The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education ( 2022 Edition) establishes the course objective of cultivating students’ core competencies. Starting with a review of the concept of core competencies, this paper discusses the Sinicized core competencies to be developed by the English course. The Chinese version of core competencies, with its rich contents and features specific to Chinese students, embody both the value of the whole person development and the unique contribution of the English course, thus playing a leading role in English education. The paper then examines the “activity-based approach to English learning”, a notion developed by the Chinese educators. The student-oriented English learning activities are characterized by contextualization, practicality and connectivity, and provide paths of fostering core competencies. The final section of the paper is devoted to the delineation of unit-based holistic instruction. It demonstrates that by formulating the mainline of the unit and setting up teaching aims at different levels, teachers integrate different components of the course content into a whole, and develop students’ core competencies in a comprehensive way. Competence-oriented ELT is the guiding principle to be implemented in the new era of China’s basic education.