A Survey on the Application of Classroom Leading-in Approach in English Class

1、A Survey on the Application of Classroom Leading-in Approach in English Class Author Yang LianzhuThe leading-in approach refers to that teachers organize students to carry on their psychological preparation and knowledge preparation when a new course or activity begins, and leading students to enter

2、 into learning state. A right and artful leading-in approach can bring a favorable English learning atmosphere, leading students understanding purposes of learning English, thereby arouse students strong willingness of learning English, and put their attention to appointed courses. The effective lea

3、ding-in approaches play a significant role in improving the quality of English teaching in schools. The leading-in approaches the paper mentioned contain singing, games, story telling, stick figures, introducing background information, question, and free talk. This paper make a survey on how many ap

4、proaches are commonly applied in leading-in stage in English lessons, what are the problems in leading-in process in an English lesson and how to solve these problems. Through the on-site observation, questionnaire, interviewing and investigation, the author of this paper has made a survey on the ac

5、tual situation of leading-in approaches applied in English teaching, and put forward some suggestions. The paper shows that the performance of middle school students in English classes is not satisfactory and students are not very satisfied with English classes. Raising students interests of learnin

6、g English is the key to improve the quality of English classes. Therefore, teachers must make full preparations for English teaching work, and create leading-in approaches according to the specific characters of students and situations of schools, avoiding using leading-in approaches spiffily.A good

7、 leading-in approach will benefit an English class a lot. Here are some beneficial functions of leading-in approach in English classes. The leading-in not only mobilizes students motivation, but also enhances their interest and draws their attention to English classes. There are numerous ways to car

8、ry out the leading-in activities in English classroom teaching no matter in traditional ways or by multimedia. The approaches here that we list may be carried out by these two ways. It depends on the specific situation. Songs Since children like to play and have fun, the learning and teaching proces

9、s should be suited with the nature of the children themselves. Yang Xiaoyi (2010) proposed that “if learning can be enjoyable, the students will learn more. Songs can relax and motivate students, get them to be attentive and let them have fun in their study. ” Songs are fun and motivating, and can b

10、e used to introduce new content, review language point and so on. For the leading-in process, the principle purposes of teaching songs may be to excite them or to review the former knowledge. The following is one of the examples: “Look around and you will see,All the things belong to you and me.Look

11、 around and you will find,This whole world is yours and its mine.Every bird, every flower, every tree, they all belong to you and me.”From this song students may understand how to use “me, you, mine and yours”. And these words also can be changed to “them, theirs, him his, her, hers”, and so on. The

12、n the students can use all of them. GamesGames in the language classroom help students to see learning English as enjoyable and rewarding. (Sarah Philips, 2006.)“The learners desire for language can be aroused simultaneously.” (胡春洞，2003: 328) At the same time, “Games teaching can meet junior student

13、s psychological needs, and fully mobilize their non-intellectual factors.” Hereby, classroom games are good methods to inspire students English studying motivation. In this manner, they will study English actively, not passively.Games can be classified into “structure games, vocabulary games, spelli

14、ng games, pronunciation games, number games, listen-and-do games, read-and-do games, writing games, role play, and intelligence games ”(胡春洞, 2003: 328) .The following is a good guessing game to stir up students motivation and interest. Its mystery accompanies with students intrinsic curiosity drive

15、students to the new content desirously. The processes of game: When teachers teach parts of the body, teachers can play this game for practice. It can be played by the whole class or by a few students, e.g. ten students line up in the front of the classroom, the teacher says: Put your fingers on you

16、r face! Put your fingers on your chin! Put your fingers on your toe! Put your finger on your finger! And so on. Those students who do it wrong or who are too slow are out of the game. The teacher could write down the parts of the body which the students have learned on pieces of paper and put them i

17、n a bag. A student then picks out a piece of paper from the bag and tells the class, then puts the paper back in the bag again. The teacher then mixes up the papers before being picked out another one. In this way, the students can be highly motivated and are willing to rush to the lesson with their

