教育英语论文

On the English Teaching of Listening and Speaking in Middle School in Ch inaAbstractIn middle school, most students feel that it is very difficult for them to listen to En glish and speak English. As we know, the teachers always spend a lot of time in pr acticing written English, such as the words, grammar, and so on, which leads to a serious problem for the students’ future study. The aim of learning English is to co mmunicate with others, and oral English is becoming more and more important, so at the beginning stage, the teachers should pay more attention to listening and spe aking. As long as the students have a good base in middle schools, they will save a lot of time and be more interested in learning English. This paper first introduces the problems in listening and speaking teaching in middle school, and then gives s ome suggestion about the solutions, such as group-work method and two-way com munication. Both of them are very beneficial for the students.Key wordsEnglish teaching in middle school; listening; speaking摘要在中学，大部分的学生发现英语听说方面非常难。

就我们所知，老师们通常花大量的时间在书面英语上，如，单词，语法等等。

实际上这种情形将在以后的学习中成为一个比较严重的问题。

学英语的目的主要是交流, 而当今口语的重要性显得日益突出，因此，在英语学习的入门阶段，老师应当更加关注学生听说能力的发展。

只有在中学阶段打下良好的基础，才能使学生们在日后的学习中节省许多的时间，也将大大提高学习英语的兴趣。

这篇文章主要介绍了英语听说教学方面所存在的一些问题及解决这些问题的基本方法。

如小组活动教学，功能教学法的应用，它们都是在理论与实践方面被证实是行之有效的，对学生的帮助很大。

关键词中学英语教学；听；说IntroductionNowadays, English is becoming more and more important after China entered the WTO, which can encourage us to study English well. To study a foreign language, we should master four abilities: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Generally s peaking, communication is the main aim of learning a foreign language, and we kn ow that most students have less difficulty in reading and writing. From this point, we should pay more attention to listening and speaking. In fact, in China, a lot of students spend a great number of time in learning English, but they still feel that t hey can not understand well what they have heard and can not speak fluently. Thi s is partially because of our examination system, and partially of teaching method. As we know, as long as the students get a high mark and they can enter into a g ood school. So we just focus on the grammar. In the past several years, the gover nment realized the seriousness of Examination - oriented education and did a lot to change the situation. The teaching outline has been informed. In the text books, t here are a lot of activities involving listening and speaking, including pair work and group work. In the examination the part of listening comprehension has been added, and it is more difficult. At home and abroad, there are many experts studying the methods of teaching, and the main method is Functional method, which has been used almost all over the world. Here I would like to introduce some useful methods to help students to improve their listening and speaking and raise their interest.Ⅰ. The Present Situation in English Teaching of Listening and SpeakingA. The Present Situation in English Teaching of ListeningIn middle school, most students have great difficulties in listening because they can not pronounce correctly and have no good methods to practice listening and they l ack relevant knowledge about the foreign countries’ cultures.In fact, listening comprehension is an essential part of communication and basic to second language learning. In any standard foreign language test, listening comprehe nsion usually occupies a considerable proportion. Yet, to the students who learn En glish in situations where English is not the language of the country and where oppo rtunities for hearing English outside the classroom are few, it is usually extremely di fficult for them to comprehend English spoken to them. Many students, usually influ enced by some traditional habits, are accustomed to putting what they are hearing into their native language in order to get the original meaning. As a result, when tr ying to understand one sentence, and then they will miss the next one. So when aconversation or a passage is over, they almost know nothing and are totally at a l oss what to do about the exercises they are required to do. In order to develop th eir listening skills, some teachers just give them plenty of graded practice and hope that they will work out for themselves the most efficient way of coping with it. Un fortunately, it only proves to be a time—consuming but inefficient way and they ca n hardly arrive at the most satisfactory solution of their own accord. When they rep eatedly meet with setbacks, they come to the conclusion that listening comprehensi on is only the eagle’s nest and it is an impassable chasm. Some even lose their co nfidence. Actually, the improvement of listening comprehension can be gained by go od methods.B. The Present Situation in English Teaching of SpeakingFor a long time, students have been used to the English learning situation wh ereteachers explain grammatical structures and the content of texts most of the time while students’ job is to take notes and respond to. Their role in the class is passiv e. Although sometimes they have some speaking activities in class, such as doing o ral translations, making sentences orally or reading texts aloud, none of these involv e genuine communication in which they can express their own opinions, exchange t heir own ideas or find their own solutions to the problems. As a result, students fe el frustrated