The Application of Situational Language Teaching in College Oral English Teaching1

1、the application of situational language teaching in college oral english teachingabstract situational language teaching is an innovation in english teaching field and this advanced method of teaching is very popular in chinese students english teaching nowadays. in this article, the author is trying

2、 to give a whole introduction about using situational language teaching approach in teaching oral english can get the best effect. in order to stimulate students interests and enthusiasm to learn english, to make the class atmosphere lively and to make the teacher achieve effective teaching in the c

3、lassroom language teaching, the author develops the argument: to apply the situational language teaching approach in the english language teaching, and to argue for it by means of analyzing its theory, rules and its application. in order to achieve these purposes, the author relates theory to the pr

4、actical teaching according to the mode: theory first, examples later. it can get a new level about teaching and learning english and will give students an easier way to learning english. it will benefit both the students and our country. keywords: situational language teaching; approaches; oral engl

5、ish teaching.outlinethesis statement: situational language teaching is given most consideration during english teaching progress and advocated to complement or even replace the traditional ones. . introductiona. background of the researchb. current usage of situational language teaching . literature

6、 reviewa. research in situational language teaching1. introduction of situational language teaching2. models of situational language teachingb. merits and defects of situational language teaching1. merits of situational language teaching2. defects of situational language teachingc. approaches of sit

7、uational language teaching1. theory of language2. theory of learning. application in college oral english teachinga. the nature of oral english 1. comparisons between spoken and written language2. characteristics of speech3. factors involved in speaking english competentlyb. factors involved in spea

8、king english competently1. error-correction2. motivation3. managing interaction4. communication strategies5. social-cultural factors6. classroom atmospherec. some situational language teaching methods to improve college oral english 1. watching movies and imitating them2. listening to conversations

9、and repeating them3. listening to lectures and holding debates d. designing speaking activities in college classroom 1. selecting spoken texts 2. methodology in teaching oral english 3. types of activities in english speaking classroom 4. encouraging students to speak out of class. conclusion 2the a

10、pplication of situational language teaching in college oral english teaching. introductiona. background of the research as we all know, language is an essential part of communication. no one can communicate with others without language. furthermore, it is undeniable that english as an international

11、language has gained its popularity all around the world. the purpose to learn a foreign language is communicating with local people about their culture and other aspects of their life. as a result, spoken language becomes more and more important. someone is considered as master in studying a foreign

12、 language if she or he speaks the language fluently. nowadays, almost everyone knows the importance of learning english, it is taught as a compulsory subject at elementary school, secondary school and university in china. chinese government has raised questions about how to teach english as a foreig

13、n language to all kinds of students because the study of english continues to occupy an important place in our educational curriculum. a lot of people consider that vocabulary is the key to learning english, so they prefer to memorize words as many as possible. it is true that one can not communicat

14、e effectively or express his ideas in both oral and written forms without a sufficient vocabulary. however, we all know that the effect of learning language is marked by the students communication ability. although vocabulary is an indispensable element in learning foreign language, a more important

15、 one is how to speak that language out. since different pronunciation will make different meanings to the listeners and it will certainly distort the messages. all of these proved the importance of improving oral english.b. current usage of situational language teaching in china foreign language tea

16、ching has been playing a dominant role in chinas curriculum reform, especially in the present globalization of chinese society and economy. however, the insufficient research into foreign language teaching and blindly adopting western theory demand china learn from its own experience and also develo

17、p western foreign language teaching theories that innovate and promote its education system and research. there is a phenomenon which we called “dumb english” in china, which means a large number of students can only read and write instead of speaking. according to the observation, the problem is ca

18、used by the ways chinese teachers teach. in addition, a lot of schools in china do not have enough facilities such as english laboratory, lcd, and other multimedia. so the students need suitable advices to improve their oral english. predecessors created several ways to attract students. first, they

19、 encourage teachers to create the comfortable environment to do the teaching learning process. second, they also advice teachers to use different kinds of media, such as concrete objects, pictures and other aids in order to avoid the young learners boredom. based on the phenomenon of how important o

20、ral english in english learning is, the researchers try to teach oral english by using an attractive way which is suitable for college students, that is by using situational language teaching (slt). chinese researchers found that the method of language teaching must be comfortable and relaxing for t

21、he students. teachers need to find something to stimulate students motivation in the class. besides, teachers should make students participate in some activities which are interesting and fun for them. situational language teaching (slt) is developing in china and has been adopted for many years, wh

22、ich shows its effect perfectly. literature reviewa. researches on situational language teaching1. introduction of situational language teaching“few language teachers in the 1990s are familiar with the terms oral approach or situational language teaching, which refer to an approach to language teachi

23、ng developed by british applied linguists from the 1930s to the 1960s.” 1 this approach began with the work of british applied linguists in the 1920s and 1930s. during this time, a lot of applied linguists contributed many ideas to methodology in language teaching. among these people, harold palmer

24、and a. s. hornby are two prominent leaders in british twentieth-century language teaching. they wanted to develop a more scientific approach to teaching english than the old ones. they led a systematic study of the principles and procedure which could be used to the selection and organization of the

25、 content of a language course. the first aspect of this method is vocabulary control. palmer considered that vocabulary was one of the most important aspects of foreign language learning. besides, in some countries, reading skills are the goal of foreign language study, which needs a large amount of

26、 vocabulary. another british language teaching specialist, michael west, who investigated the role of english in india in the 1920s, said that vocabulary was seen as an essential part of reading. the second aspect of this method is grammar control. palmer pointed out the problems of grammar for the

27、foreign learner. from 1922 to world war, he directed the institute for research in english teaching in japan. “palmer viewed grammar as the underlying sentence patterns of the spoken language.”2 a lot of british applied linguists analyzed english and sorted its major grammatical structures into sent

