Exploring Strategies on Spoken English Ability in Middle Schools

1、探索中学英语口语的学习策略exploring strategies on spoken english ability in middle schoolsabstract：with the opening-up of china, english teaching has been getting more and more attention, especially since beijing won the bid to hold the 2008 olympic games. people are enthusiastic about learning english .as a res

2、ult, english teaching and reform are coming to a turning point, which predicts a bright future in english education in china.now, a 9-year compulsory education program is put forward in china. a standard english course is being used to replace the former syllabus. the new standard adopts the interna

3、tional system according to which english language education is divided into 9 levels. this has changed the old style of teaching, which attaches importance to grammar and vocabulary. adopting the new standard helps to develop the students ability to use english in their daily life, by focusing on ar

4、ousing their interest, and encouraging their participation. the new method will place less stress on “reading and writing”, in favor of “listening” and “speaking”. so now, speaking is getting more and more important in middle school english teaching. this paper discusses how to improve students spea

5、king ability and expound the theme through three aspects as follows: the importance of speaking. some barriers in speaking english. essential methods for improving students speaking ability.the paper will be discussed from the perspective of a teacher of english in junior school and a possible concl

6、usion will be reached with the help of some theoretical and practical support. key words: speaking，communication ability，junior school, english teaching strategies摘 要：随着改革开放深入，尤其北京成功申奥，英语教学越来越引起人们的重视。人们都热中于英语学习。所以英语教改进入一个转折点，面临着美好的未来。现在，在九年制义务教育中，标准英语课程以取代以前的教学模式。根据英语语言教育分成九个等级，新课标采用了国际体制，改变了旧的方法。新的

7、教学方式通过引起学生的兴趣，鼓励他们参与培养学生日常生活中运用英语的能力。新的方法重在听力和口语，因此现在口语在中学英语教学中越来越重要。本文主要讨论如何提高学生的口语能力，从下面三个大的方面阐述：1. 口语的重要性。2. 口语交流过程中的一些障碍。3. 提高口语能力的基本方法。关键词：口语 交流能力 中学 英语教学策略 contenti. introduction.1ii. the importance of speaking in middle school.2a. the importance of speaking in the four language skills.2b. the

8、 importance of speaking existing in the teaching syllabus.3c. the importance of speaking reflected in the textbook.4d. the importance of speaking in new tests papers .4 iii. some barriers in spoken english.5a.phonetic barrier.5b. grammar barrier.6c. mental barrier.6. essential strategies for improvi

9、ng students speaking ability.7a. create a good language atmosphere to arouse the students enthusiasm for spoken english.71. a“real”environment of spoken english is of great help.7 2. the students high interest for spoken english and some measures for arousing students interest are needed.8 b. help t

10、he students lay a solid base of english phonetics.9c. accumulate the students vocabulary in order to speak well.9d. enlarge the students background knowledge.10e. give more chances to the students to develop their speaking ability as well as the other three skills (listening, reading and writing).10

11、v. conclusion.11works cited.13 i. introduction(一级标题times new roman四号,前后空一行加粗) english is a popular language -especially in the new century. as is known to learners all, it is the most widely used language in the developing world and its getting more and more important nowadays. recent estimates sugg

12、est that more than 400 million people speak it as their first language, with more than 1800 million people speaking it as the second language. it is an official language in a large number of countries and is widely used in air traffic control and academic gatherings(gibson 584). nowadays, with the o

13、pening-up of china, english teaching has been getting more and more attention, especially since beijing won the bid to hold the 2008 olympic games. people are enthusiastic about learning english. most of our students begin to learn english from grade 3 in primary schools. however, classroom teaching

14、 has long been the only way to learn english in china, and the method has usually involved cramming grammar-translation knowledge into learning a language. but this approach of teaching and learning english is evidentially passive, because it goes against the principle of english teaching, which req

15、uires that listening and speaking take the lead in english teaching, and on the basis of these two skills, reading and writing will be cultivated. so speaking as one of the four language skills has played a very important role in english teaching in middle schools. all the communications are establi

16、shed on the basis of speaking. to be able to have a good pronunciation and tone, that is, speaking well can give students confidence in communication. in daily life speaking is the best way which makes the communication of information become more quickly, especially in the present society with such

17、quick development of peoples life pace. so it is necessary for the students to develop the ability of speaking. whats more, with the new reformation of new process of teaching, it requires that the students will have the expressing ability to receive and pass information in english on real occasions

