International Journal of Education

This study is based on the survey data of 38 district and county-level English teaching coordinators in Chongqing City, revealing the urban-rural differentiation and structural contradictions in their teaching situations. The main urban area relies on frequent teaching research and resource integration to promote core literacy teaching, while rural areas, due to the shortage of teachers, lack of teaching resources, and marginalization of the subject, have fallen into a vicious cycle of "low class attendance rate - low quality - low recognition". Teachers face job burnout, professional degeneration, and lack of incentives. The mixed textbooks, rigid evaluation, and disconnection of the quality goals exacerbate the teaching difficulties. It is suggested to build a three-level teaching research system to promote the linkage of urban and rural resources, and promote stratified training and digital transformation; deepen classroom reform through unit themes integration, intelligent assessment, etc., to enhance the effectiveness of core literacy cultivation; strengthen policy guarantees, optimize the status of the subject and the investment in teachers. This study aims to provide practical references for the balanced development of primary school English education in the western region and the quality improvement reform of the English subject aimed at the implementation of core literacy.

Primary school English; Urban-rural disparity; Teaching situation; Teaching research reform