when they face with genuine English-communication situations. They fin d it difficult to talk with a real native speaker and to express themselves orally.In view of all the students’ difficulties in listening and speaking, we, as teachers, wi ll have to try our best to use a more gradual but most efficient approach to the re al language and help them in various ways.Something must be done in English classes to give students more chances to p ractice speaking English and to encourage them to engage in meaningful interaction sII. The solutionsA. Ways of Improving ListeningFor some years now, methodologists have recommended small group work (includin g pair work) in ELT (English Listening Text) classrooms. The pedagogical benefits of group work are summarized as follows: “it increases the quantit y of language pract ice opportunities; it improves the quality of students talk in several ways; it helps i ndividualize instruction; it creates a positive, relaxed phenomenon in the classroomand it increases students’ motivation.”(Long and Porter, p124) Wi th group work, stu dents can practice language use and cooperative learning in which they can form re lationship with others in the group and share their beliefs and perception with other s with only minimum amount of direction from teachers. How can we improve the s tudents’ listening level in a small group? There are seven practical ways.1. To Proceed Step by Step according to the Students’ Actual StateWe should practice listening step by step and according to the students’ actual stat e .During the initial stage of listening, we should spend a lot of time training basic skills. As we know, whatever we do, we should begin with the basis. So is the liste ning. In junior high school, it is the beginning of learning English. So it is the key period. We can study the native language easily especially the ability of listening be cause we could listen to a lot of materials since we were born. Gradually we can s peak by ourselves naturally. That is to say, learning a language needs a good envir onment. But we know that most of us can not go abroad and we can just learn En glish at home and in classroom. Thus we almost have no real situation and should spend a lot of time .This process is long and the work is very difficult. In China we usually use class teaching. When we t rain the students’ basic skills, we have the f ollowing methods. First we should teach the letters and the phonetic symbols one b y one. During this period, we should be very patient. When the students have som e wrong pronunciation, we need to teach them the way to correct it. If this proces s could not be done well, the students will not grasp correct pronunciation and it is very difficult for them to improve listening and speaking. To finish that, we should be qualified. As long as we do this work very well, we will reduce many tasks and save a lot of time. Besides, students are also required to master some basic vocab ulary for every-day use. Words are the most basic element. In every lesson, we sh ould teach the new words firstly. Then ask the students to read them to gain good impression. The best way is to ask them to read the text because there is a cont ext, which is easy for them to memorize the words and know some structures .Of course we can use tape- recorder. Let the students listen to the tape and then rea d after it, which can improve their pronunciation and listening gradually and help th em form a good feeling. What I have said is the basic phonetic knowledge and ne w words. There are many other things; for example, the students should try their b est to memorize a lot of relevant knowledge about the habits and cultures of foreig n countries. And we can easily know that that this task can not be finished in a sh ort time so we should give some instructions to them. We can tell the students to read some relevant books. After period of such training, we can let them listen to longer sentences and short conversations and some other materials which are the a ppropriate level of linguistic difficulty as regards syntax and vocabulary. If we can d o it in this way, students will not have the feeling that listening comprehension is h igh up and beyond grasp at the very beginning. A good beginning is half done. Go 2. To Provide Interesting MaterialsIn class we should practice listening to some materials away from the usual kind of memorization exercises often used in classrooms and in language labs. The listenin g practice should be that in which students are to listen with full attention to some thing that interests and challenges them; they are to get the information or get at the meaning of what they hear and then produce a response to what they’ve under stood. To do this, we can select materials of appropriate interesting level. We need n’t go over all the items in “Listening Practice” one by one without considering whe ther it is easy or difficult, interesting or boring. As we know, when one is not inter ested in something, he or she can’t do it well anyway, even when forced to. So is the case with listening comprehension. Dull materials can only make students lose i nterest at all. As it proves, students perform better with materials that they want to listen to because they enjoy them. In order to make the effect of listening compre hension more notable, sometimes we need add something, such as songs, humorou s stories, some important news at home or