18、. but many students often can speak well in class or on relaxed occasions, and when they are put in a real condition, they cant. why does it appear? well, it is affected by many elements. one of the elements is their english speaking ability. so it demands the english teachers in junior schools to d

19、evelop the students speaking ability,and also it is necessary for the teachers to help the students develop the ability of speaking(omalley 568). the author has observed the students speaking english since the author became a practiced teacher. the author finds many students can often speak well in

20、class or on a relaxed occasion. but when i invited some foreign teachers to talk to them, they became very good audiences. some students would like to say something, but often the foreign teacher could not understand what they said. why? because they had no good phonetics or correct grammars. then w

21、hy did not some of them say anything? their answers were that they were afraid to make mistakes. and also some of the students said that they had no enough vocabularies to express. they wanted to say something, but suddenly they couldnt remember the words or they did not know the available words. an

22、d on the other hand, by analyzing the students book, the author found the speaking english was getting more and more important, but both some teachers and students did not find it yet. so they were not able to emphasize the speaking english during the teaching. little by little, the students speakin

23、g ability cant be improved effectively. so facing with the series of problems, the author attempts my teaching method to teach the present two small classes, including sixty students, and the author hopes they can make a larger progress.正文times new roman小四号,段首空四个英文字符)ii. the importance of speaking i

24、n middle schools “language is vocal; this means that speech is the primary medium of language. while writing is secondary” (hedge 366). firstly, for any language speech existed long before the writing system came into being. even today languages which have lonely a spoken form outnumber language whi

25、ch has a well-developed writing system. secondly, normal children always learn to speak at first. they begin to read and write only when they have reached the school age. thirdly, speech is more important than writing in peoples daily life. a person who cant read and write is only an illiterate. how

26、ever, a person who cant speak is normally regarded asdisabled. so speech is very important in the development of human beings. a. the importance of speaking in the four language skills of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, &writing), listening takes the first step. however, comm

27、unication is a two-way activity. when you can understand what is said to you, because of some reasons, you cant speak out what you mean, and then the communication cant be continued. so this communication will become a fall. during the learning of a language, listening and reading are a process of u

28、nderstanding and absorption, speaking and writing are a process of expression and use. understanding and absorption are foundation while expression and use are improvement. that is, the former is a process of input; the latter is a process of output. without the latter, the development of the langua

29、ge practical ability to understand and absorption will be meaningless (wilkins 368). it is impossible to master the english and to form the ability to use english comprehensively only relying on the input of language. the expression of speaking and writing should also be used to check and improve th

30、e language absorption and the thinking ability. while the language input is increased, the favorable practical activities of output will also be done constantly on the basis of understanding. and the final aim of language teaching is to develop the students ability to communicate in the form of spea

31、king and writing. and often the spoken english is more than the written english in language use. especially in modern society with so quickstep, speaking english is the quickest way. although in the modern internet world, e-mail also gives people more convenient, when they write and read the e-mail,

32、 they will spend more time than speak directly. whats more, writing cant express the writers feelings quickly and directly, and the reader cant understand the writers feeling .for example, one person is angry now. and he wants to tell his friend his present feeling .so he writes to his friend who ca

33、nt understand his feeling just by reading his letter or e-mail better. but if he can speak to his friend directly, then his friend can know his feeling by his tone or expression. and he can also know how much his anger is .so this is a quick and direct speaking effect. meanwhile, reading and writing

34、 have no this effect. on the other hand, it is only our tongue that builds a communication bridge between the listener and the speaker. thereby, the listening ability must rely on the speaking in a way. moreover, it is proved that if the speaking is trained well, it will be helpful for students conf

35、idence to learn english.b. the importance of speaking existing in the syllabus the aims of syllabus stipulates that “ english teaching in middle schools is mainly to train students to have a definite foundation of listening and speaking so as to attain the aim to communicate comprehensively with oth

36、ers in english.” (leech 286)it requires the teachers of english to organize their 45-minute class in english to create a living and lively english environment of english learning. thus the students listening and speaking will be spontaneously trained and practiced.c. the importance of speaking refle

37、cted in the textbooks today, the newly compiled series of textbooks of teaching and learning, different from those old ones, which only emphasize on the grammar and translation, have been used widely in our country. those outmoded teaching approaches will have to be abandoned by using the new concep

