Chapter One Introduction
The contents of the 18thNational Congress of Communist Party of China layemphasis on the development of educational enterprise and the reform of elementaryeducation. At the same time, the 18thNational Congress of CPC vigorously promotes theconstruction of ecological civilization and the concept of ecological civilization should befirmly established in the whole society. These requirements highlight the importance andurgency of the construction of ecological environment. It also can expand ecology ofeducation.The outline of national medium and long-term education reform and developmentplan (2010-2020) has put forward views like cultivating students’ independent studyability, autonomous learning ability and promoting persified development in ordinarysenior high school. And following the principle as “student-centered, teacher-led”; givefull play to the initiative of students; to promote the healthy growth of students as thestarting point and the foothold of the school’s all work. Taking care of every student; topromote each student to develop actively and lively; respect for the law of education andthe law of students’ physical and mental development; provide appropriate education forevery student. So this study will be suitable in this time in term of the above outline.The study is under the guidance of New English Curriculum Standards and based onthe concept of New English Curriculum Standards for direction, which particularlyemphasizes to improve students’ thinking and expression abilities in English. At the sametime students should have the preliminary practical writing abilities and are required towrite the common applied literary form in senior high school. Under the influences of global ecologicalization, the researchers put forwardecological classroom in the process of applying the basic principles of ecology on thesubsystem of the education system. Therefore, to think and master the issue of ourcountry’s education reform and development from an ecological perspective is theproblem we have to face. In China 17thCPC National Congress report, Hu Jintao putforward “to build an ecological civilization” “the concept of ecological civilization firmlyestablished in the whole society”, which highlights the importance and urgency of theconstruction of ecological environment. (Li et al., 2011) To some extent, the existing microscopic study is towards classroom environmentrather than a complete ecological classroom study which lack of comprehensiveness andecology. It reflects the poor interactivity between students and teachers, simple and staleteaching method, low teaching effectiveness. The New English Curriculum Standardsrequires the emphasis of the dialogue, communication and interactive relationshipbetween teachers and students; paying attention to students’ experience andcomprehension; advocating autonomous learning, cooperative learning and exploratorylearning; respecting the inpiduality differences; contacting with students’ lifeexperience. All in all, the New English Curriculum ideas of the basic educationcurriculum reform fully embody the life, integrity, development, association and othercharacteristics which have presented the ecological orientation.
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Chapter Two Literature review and theoreticalfoundation
2.1 Definitions
In 1866, German zoologist Haeckel (Haeckel, E.) gave “ecology” a relatively cleardefinition, namely “the relationship between the organism and the surroundingenvironment” (Wu & Zhu, 1998:2). The meaning of the English word “ecology” refers tothe relationship between the organism and its environment around each other. It isobviously that the basic elements of “ecology” are life and environment; its nature is“relation”. With the development of ecology, “ecology” extends froma biological term tovarious fields, and it also represents a new world outlook and methodology, a new kind ofscientific thinking. Today, the word “ecology” has been used in various fields, such as“ecological politics”, “ecological economy”, “ecological culture”, “ecologicalpsychology”, “ecological teaching”. It represents many meanings, like “balance”,“variety”, “open”, and “harmony”etc. The definition of classroom is pided into broad sense and narrow sense. Frombroad sense, the classroom is the place where a variety of teaching and learning activitiestake place. From narrow sense, the classroom refers to the place where we carry outteaching activities by means of transferring, transforming and constructing knowledge,aiming to help students to master knowledge, develop intelligence and ability, cultivatemoral character, and develop personality (Li et al., 2011:56). In view of the form, thenarrow classroom includes: classroom teaching, extracurricular activities, visiting etc.This paper focused on the classroom teaching. Eco-classroom is new mode of classroom in the state of ecology on ecologicalperspective. The fundamental meaning of ecology is “life” and “relation”. That is to say,ecological classroom is the relation of teachers, students and surrounding e nvironments inthe classroom at the particular space and time, which is in line with the physiologicalcharacteristics, the learning and life habits of the students. It considers the students,teachers, classroom environment, teacher-student relationships, teaching mode andacademic evaluation as a complete ecosystem, then to create a whole, perse,harmonious and sustainable development classroom form. The Eco-classroom of English is a new kind of English classroom. The aims ofeco-classroom of English are to get rid of the disadvantages of the exam-oriented teachingand promote the students’ free, natural, healthy, harmonious and sustainable developmentaccording to the inherent laws. In order to achieve these goals, we should respect thestudents, meet the students’ need of developing their characters, lead the students todevelop a positive learning attitude, stimulate the students’ lasting intrinsic motivation oflearning English, arouse the students’ interest in learning English, and help the students toform some effective learning strategies. All in all, the ecological classroom of English is ahealthy, harmonious, dynamic and balance system, which emphasize on student-teacher’ s“symbiosis”.
