaching,the elements of"Humanities Education"shall be integrated and extended to the"Second class"to maximize the education function of campus culture.

To organize various forms of English campus cultural activities,and actively promote the construction of English campus culture,for example,we hold an English speech contest with the theme of"Foreign literary classics"to guide students to study hard and promote their youth and dreams.We hold an English sitcom with the theme "If I were a tour guide,how would I introduce Chinese traditional culture to foreign tourists",so as to guide students to inherit,spread and carry forward Chinese excellent traditional culture.We hold an English corner with the theme of"Humanistic Knowledge".

We can believe that rich and excellent school-level English cultural activities will bring about a subtle influence on students,thus helping them to improve their moral qualities in practice.

Improving the appraisal mechanism

First,change the traditional English test,which only pays attention to the evaluation of English language knowledge,and increase the assessment of general life knowledge of humanistic in the written examination.Second,change the written test as the only evaluation method,and examine students through lectures,discussions,textbook drama performances and other activities.This can not only test whether students know,understand and understand English culture in the learning process,but also detect students' interest,participation and exploration spirit in the learning process,which is conducive to the improvement of students' comprehensive quality.Finally,change the summative evaluation method with high test scores to formative evaluation method.Formative evaluation is to evaluate learners from many aspects,including learning outcomes,attitudes,emotions,communication skills,and innovation capabilities.Therefore,it is very helpful to examine the overall humanistic development level of students.

Enhancing teachers'awareness of humanities education and cultural literacy

Nowadays,the Ministry of Education attaches great importance to the development of teacher ethics,puts the improvement of teachers'moral education quality and professional ethics in the first place,and promoted teachers to become disseminators of advanced ideology and culture,and instructors of students'healthy growth.

Therefore,the majority of teachers should pay attention to improving their own "Humanities Education Ability"The teacher's"Humanities Education Ability"refers to the teacher's ability to deliberately,organically and effectively carry out humanities education in teaching.The formation of "Humanities Education" consciousness is mainly through the following ways:Strengthen the cultivation of personal Chinese and Western cultural qualities,give full play to subjective initiative,and do a good job of developing English humanistic education resources.At the same time,as English teachers,we must constantly improve our cultural accomplishment and ability to communicate Chinese culture in English.They should consciously combine the target language culture with Chinese culture in teaching,and strive to cultivate students'awareness of"cultural self-confidence".

Conclusion

Today's China is an unprecedented era of development,and it is also an era of rich spirit and material resources.Therefore,we must deeply understand the importance and urgency of quality education,enhance the initiative and creativity of education reform,and try our best to explore new methods of"quality teaching"for English teaching.Although scores are the standard of judging,it is more important to make students happy in their studies.Only when society,schools and teachers work together to continuously improve and refine the relevant systems,to form the norm of educating people throughout the whole process,educating the whole staff and educating people in all aspects,to inherit culture with the times,to absorb foreign culture dialectically,to take its essence and discard its dregs,can we realize the grand task of building and cultivating excellent talents for all-round development.