Learning through Participation: Partnership in Undergraduate Curriculum Design and Assessment in Chinese Higher Education

This paper reports the teaching practice of a new undergraduate curriculum design and assessment of English majors at Henan University of Economics and Law in 2013-2014 academic year. Underpinned by social constructivism, this new curriculum design highly evaluates students' participation through additional activities, and considers it as a valuable experience for students to practice their learning skills, to work with peers and to solve practical problems. It also presents results of a questionnaire survey as well as interviews for both teachers and students, discusses some key considerations of additional activities in English teaching, and finally draws a conclusion that although the new curriculum design and assessment have high recognition, they still need improvement as well.