An Analysis on the Knowledge Practicability of Sherlock Holmes and Its Significance in Education1.doc

分析福尔摩斯知识的实效性及其对教育的意义an analysis on the knowledge practicability of sherlock holmes and its significance in educationcontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction.2ii. knowledge practicability.31. background information of the complete sherlock holmes.32. sherlock holmes.33. scarlet letter.44. empiricism.55. knowledge practicability.5iii. problems existed in english education in china.61. purposes of english education.62. students.73. teachers.74. english education in todays china.85. english education in colleges in china.8iv. reconstruction of english education concept.91. learner autonomy.92. the role change of teacher.103. electivity.11v. conclusion.11references.11abstract: recently, as the development of economy, corporation among different countries tightened. after the adoption of the opening door policy, our government has encouraged the investment of foreign enterprises，which promotes a rapid increase of our domestic economy and, at the same time, bountiful working career were created for us. in order to grasp the opportunities, and to have a better communication with others, our government has invested a great sum of money and lots of effort on the education of foreign languages, particularly english. in high schools, the english education was stressed as well. but after years of study, problems that existed in our education revealed, for instance, while having a very well mastery of the basic knowledge, we have a poor communicative ability when we talk with foreigners. in this paper, the author mainly talkes about knowledge practicability and its significance in the english education and offers some suggestion that might help alter the situationkey words: knowledge practicability; learner autonomy; attitude; elective 摘 要：近年来，随着经济的发展，国与国之间的交流与合作也日益紧密。我国自改革开放以来，开放了门户，引进外资，促进了经济的快速发展，同时，外资企业的投资也为我国人民提供了很多就业机会。为了抓住机遇，更好地交流，我国政府加大了语言教育的力度，尤其是英语的教育。在初、高中的教育中，英语的学习也被大多数的学校视为重点。但随着时间的推移，很多问题也显现出来，经过多年的学习，大多数学生很好地掌握了基本知识，但到关键时刻却不能很好的运用。本文主要讨论知识的实效性及教育的本质并提出自己的微见。关键字：知识实效性；学习自主；态度；选择性i. introductionglobalization has become the most distinguishing and obvious feature of the current society. not only does it deeply influence economy, it has an extensive influence in culture and education as well. under such kind of tendency, the mutual communication among each country deepened. so the development of economy inevitably has promoted the interaction of different cultures.in china, after the adoption of opening-door policy, our country experienced a fast economic develop. many foreign enterprises entered our market, and some of our qualified products exported, it has a positive effect for the enlargement of foreign language study. to satisfy the tendency, our government has put the teaching of foreign languages, especially english, at an important position in our education system. but as the time went by, problems that existed in our education system revealed. recently, some experts find the result of foreign language education is not satisfying for the limited communication ability of the students. some of them advocated reformation in the english education and suggested some new ways of study.generally speaking, english, as a language, has such a vast usage in the world is due to its universal communicative function in a large scope, and it is accepted for the history of the civilization of human society. in 18th century, great changes took place in the whole world, after a long time of economic increasing, the british had occupied large number of colonies in that time, as a result, english became an universal language used by most of the underdeveloped countries. but the 18th century witnessed a turbulent time as well. due to the imbalance of economical order of empire power, and the poor living standard of the people in colonies, wars broke out, which spread the use of the language positively. so economy is the basic impetus of the blooming of the language and its practicability should be taken into consideration when we learn it. but contrary to the fact, the majority of us spent too much time on grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure. few of us pay attention on the daily use of it, which results in the poor situation of the study.on the other hand, in the traditional teaching process, teachers were dominant in the class and students were passively acquiring whatever the teachers taught, which leads to the dilemma of the present english education. although great attention has been made, and efforts been spent, the results of english education seems disappointing. at the same time, many defects of english education exposed. in the view of most students, to learn the course is for the need of examination. after years of study, they are good at grammar, vocabulary. when they enter the university, few of them can communicate with it freely.ii. knowledge practicabilitysherlock holmes, an imaginary character in the complete sherlock holmes, has drawn great attentions of readers for its mystery stories. in the book, one may taste the sorrow of the victims and the happiness of the victories of the justice. each time, when coming across the criminal cases, holmes would use his wisdom, along with courage, to fight against the evil things. 