作者：李春芳
　　【Abstract】An urgent task for the development of English in China is how to improve the effectiveness of English teaching. This paper mainly introduces the theoretical basis of instructional design for teaching English and analyzes the main contents of the English teaching design.
　　【Key words】instructional design; English; theoretical basis
　　Introduction
　　In the process of teaching activities， the teachers and students are the centers of those activities， so they are interactive subjects. Multiple subjects make teaching form resultant force so that instructional goals can be achieved. It must be defined whether the presupposition activities have achieved the instructional goals. Evaluation not only tests whether the presupposition activities have achieved the instructional goals but also referential accordance to decide the instructional goals.
　　1. The Meaning of Instructional Goals
　　Teaching is human’s planned activities， which can be finished by conscious design. This kind of design is called instructional design. From the perspective of teaching design， the connotation of teaching design includes the following three points.
　　Instructional design is a technology which can greatly improve teaching effectiveness and has the very remarkable practice operability. Famous American teaching design scholar David Merrill pointed out that instruction is a science， and instructional design is a technology that are firmly based on instructional science. Therefore， instruction can also be thought as science-based technology. As a result， instructional design technology should mainly focus on how efficient instructional activities are designed based on study experience and learning atmosphere.
　　Also，， instructional design is an activity， and teaching itself is a process. Teaching design is naturally composed of a series of decomposable activities. We should naturally grasp instructional design itself as a process. Its procedural character demonstrates that instructional design is not a closed system but a continuous open system in the process.
　　At the same time， instructional design is an idea. The famous instructional design scholar Gagnez has pointed out the reason why we use the word “instruction” instead of the word “teaching” is that we want to describe all the events that have a direct impact on students’ learning， not just those events that initiated by individual teachers （Gagnez，1999）. Teaching， as an idea， not only emphasizes the role of teaching in instruction， but also the critical functions of studying in instruction. No matter which mode of instructional design is adopted， learner analysis is the key component.