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.2 Overseas studies and studies in China
The terminology of ecology of education was first put towards in the book named“Public Education” by L.A. Cremin who is the former president of Normal College ofColumbia University U.S in 1976. And then English scholar J. Eggleston has published The Ecology of the School which is mainly about distribution of education resources. TheEcology of Human Development was written by U.Bronfenbrenern who has put forwardmany theoretical assumptions. Western ecology of education studies spread in differenteducational levels. Until now it has formed a relatively complete theoretical system at themacro area.Since 1932, Waller. W the American education scholar first proposed “ecology ofclassroom” in his book Sociology of education. The ecology of classroom is themicroscopic level of ecology of education. Although the concept has been proposed in1932, actually its study abroad began in 1960s. Until now there are abundant researchachievements of ecological classroom in specific content, target groups, research methodsand so on.The abroad study content mainly focused on classroom environment and behaviorsof classroom life. Study groups were mostly students in primary and secondary schools, atthe same time, they concerned about “vulnerable groups” including special educationclassroom, kindergarten classroom, older students classroom. (Sun & Xie,2006) Itreflected the deep sense of the concept of inclusive education and lifelong education.Research methods attach great importance to the real situation and emphasize natural andqualitative approach to the research. Such as, Smith began to use ethnography method tostudy ecology of classroom as early as in 1969.
Chapter Three Research design ..................................................................12
3.1 Participant of the research....................................12
3.2 Content of the research ..............................................12
3.3 Purpose of the research....................................13
Chapter Four Application of Eco-classroom Englis h writing teaching ............17
4.1 Natural environment ................................17
Chapter Five Result analysis and discussion ...............................29
5.1 Result and analysis of questionnaires ...............................29
Chapter Five Result analysis and discussion
5.1 Result and analysis of questionnaires
Questionnaires were distributed to two classes which are total 108 students. Somequestionnaires are invalid; at last we get 100 valid questionnaires to analyze. Here are theresult and analysis of questionnaires. Q1: From the data we can see that more than 93% students don’t have much interestin English writing; nearly half students don’t like it at all, which directly influencestudents’ English writing enthusiasm and initiative. Therefore, the premise of inspiringstudents’ English writing enthusiasm and initiative is to cultivate students’ English writinginterest.Q2: Students rarely practice English writing every day, which are only 2% students;78% students write an English composition every week; 12% students write every two orthree weeks; and 8% students write only an English composition in a month or so. Thecondition indirectly signified that teacher didn’t attach great importance to students’English writing at extracurricular time. Q3: Students don’t form a good habit of writing English weekly report. There arejust 1% students doing so. English writing is a comprehensive training, which needslong-term perseverance, because it doesn’t happen at once. Hence, students shouldpractice English writing more often. Writing English weekly report is a good way topractice, so students should pay attention to it.Q4: The survey shows that the purpose of learning English writing, 95% studentschoose “teacher’s demand” and “for the sake of examination”. Except for 5% studentswho are interested in English, most students lack of initiative and enthusiasm for learningEnglish writing. The main reason is that the students lack of writing motivation. Studentsdon’t fully realize themselves who are the main body of study. The concept of Englishwriting is still “want me to learn” rather than “I want to learn.”