abroad, personal anecdotes, materials c ontaining some puzzles to be solved, etc.3. To Give Some Relevant Instructions before ListeningIf we are going to ask our students to listen to something, we can’t just stand or sit there playing the tape-recorder or we can’t just explain some words or expressio ns. We should try to guide our students with our prior knowledge of the material. For instance, we can introduce the topic with short discussion; let them make a gu ess of what is going to be heard according to the title or give them some hints to help themto understand what they are going to listen to. By doing so, we can arouse their e xpectations and make them mentally prepare for the listening material. What is mor e important is to help students to be selective by giving them a purpose for listenin g. Without a definite purpose, they will be in the dark. When they try to memorize everything, they prove to forget almost everything in the end. So try to give stude nts a few questions before first hearing, or ask them to prepare to pick out 2 or 3 main points, or the main steps in a process. Set tasks which entail concentrating o n certain features and throw away irrelevant information. Sometimes if the material is too long, we can split it up into short sections and ask questions appropriate toeach short section as we go along. Sometimes if the material is a little difficult, we can introduce it in simple language first. But, remember, don’t say too much or ju st retell the whole material by yourself. Otherwise, students will have no interest to listen to it or they will not listen to it with great care since they think they’ve alre ady known a lot about it. We can also help students to develop the ability of takin g notes while listening. When we do this, we first give some questions about what the students will listen to. Thus, they will be effective with the aim. In this way, st udents will not miss the important facts and details. Besides, it is also conductive t o the comprehension of a long material.4. To Do Some Dictation ExercisesAnother effective way of improving students listening comprehension which can be u sed in class is to do some dictation exercises, which is particular to those students who have been introduced to the language only through reading and writing rather than listening, they often have great difficulty in recognizing the spoken forms. Thu s, by doing dictation exercises, they can gain a lot. For example, if there are some homonyms, the students should pay more attention to those. They should think th ose words through the context. During this course, they will form better thought. At the same time, they can strengthen the ability of spelling and writing. Similarly, w hen the teacher finds it worthy of doing, they will be likely to use this method freq uently. Undoubtedly, we can pay more attention to the dictation and regard it as a technique for teaching listening comprehension. If we can do the work frequently, it will be of great help to students. Of course, the material f or dictation shouldn’t b e too long or too difficult, otherwise they will feel that it is really beyond their und erstanding or interest and will dislike it and even abandon it. So be sure to select t he proper material and make sure that the exercise will certainly contribute to the i mprovement of their listening comprehension.5. To Catch the Main PointsUsually, most students like to understand each word in any passage. In fact, it is i mpossible for them to listen to different passages at different speed. Generally spea king, the students just know the main idea which can help them to understand wh at they have just heard. Usually in every passage there are some new words which do not influence their understanding. So they needn’t understand each word at an y time unless they have not correct pronunciation. So we should help students to o vercome this problem and help them know how to catch the main points in listenin g.od basic skills will certainly make their future study easier.6. To Create a Good Language EnvironmentA good environment is very important for learning language. In the class, we shoul d try our best to use simple English to train the students’ listening. At first, the stu dents usually have some difficulty in listening. To solve this problem, in my opinion, we can first use Chinese and body language to help them. For example, in Grade 1, Junior high school, when we say the phrase” Shut the door” at the first time, th e students usually do not understand that, at this time, we can perform it. Then w e say it again, they will understand that phrase quickly. Similarly, we can use Chine se. If we usually do this, the students can gradually be accustomed to this environ ment. But What I want to mention is that we must pronounce correctly and standa rd. Besides, how much English should we use? We should perform it according to t he students’ actual level. Generally, at the beginning, we can use English and Chine se equally. As time goes, we can gradually reduce using Chinese. After a long time, the students can form a good instinctive feel for the language.7. To Enlarge the Students’ KnowledgeWithout a certain materials, it is very difficult to improve the listening ability in a s horter period. So when the students face this kind of material which they are not f amiliar with at all, they usually think it is too difficult. To learn a foreign language, we must pay much