38、t of teaching english. as a result english teachers will have to improve themselves either subjectively or objectively so as to become a qualified teacher of english in middle schools. and in the new textbooks, which mostly emphasize on listening and speaking, according to different the stages of ag

39、es, it includes listening practice, speaking and chant, playing and acting, audio-vidal etc, and with the appropriate pictures to help them understand and encourage them to act it out .let them learn english unconsciously and learn to use it freely. at the same time, the teachers are also required t

40、o organize their class with some simple spoken english, and with their gestures and expression in accordance with the necessary. and the teachers should create a real english situation to help the students understand and imitate better to improve the listening and speaking ability (leech 589). on th

41、e one hand, the students should be also given more opportunities to speak english, and then their ability of speaking must be more concretely and effectively trained. on the other hand, students are required to speak english when asked to answer questions or convey their own opinions in the 45-minut

42、e class. after class, they can be required to retell the interesting story reflected in the textbook, or to make an interview with their classmates to express their own opinions to the story .so, surely, their speaking ability can be improved effectively. .d. the importance of speaking in new tests

43、papers at present, the syllabus stipulates, “examination and test should include written part, listening test and oral test as well and examination should focus on oral test” (shu 326). and now you can find listening test in all kinds of tests. and many areas take the oral test as an important part

44、to estimate the students comprehensive level. however, ,you couldnt find the oral test in the final examination ten years ago. even you didnt hear of the word of “oral test”. in the final examination the students speaking ability is very different from those ten years ago. their intonations and tone

45、s and even expressions are becoming much better, which contributes to the daily training. so the voiceless english is increasingly developed.whats more, now students often can find that there are many english-speaking competitions on tv and many areas also hold all kinds of speaking competitions. at

46、 the same time, there are more and more super english speakers presenting in the non-english countries.now, theyve known the importance of speaking, they should try their best to improve the students competence of speaking. however, during speaking communication, there are some barriers of which we

47、should be aware. iii. some barriers in the process of spoken englisha.phonetic barrier “the articulator apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas or cavities: the pharyngeal cavity-the throat, the oral cavity-the mouth, and the nasal cavity-the nose. the air stream coming fro

48、m the lungs may be modified in these cavities in a variety of ways. it may also be modified in the larynx before it reaches any of the cavities.” (leech 895) because of the point ,the students should be required to know every part of pronunciation of humans body and can pronounce the pure english .h

49、owever, for most students in the process of their learning, they are greatly influenced by their teachers, especially teachers phonetics. but at present in many areas, especially in the rural areas, schools are short of specialized english teachers. some other teachers who are not familiar with the

50、sound linking, plosive, stress, etc. are asked to teach english. maybe they are competent in teaching english grammar and language points, but it is surely difficult for them to speak fluent and pure english. and also some schools cant afford modern machines, then the students cant imitate the pure

51、english, and their speaking ability cant be trained favorably.when they communicate with others, they often find their pronunciations are different from others. so they cant understand what is said to them. their listening ability will also be influenced and the confidence of communication will also

52、 be influenced.two year ago, the author taught grade seven. at the beginning of the lessons, the pronunciations of many students from different rural are quite different. for example, “china t” they always pronounce tr. the author spent almost three months in correcting them. with the authors emphas

53、is on the phonetics, the students have been also especially focusing on it every time when they had their spoken lessons; they always imitated the pure english pronunciation from their foreign teachers.b. grammar barrier although the author emphasizes again and again that the aim of our language tea

54、ching is to communicate, the author still should have some knowledge of english grammar. in english, there is a change of tense. and the order, which the action happens, can be presented by the change of verbs, which many students often ignore these points when they communicate with others. as a res

55、ult, some unnecessary mistakes will happen. for example, a student wants to express this meaning “i have been to beijing.” not knowing the difference between “have been to”and “have gone to”, he may say, “i have gone to beijing.” if he knows their difference, he will not make this mistake. so the gr

56、ammar is very important for students.c. mental barrier an american psychologist has had an experiment among three thousand people like this: what do you worry about most? there are all kinds of answers, such as death, dump, loss of relatives, diseases, etc. but to the authors surprise, about forty p

57、ercent of people think that what people worry about and frighten most is to speak before people. from this experiment, the author knows that some uncomfortable feeling will happen in mother tongue to communicate. and the uncomfortable feeling will be more serious in the second language. most students will have some mental barrier or p