18、 teacher. In addition, the knowledge which has been learnt can be reviewed and consolidated through the games.Story Telling Yu Suzhen (2004) wrote an article named “Story Telling in Primary School”. She said, “Stories solved the problem of childrens lack of interest in English.” Chen Ruli (2004) als

19、o conducted a research on English story telling in the primary school. Chen Ruli (2004) conducted a research called “Story Telling in English Teaching”. She focused on why story telling is fit for primary school English class. According to her, there are two reasons: firstly, the method of story-tel

20、ling could meet the demands of the New Curriculums; secondly, it could fulfill childrens psychological characteristics and the characteristics of language learning. She also provided suggestions on the four steps of story telling in English class: warming up, presentation, practice, and follow-up.Jo

21、hn Morgan and Mario Rinvolucri (2007) wrote a book named “Once Upon a Time: Using stories in the language classroom”. They think stories solve the problem of motivation because children have a constant need for stories and children will always be willing to listen or to read the stories if the right

22、 moment is chosen.As we all know, reading is difficult and boring for most of the students. Students are not willing to read a long passage unless they are interested in it or curious about it. For this reason, before letting students read the story which named The Man Upstairs, the teacher can tell

23、 them something interesting about the story. In this way, students may long for reading the passage with desire and curiosity. For example, the teacher can start like this:T: “A man lived in a tall building in the city of Moscow. He liked living there, but there was a problem caused by the man upsta

24、irs. Every night the man came back very late. He always threw his boots on the floor. The noise made the man downstairs could not get to sleep. Then he talked the trouble with that man. The man said sorry to him. The man downstairs thought his problem was solved. He was very happy, but the next nigh

25、t he failed to go to sleep again. Do you know what happened to him?” After students telling the whole class their guessing results, the teacher can let them start to read the passage. Then students may rush to the passage with interest and curiosity. On the other hand, they hurry to prove their gues

26、sing results, so they will stick to the end. Stick FiguresStick figures make teaching and learning more interesting and more vivid. Because it is intuitional and concrete, the ways of drawing pictures are very interesting. So, it accords with junior middle school students psychological character. Fo

27、r example, before entering the lesson What Animals Do You Like?, the teacher can make best use of the students loving of drawing, asking them to draw some stick figures about animals in 5 minutes. Then, the teacher says, “Ok! You are all excellent painters. But do you want to know how to introduce y

28、our favorite animals to your classmates? Now, let us study the names of these animals.” In this way, students can learn with interest and curiosity. The following lesson must be efficient.Introducing background information Students in secondary school are very active, lively and curious. Their atten

29、tion can be easily taken, but it is difficult to keep it throughout the whole class. If the teacher does not push students to the book quickly, instead of introducing some interest background information, students will forget that they are learning. For instance, before opening the reading material

30、about Bill Gates in the textbook, teachers can introduce the following background information. “Boys and girls, have you ever heard the story? There is a famous man in America. He is one of the richest men in the world. In his office he has a big desk. It has five drawers. Each drawer has a name. Th

31、ey are named INTEREST, TREASURE, HONOR, HAPPINESS and SECCESS. All the drawers are locked, but everyday he only has one key with him. Do you know which key he has every day? ” After the discussion, the teacher says, the only key the man has every day is INTEREST. Because he thinks INTEREST is the mo

32、st important thing in the world. It is the key to TREASURE, HONOR, HAPPINESS and SECCESS. And then the teacher says, do you know who he is? He is Bill Gates. Today we are going to learn about him. The example above indicates that telling background information of what students will learn in English

33、classes is another successful leading-in approach to draw students attention.QuestioningSkillful questioning is capable of arousing students curiosity, making them think, and helping clarify concepts and problems related to the lesson (杨阳, 2005:253). The following is an example that a teacher take t

34、his leading-in approach to start an English class.“Yesterday David parents went to Shanghai on business. They would stay there for 3 days. There was nobody at home except David. He got up late in the morning. He had no time to make the bed and tidy his bedroom. After a quick breakfast he went to school. But when he came back from school at noon, his bedroom became very tidy. And his lunch was ready. Do you know who helped