attention to the cultures of the foreign countries because a kind of language is just a tool and the most important part is the content of the cultur e, which includes the history, the festivals, and so on. So when we teach a lesson, if there some parts having linkage with the history, we should introduce them in d etail. Besides, there are many other ways for the students to know about the cultur e. We can ask them to read some simple materials on these topics. Day by day, th ey will feel that learning English is very interesting. From this point, we should do t hat well.Up to now, there are seven ways altogether. Each of them is not the best, so we can use them flexibly.B. Ways on Developing SpeakingIt is known to us that listening and speaking are relevant, and they can not be tau ght separately. Speaking is equal to listening, and it is developed on the basis of lis tening. So we are easy to know that both of them are connected closely. The skills of speaking generally include these aspects: pronouncing correctly; using suitable st ress, strong form, weak form, intonation; using general structures which accord withthe habits of native speakers; using brief and reasonable words and expressions to express a complete meaning. Thus it is not easy for one, whose native language i s not English to speak well in a short period. It needs the learners to spend a lot of time and use correct ways. In middle school, the students should use what they have learned to say comparatively simple sentences to express something about th eir everyday life and study. In that way, what kind of way is suitable? Here are thr ee basic ways to solve this problem.1. Two-way CommunicationSpeaking can't be taught separately. It is often connected with listening. So we ofte n speak of listening and speaking.The traditional way of listening and speaking is aural-oral method. Now, the new method of two-way communication is very popular. As you know that any teaching method has its psychological base. The aural-oral method began in the 1940's. It was based on behaviorism. One of its psychological theories is that learning a langu age is forming a set of new language habitThe usual process is Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement.The aural-oral method is fit for the teaching of beginning stage. It focuses on the practice of oral English drills. But too many drills are being practiced without any co ntext or given conditions. So what is learned is isolated sentences. And it has few communicative functions.The two-way communication makes up for the defect in communicative ability in th e traditional teaching. Two-way method means the relationship of the communicatio n between the teacher and the students. This relationship is connected with the co mmunicative activities between two people. This method is different from the traditi onal aural-oral method. But it also bases on the process of S-R-R. So we call it a n ew type of aural-oral method because it has some peculiarities: it can create a fres h environment for speaking English; it needs some necessary explanations of Gram mar, including some sentence structures; hints are the major way of practice; teach ers can control the practice wholly or partly; the practice can also be controlled by students freely. The internal force of study is not due to the interests in phonetic s tructure, but the content of the material.To make the correct response, the students are asked to pay more attention.Example:Teacher: Ask me what kind of sport I enjoy.Student: What kind of sport do you enjoy?T: Tell me-You enjoy swimming and going skating.S: I enjoy swimming and going skating.In this example, "Ask me" means that the student must say a question sentence w hile "Tell me" shows that the student must say a declarative sentence. But before d oing this, the teacher must explain something about the exchange of interrogative s entence and declarative sentence.The two-way communication can lengthen the dialogue limitlessly. This is its advant age. At the same time, if the student wants to give the correct response, he has t o think it hard, the sentence is not easily forgotten which is created by themselves through thinking, sometimes with the teacher's hint. They can talk freely and expr ess themselves as well as they can. For example:T: Ask me how old I am.S: How old are you?T: Tell me-You are 14.S: I am 14.T: Ask me what subject I like.S: What subject do you like?T: Tell me- You like Chinese and English.S: I like Chinese and English.T: Ask me why I like those two subjects.S: Why do you like those two subjects?T: Tell me-Because you think they are easier.S: Because I think they are easier.All the response can form a complete dialogue.A: How old are you?B: I am 14.A: What subject do you like?B: I like Chinese and English.A: Why do you like those two subjects?B: Because I think they are easier.If you want to ask more, the dialogue can go as far as possible. So, in a word, th e aural-oral method is not an out-of-date one, but a useful one. Especially it is fit f or the beginning stage. It attaches the importance to the oral drills, but has a bad communicative function. It is only used to a phonetic base. After all, the aim of the language learning is to communicate. So the two-way communication is more effec tive and direct, but it is also fit for the beginning stage.2. To Carry out Oral Activities in ClassThis way is suitable for those students who have