1. background information of the complete sherlock holmesthe complete sherlock holmes was written by arthur conan doyle in the year of 1878. at that time, great changes took place in the great britain. at first, the great britain experienced economic concession, peoples life became harder and social security could not be assured. under such circumstance, crimes increased. out of the land, the colonies that belonged to britain claimed for their independent right, and some of them launched wars, which increased the imbalance of the old social order of the country. as for the british, lots of them faced the situation of unemployment, and lots of solider were sent abroad involving in the war. so the social security became even more unsteady. all above can be reflected by the book.2. sherlock holmesat the very beginning of the book, the protagonist, watson, introduced the social upheaval in afghan and india, both of the two countries were claiming for their independent rights. as a medical doctor, watson was sent to india. no sooner than that, he was terribly injured, and the war left him a deep impression of misfortune and disaster. worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which he had undergone, he was removed to a hospital. there he rallied, and then he was sent back to england where he met sherlock holmes. according to the book, we know holmes was a man of great determination and strangeness. sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks. nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him, but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting room, hardly saying a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.(the complete sherlock holmes, 14) he acquired his knowledge mainly from his experiment or experience.according to the complete sherlock holmes, the following is the knowledge structure of sherlock holmes:1. knowledge of literaturenil. 2. philosophynil. 3. astronomynil 4. politicsfeeble. 5. botanyvariable, well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. 6. knowledge of geologypractical, but limited. tell at glance different soils from each other, 7. knowledge of chemistryprofound, 8. anatomyaccurate, but unsystematic, 9. is an expert single stick player, boxer, and swordsman, 10. has a good practical knowledge of british law. (the complete sherlock holmes, 18)3. scarlet letterafter their mutual understanding deepened, watson and holmes met a mystery criminal businessan american died. there had been no robbery, nor was there any evidence as to how the man met his death. a police officer named tobias gregson told the whole case to holmes for help. instead of examine the died body directly, holmes proceeded slowly down the path leading to the place carefully. then he found the most important evidence of the scarlet letter on the wall after he measured marks of footsteps on the soil, gazed vacantly at the ground, which seemed to have nothing to do with the case. after that, he approached the body and examined it intently. then he found the most important evidence of the scarlet letter on the wall. at last, he came to his conclusionthe murderer was a man. he was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height wore coarse, squaretoed boots and smoked a trichinopoly cigar. one may wonder why holmes can conclude that after his deduction. he says of it as if he had witnessed the whole case when it happened. when asked how he concluded that, holmes said: “the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. it is a simple calculation enough, and i had a way of checking my calculation. when a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes. as the deduction continued, the death of the victim turned out. as for his age, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the smallest effort, he can not be quite in the sere and yellow. and the writing on the wall was done with a mans forefinger dipped in blood. my glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the mans nail had been trimmed.” (the complete sherlock holmes, chapter4, 43)after the criminal was caught, he confessed his guilty to policeman. everyone was astonished that his appearance was nearly the same to what holmes had described. 4. empiricismfrom this case, we know that holmes solved the problem mainly because he mastered the trifle things which were ignored by most of the police officers. at the beginning, he examined the surface of the road, from which he got the information of the man. the potential evidences were hiding by the murderer, but holmes deducted them out after careful observation. the footsteps, footprints, ways of writing showed the feature of the murderer. all things are interlocked; each had some relationship with the other. the reason why holmes can get the right conclusion is that he has the right devices and profound knowledge of practical science. it is the same in education.contrary to holmes, the police officers, in the case, showed their limited abilities. they would laugh at him when holmes expressed his opinion which was totally different from their own. at their wits end, they, again, inquired about devices from holmes eagerly. it was not until the case was solved did they have the idea of the murderer. although they were good at theories, they lacked the practical and logical knowledge. so their failure is unavoidable.5. knowledge practicabilityat the beginning of this paper, the author has introduced the knowledge construction of holmes. as a detective, holmes has profound and practical knowledge of his job, and has the ability to deduct the remote evidence and combine them together. the success holmes achieved was mainly due to his knowledge practicability rather than theory.in reality, as a civilized man, holmes can not be regarded as a successful man for his ignorance of literature and philosophy, which can be reflected by the impression of watson: “his ignorance was remarkable as his knowledge. of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. when i found incidentally that he was ignorant of the copernican theory and of the composition of the solar system, that any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that i could hardly realize it.”