5.2 Result and analysis of interview
In order to further understand students’ learning view of English writing and better carry out the teaching of eco-classroom, the researcher conducted two interviews with thestudents respectively in the early and late stage of the experiment. To further understand the students’ attitude towards English writing learning, and inorder to make students better understand some of the basic concepts and methods ofoperation about ecological classroom of English writing teaching, at the same time,eliminating part of the students’ concerns and fear of hardship, the researcher conductedinpidual interviews in the early stage of the experiment. Interview outline as follows:Q1. Do you like the current English writing teaching mode? Why?Q2. How well do you do in the present English writing class?Q3. Is there any difference between the current English writing teaching and thetraditional English writing teaching? Can you give some examples?Q4. What do you think when your teacher uses ecological classroom to conductEnglish writing teaching?Some students think that the English classroom has some changes and they involvedin these changes which are different from the traditional English writing teaching class.Like they have more chances to take part in many kinds of teaching activities; to think,discuss and cooperate more with partners or group members; some say that the classroomis full of students’ opinions and no longer boring any more, they can express theiropinions in class boldly; some even say that the different experience including teachingcontent and teaching method has changed their prejudice on English class.One student gives us an example. She said she always got a little score in Englishexams, so she sat in the corner of the classroom. She said “I want to improve my English,because I like it. However I don’t know how.” In English class she didn’t have much eyecontact with the teacher, because she was a little afraid of English teacher. She thought theteacher only likes high mark students. Obviously she is a little abased herself in front ofthe teacher and even classmates. However in the ecological classroom, students can have different seating rather than a fixed seat. Sometimes she feels more close to the teacherand changes some opinions with the teacher and more willing to involve in class activitiesand perform well. The teacher praised her in class.From this point of view, we can see the students of grade one in senior high school isvery active, energetic and full of curiosity. They tend to be cared and concerned. They arebrave enough to try and study in different way and they are malleable. After conductingecological classroom teaching which can boost students’ confidence and motivate theirinterests to generate more writing compositions.Also we find out some students can not adapt to this kind of teaching mode quickly,the teacher should pay more attention to these students, communicate and contact themmore often in order to know their learning process and adjust English writing teachingaccordingly.
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Chapter Six Conclusions
The eco-classroom of English writing teaching is an ecological system, in whichteachers, students and environment influence or communicate with each other. Therefore,studying the research of English writing teaching in senior high school from theperspective of ecology is reasonable and feasible.After four months’ experimental study on the English writing teaching, the analysisof the questionnaire’ data, the analysis and summary of students’ interview and classobservation, and focus on the revision and reflection of eco-classroom of English writingteaching, students improve their interests in English writing, change their attitudes towardEnglish writing class and there are more interactions and communications betweenstudents and teachers. At the same time, the scores of students’ writing composition twicebefore and after the experiment of the experimental class and the controlled class iscollected and use SPSS 17.0 software to compare the differences. Through this study, wecan get the following conclusions:1. Through questionnaires and classroom observations, the researcher found that inthe class of English writing teaching in high school, there still existing many problemswhich didn’t conform to the new English Curriculum Standard and the current situationof English writing is not optimistic.2. Comparing and analyzing the data out of students’ two times tests pre- and post-the experiment, we can ensure that students improve their writing marks obviously, afterthe teacher employs eco-classroom of English writing teaching.3. The outcome of the study proves that ecological classroom of English writingteaching can arouse students’ writing interests, foster students’ writing habit, improvestudents’ writing ability and affect their English writing attitudes positively.In a conclusion, the research shows that ecological classroom of English writingteaching which is rooted in the reality of the English classroom is feasible and effective.This study applies concepts of ecology and methods used to interpret the ecological connotation in English writing class in high school, trying to construct the preliminarytheoretical eco-classroom of English writing teaching from natural environment andhumanistic environment. Finally, from four factors including the layout of the classroom,the arrangement of desks and chairs, teacher-student relationship and student-studentrelationship, countermeasures and suggestions are been proposed which refer to create aclassroom from the ecological environment, carry on dynamic teaching activities, developflexible choice of teaching methods and adopt perse teaching evaluation.After in-depth classroom research the researcher deeply feels that theimplementation of eco-classroom of English writing teaching in high school needs a widerange support together from schools, society and so on. In views of my theoretical level,limited time and energy, the rigor and logic of the study need to be strengthened. Buildingtheory and practical recommendations of ecological classroom in English writing classfails to form a mature theoretical framework which still needs further research.
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