certain level. It can be held accor ding to the students’ act ual level. We can gradually choose more difficult topics. Thi s activity is very beneficial for the students to improve oral English. When we have this kind of lesson, we should make such preparation. At first, we should divide th e whole into groups by ourselves or by themselves. Generally, we make 3 or 4 per sons in one group. Secondly, we should give some interesting topics and let them c hoose one of them. Thirdly, give them a certain time limit according to the topic. D uring this activity, they should speak in English and be active. After they have finis hed discussing, ask one of them to express their views. When they are saying, we should not interrupt them. If there are several errors which do not influence our un derstanding, we can overlook them. Or else, we can help them correct after their e xpressing. This activity can improve their abilities of thinking and sentences forming. At the same time, they can know about each other better and form the sprit of c ooperating. To make this activity more interesting, we can set some prizes. This is only one way, and there are other good activities. For example, we can imitate the real situation of going shopping. Similarly, let students find 2 or 3 partners to perf orm it in the front of the class. This is more interesting and challenging. And all of them can use relevant body language to make it lively. In fact, this is a very goo d way because each of them should adjust their mood into a good state and be bo ld enough to face all the other classmates. At last, it is very important to remembe r that we should change the topics every time. As long as we keep doing this, the students will gain much benefit.3. To Carry out Other ActivitiesThere are other good ways, such as, developing English Corner, holding oratorical c ontest, reading a lot of books and writing down important contents. All of them are meaningful. In a school, the students should make full use of all the learning sour ces. English Conner is a very good way. We can hold it once a week. In this activi ty, we should try our best to encourage all the students to take part in it. At first, we can give them some suggestion. Later, they can gradually perform it by thems elves. During it they can talk about a lot of different topics freely. It is natural that every one can find suitable partners and have interesting things to talk about. The members usually conclude all the students who enjoy English, so it is a very good platform to exchange the experience of learning. Besides, English oratorical contest is also a good way because it needs the contestants to pay more attention to oral English and be bold and have good abilities of language organizing and react quick ly. It is full of challenge, so when the students want to do this work well, each one should practice more frequently in their spare time because the time in class is v ery limited and the teachers mainly give them some basic ways. Another important thing is to ask the students to read enough books to know the cultures.ConclusionThis paper mainly discussed how to improve listening and speaking. Here are the t wo methods: group-work, and two- way communication. Both of them are very mea ningful although there are still some problems to be solved. But group-work method, compared with teacher-fronted method, certainly provides students with more oppo rtunities to practice speaking and communicate with their fellow classmates. It can r aise their confidence and prepare them to talk with a real native speaker. While tw o- way communication emphasizes the exchange. It is not like the traditional aural-oral method which has few communicative functions. In this way, the students can easily form a dialogue with the help of the teacher. So it can create a context whic h can help students to communicate with other people quickly. As we know, readin g and writing are also very important. They can help accumulate a lot of materials and make the students know the cultures of English-spoken Countries，and let the m practice most of the time. Besides that, there are American English, British Englis h and Australian English. Among them, there are some differences, so we must tell the students something about the difference for better grasp of English.AcknowledgementsI am deeply grateful to my tutor, Cui Zhaohui, to whom I owe a great deal of grat itude and appreciation. She gave me many invaluable instructions and helped me m uch in every stage of my thesis writing.And I also greatly appreciate the help coming from my respectable teachers, who g ave me much help in my study, Professor Deng Xingyi, Yuan Bin, Liao Hong, Tang Guoping, and Tang Changlian.Moreover, my numerous thanks go to my dear friends and my lovely roommates, Huang Chun, Li Yunhe, Yang Qiru, Lu Deyao, who spend much time with me on my thesis.Finally, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to those who spend their precious time in reading this thesis.Bibliography[1] Long, M. Task, Group, and Task-Group Interaction. Language Teaching Methodology for the Nineties. Singapore: RELC, 1998.[2] Long, M. Porter, P. Group Work, Interlanguage Talk and Second Language Acquisition. TESOL. Quarterly, 1999.[3] Wright, T. Roles of Teachers and Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 199 8.[4] Huang Yuefa English Teaching Methodology. 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