Breaking Down Educational Barriers, Exploring Scientific Pathways

With the in-depth implementation of the nine-year integrated education model and the use of new English textbooks, ensuring a seamless transition from primary to junior high school English teaching has become key to improving teaching quality. This joint English teaching and research activity aims to break down barriers between educational stages and explore more scientific and efficient teaching pathways through in-depth communication and collaboration, laying a solid foundation for students' English learning journey.

To deepen exchanges and form consensus, NanChong No. 11 Middle School arranged an English demonstration lesson for sixth-grade primary school and seventh-grade junior high school students, taught by teachers Pang Juan and Cao Xin, respectively. Teacher Pang's lesson focused on the topic "What does he do?" for sixth graders, exploring vocabulary teaching methods. The class was rich in activities with high student participation. It not only practiced vocabulary related to "occupations" repeatedly but also trained students in dialogues about asking and answering about family members' occupations, significantly improving classroom achievement rates.

Teacher Cao Xin, based on the sixth unit of the new junior high school textbook, challenged the new type of "phonetics class" that appears in junior high school textbooks. This class was not limited to a single phonetics lesson but combined phonetics teaching with dialogues about asking for time and listening tests in multiple dimensions, allowing students to more comprehensively experience and achieve the target language.

However, through the observation of the courses, it is clear that there is a significant gap in the difficulty of the content between the two classes. Both primary and junior high school new textbooks place more emphasis on the shaping of core literacy and cultural awareness. Currently, student academic evaluation standards have not fully kept up with the pace of textbook reforms. Facing this dilemma, teachers Li Na and Xie Wei analyzed the changes in the new textbooks for primary and junior high schools and discussed how to effectively combine teaching across the two stages.

Director Pang Yinan, in charge of English teaching at the junior high school, and Chief English Teacher Zhou Haiyan from the primary school also analyzed the current English teaching situation, the characteristics of the new textbooks, and the direction of exams at their school, and formulated a series of suggestions for integrating the stages. They require all English teachers to increase vocabulary recitation and testing in the primary school stage, incorporate school-based reading materials into daily teaching for fifth and sixth graders, and then increase the difficulty of primary school tests in line with the current reading-oriented exam questions.

Through this joint teaching and research activity, we have a profound understanding of the importance of the connection between primary and junior high school English teaching. This activity not only allowed teachers to deeply understand the concept and methods of teaching connections but also provided a platform for teachers to communicate and learn from each other. At the same time, students also gained rich learning experiences in the activity, and their interest and confidence in learning English were enhanced.

Authors: Shu Yu, Pang Yinan