28、ence patterns. these patterns could be used to help internalize the rules of english sentence structure. the principles of selection, gradation and presentation are involved in methodology which was developed by palm, hornby, and other british applied linguistics from 1920s, even if they held differ

29、ent views toward what kind of the specific procedures should be used during teaching english. the oral approach was applied to english language teaching by the 1950s. and it was widely used since then, more and more language specialists all around the world found it effective in language teaching pr

30、ocedure. finally, they conclude 6 main characteristics of the approach: “ language teaching begins with the spoken language. material is taughtorally before it is presented in written form. the target language is the language of the classroom. new language points are introduced and practiced situati

31、onally. vocabulary selection procedures are followed to ensure that an essentialgeneral service vocabulary is covered. items of grammar are graded following the principle that simple forms should be taught before complex ones. reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammati

32、cal basis is established.”3after the conclusion, the term situational was used increasingly concerning the oral approach. in 1950, hornby published a series of articles in english language teaching with the title of the situational approach. after that, the terms structural situational approach and

33、situational language teaching spread quickly. 2. models of situational language teaching: a developing onesituational language teaching is a suitable teaching method to increase english learners enthusiasm because it deals with the characteristics of the young learners. in addition, it involves some

34、 attractive ways which can get rid of students feeling of boredom and enhance their motivation to learn. for so many years, more and more researchers believe in this method, not only because it can improve students interests of learning english, but also it can really assist teachers in teaching eng

35、lish efficiently. at the moment, situational language teaching method is only used in several aspects of english, vocabulary, grammar for example. with its strong emphasis on oral practice, grammar, and sentence patterns, situational language teaching method continues to be widely used in many parts

36、 of the world in the long run. b. merits and defects of situational language teaching1. merits of situational language teaching the first one, it is the first attempt to establish theoretical principles to build a methodological framework for teaching english as a foreign language in english languag

37、e teaching history. at the same time, it also began the discipline of applied linguistics. before situational language teaching method was developed, there was less real theories of teaching english to help teachers with teaching. the second one, it has made up some shortcomings of other methods in

38、language teaching practice. situational language teaching emphasizes the function of situation which can help students to apply what they have learned in real-life practice during the process of presenting the language structure. all the teaching materials are graded, and the students will not suffe

39、r from the difficulties of a flow of ungraded speech in the language.the third one, it can help students to form the habit of thinking in english, which is necessary in efficient real communication. since both chinese and english have their own characteristics in many aspects, it is essential to act

40、 and think as native people do. imitating their ways to speak is the first phase, then memorizing comes and thinking in their ways occupies the last but not least place. the fourth one, its emphasis on practice with english and on language skills, rather than on language itself, is important in achi

41、eving automaticity of using english. the aim we learn a language is to use it, situational language teaching give us a condition to put language into practice. it also shows us a quicker way to teach and learn english. the fifth one, using situation as teaching units makes english learning more natu

42、ral and efficient for students to understand and acquire a new language. it is different from other methods, because it combines english learning and settled situations together. in this way, english learners can totally understand the language. 2. defects of situational language teachingalthough th

43、is method has so many benefits, it is still not a perfect one in two aspects. firstly, it is still largely a grammar-based one, which makes its situations the vehicles through which the grammatical syllabus is conveyed. if the students lack necessary knowledge of the english grammar, they tend to pr

44、oduce utterances with a lot of grammatical mistakes in them. on the other hand, ignoring english grammar will lead to misunderstanding between two speakers, especially for the one who is not a native speaker. secondly, situational language teaching places a high demand on the teacher. it not only re

45、quires native-speaker teachers or teachers who have native-speaker-like fluency in english, but also needs them to be able persons. teachers must clearly know what they should do to motivate their students to learn english according to students own wills. they also should be more patient and devoted

46、 than any other teachers, because this method needs teachers to make out some interesting means to help the teaching processes. c. approaches of situational language teaching1. theory of language for the theory of language, a type of british “structuralism” is considered as situational language teac

47、hings main characteristic. the basis of language is speech and the heart of speaking ability is structure. many british applied linguists, including palmer and hornby, had prepared pedagogical descriptions of the basic grammatical structures of english, and these were to be followed in developing me

48、thodology. however, american linguists proposed different views to their version of structuralism and their theory was largely unknown by british applied linguists in the fifties. the oral practice of structures will be principal classroom activity in the teaching of english structure. controlled se

49、ntence patterns should be given in situation designed to give the greatest amount of practice in english speech to the students. the situations in which language is used are quite important during english learning process. knowledge of structures must be linked to situations in which they could be u

50、sed, which gave situational language teaching one of its distinctive features. this phenomenon may have reflected the functional trend in british linguistics since the thirties. a large number of british linguists had pointed out that the close relationship between the structure of language and the

51、context should be out in the first place. actual situations are made up by the description of language activity, together with participants and relevant objects. every language has its own purpose, so some linguists view language as a purposeful activity related to goals and situations in the real w

52、orlds. 2. theory of learningthe theory of learning considers situational language teaching as a type of behaviorist habit-learning theory. it focuses on the processes rather than the conditions of learning. in palmers opinion, there are three processes in learning a language. the first one is receiv

53、ing the knowledge or materials, the second one is fixing the language in the memory by repetition, the last one is using the language in actual practice until it becomes a personal skill. unlike palmer, french considered learning language as a habit formation. correct speech habits are the most impo

54、rtant part in acquiring a new language. learners should be able to put the words, without hesitation and almost without thought, into sentence patterns which are correct. blind imitation drill can cultivate such kind of speech habits. situational language teaching deals with the teaching of grammar by using an inductive approach. instead of being translated or explained in either the native tongue or the new