(the complete sherlock holmes, 14).from this point of view, we know the importance of the practicability of knowledge. as for the knowledge, it is summed and accumulated by our ancestor for thousands of years. a systematic knowledge construction will be helpful in our daily life. as science developed, the thirst for knowledge becomes more intensely. all of us hope we can master the knowledge as much as possible. however, we, limited by time, have to select what is most suitable and practical for us. in the process of education, it is more important to spread practical knowledge to make sure that it has the practical usage for us. iii. problems existed in english education in china in a large sense, the education is an effective way to enhance the personal quality and promote the development of society. the aim of education, basically, is to learn knowledge that can help us deal with difficulties, to serve for our daily use. practicability is the sole criterion for judging the quality of knowledge. in the process of education, the classroom is the main channel where both students and teachers fulfilling the tasks. so school plays an important role in the education. nowadays, as for the english education, there are more students than it was before, and there are more students choose to learn the language after they graduate from senior high school. 1. purposes of english educationenglish, as a language, is accepted by most of the countries in the world. it is used in some important occasions because of its wildly usage. the reasons why we have to learn the language have several factors. first, in china, we learn it mainly because the economy of our country develops quickly. since our country adopted the opening door policy, more and more foreign enterprises have entered our domestic market and their investment created great number of jobs for us. if we could not understand each other, the mutual interaction between us would be prevented. so, in order to satisfy such kind of demand, students are required to learn the language. both of the foreigners and the job hunters can have a better choice. secondly, it is because of the cultural impact. nobody can deny the inter-culture influence today in the so-called global village. along the history, we, the people of all nations, have splendid civilization that are varied from each other and each of them has historical value for us to research. on the other hand, because of different cultures, we have formed our own habit and customs which vary from others. for example, in china, when praised by others, we may behave humbly, but contrary to us, in america, they will say thank you directly.so it is the increasing demand of the language that has made the education of english become a tendency for most of the non- english countries. 2. studentsin the education process, students are the receivers of whatever the teachers teach in the classroom, so whether the education is success or not, the result can be reflected by the ability of the students. nowadays, as the living standard of each family upgraded, more and more students in middle schools become selfish in their family, they are spoiled by their parents and grand parents. after they formed the self centered habit, when studying in school, they may have little interests in what the teachers teach in classroom.some influential domestic english education experts advocate that learning habit is of vital effects in the process of education. habit does not mean the common action of ones behavior. but in todays middle schools, some students dare to do against the teacher, and they hold the opinion that they are their own masters. so, in their study, they have a negative attitude.many experts think that teachers who want to arouse and strengthen students motivation in studying english should arouse their interest first. so they try to make class teaching charm and make students enjoy the pleasure of succeeding in study. however, they often encounter problems. although teachers do all they can to make the contents interesting and ameliorate teaching methods, they cannot have students keep enthusiasm of study. a few students do not have interest in studying at all. what is worse is that they do not want to have a try and they pay little attention to their study. 3. teachersteachers, in the process of teaching, are dominant in the classroom. what they say or what they do may cause different results. if they have a well mastery of knowledge, they may have a better way to teach or vice versa. on the other hand, the relationship between both the teachers and students has an important function in the process as well. so the attitude of teachers toward students may cause different results too. in our middle schools, many teachers consider that students with positive attitude can get high marks although they have usual capacity of study. however, those with negative attitude cannot get good scores although they have a much better capacity than the others. so many teachers often blame students that they do not have correct attitude and ask them to change their mind about attitude to improve their learning. these teachers tend to think that only students themselves should be responsible for the attitude of study. nevertheless, it is wrong to evaluate students attitude toward study through good or bad standard because attitude has close relationship with psychological factors and cannot be changed because of will only. that is to say, th