小组活动在初中英语教学中的应用

小组活动在初中英语教学中的应用Using Group Work in Junior English Class 摘 要:初中英语教学的一个重要任务是为社会培养合格的人才。二十一世纪是需要合作的时代，学会合作是时代的要求。小组活动是适合于新的英语课程标准的。小组活动是不同能力，不同水平的学生运用不同的课堂活动，学习方法来改善他们的理解能力以及综合语言运用能力的一种成功的教学策略。目前，许多的小组活动得到了广泛的应用，如游戏、戏剧、采访、情景剧、对话、集思广益等，这些小组活动在课堂上的运用充分地活跃了课堂气氛，促进了学生的责任感与自主性；加强了学生与学生、学生与老师之间的交流，激发了学生的学习动机，培养了学生的感情以及学生的集体意识。在小组活动的应用过程中要充分重视小组的组织及管理，注意到小组活动中可能出现的错误。通过小组活动在英语课堂中的应用，教师给学生提供了充分拓展思维的时间和空间，给学生提供了合作学习和自主学习的空间，真正的成为学生学习的合者、指导者和参与者。同时，学生学习英语的积极性得到了极大的调动，学生自主学习能力和语言交际能力得到了很好的提高。关键词：小组活动，初中英语课堂，初中英语教学，合作学习Abstract: One of the important tasks ofjunior English class is to bring up the qualified talented person for thesociety. The twenty-first century is the era which demands cooperation, and the students must learn how to cooperate. Group workis a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. At present, most of the group activities are applied in classroom extensively, i.e., games, drama, interview, role-play and practiced dialogue.Using group activities can activate classroom climate, promote learners responsibility and self-study, intensify communication, arouse students motivation, develop emotion between students and enhance the community sense. In the application of group work,the teacher must maximize group works organization and implementation; hemust pay attention to some possible problems of using group work in English class. Byusing group work inEnglish teaching, teachers supply time and space for students to developing their thought and supply space of cooperative work and self-study. In the way, the teachers become organizer, guide and participant. Furthermore, students learning initiation in English studying is mobilized greatly and the competence of students self-study and communication is improved rapidly. Key words: Groupwork, Junior English Classroom, Junior English Teaching, cooperative learningContents摘 要1关键词1Abstract1Key words:1Introduction:21. General Introduction of Group Work31.1 The Definition of Group Work31.2 Researches of Group Work41.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Work51.3.1 Advantages51.3.2 Disadvantages62. Some Popular Group WorkActivities62.1 Games62.2 Drama72.3 Interview72.4 Role-play82.5 Practiced Dialogue83. Using Group Work in Junior English Class83.1 Group Work Management and Implementation83.2 The Significance of Using Group Work in Junior English Teaching93.2.1 Activating Classroom Climate93.2.2 Promoting Learners Responsibility and Self-study103.2.3 Promoting Communication and Arousing Students Motivation103.2.4 Enhancing the Community Awareness114. Some Possible Problems of Using Group Work in English Classroom11Conclusion11Bibliography12IntroductionInfluenced by traditional teaching theory and objective teaching condition, collective teaching remains the major form in Junior English teaching. There is only one path for information that teacher passes to the students in the class. And teacher becomes the center during the course who takes so much time away. Meanwhile, it ignores to provide the language training to the student and its not helpful for student to improve their language ability. So it is simple and stubborn, and the students just feel boring and depressed in the class.More and more teaching forms are taken in Junior English class. And group work is one of the latest methods to promote the class effectively, which has a special feature in the form distinguished from traditional teaching. Nowadays the main mission of worldwide English teaching is for the students to achieve the ability of living in every community. So group work is widely used in the primary and junior English class, while the education reform and new teaching materials are in the progress. 1 Go for it is a book with original forms, interesting contents and closed to the childrens own lives. So currently it is popular in many cities in China. The book is based on some topic missions, so the students can practice and master the knowledge in group work. It follows new English class standards to advocate the learning method for practice, cooperation and communication based on the students interests, life experience and cognitive level, andthe approach of task teaching. It helps the students to practice and develop their language ability, so they can achieve a cross-culture consciousness and get used to independent study.But there are still many problems in group work activity. Many juniors are not interested in the progress but the result in group work activity, and they need to develop their skills and strategies in cooperation. 7So the group work activity can be differently used in different time and different place in Junior English teaching. In short, group work is the most original and practical method currently, while teacher is required to use a new method to arouse students zeal in modern junior English teaching. 1. General Introduction of Group WorkThe purpose of Junior English Teaching is to arouse and foster students interest in study, to make them master some basic linguistic knowledge and fundamental language skills, to educate students rudimentary communicative ability in English application and to develop students intellect and personality. To a great extent, the development of their language competence is determined by the organizational form of teaching, so English classroom teaching needs to introduce the new model which can face the whole students need and facilitate the comprehensive development of students practical activities. The new model is group work, group work is a teaching strategy system which considers group cooperative learning as the estimation standard, and it utilizes the interaction among teaching dynamic, exerts students self-sovereignty adequately so as to achieve a better learning effect.1.1 The Definition of Group Work What is group work? According to H Douglas Brown, it is a generic term covering a multiplicity of techniques in which two or more students are assigned task that involves collaboration and self-initiated language. Note that what we commonly called pair work is simply group work in groups of two. It is also important to note thatgroup work usually implies “small”group work, that is, students in groups of perhaps six or fewer. 3Group workis a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team is responsible for atmosphere of achievement. Students work through group work until allgroup members successfully understand and complete it.Group work is also defined as a teaching arrangement in which small groups of students work together to achieve a common goal. Students encourage and support each others learning, employ grouprelated social skills, and evaluate the groups progress. The basic elements are positive interdependence, equal opportunities, and individual accountability. Human beings are social creatures by nature and cooperation has been used throughout history in all aspects of our lives. Therefore, it follows that group work in schools would be used as a logical teaching method. Team reward, individual accountability and equal opportunities for success are the important concepts in group work. 1 If the groupachieve the preplanned standard, they could be approved or could get some grouprewards; individual accountability is said that the success of group work was determined byall the members study, it focus on the mutual teaching and cooperation, so that they can ensure all the memberswould be well ready for quiz and some other evaluations; equal opportunities for success means that students do some contributions to their group according totheir improvementin their own results. Group work is a cooperative activity: five students, perhaps, discussing a topic, doinga role-play or solving a problem. In groups, students tend to participate more equally, and they are also more able to do experiment and use the language than they are ina whole-class arrangement. 2 According to Brown (1994), group work is a generic term covering a multiplicity of technique in which two or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self-initiated language. 3Group work means to work together to accomplish shared goals. Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes beneficial to themselves and all other group members. Group workis the instructional use of small groups through which students work together to maximize their own and each others learning. 1.2 Researches of Group WorkSome problems appear in classroom teaching, just as the whole class are adequate of class cohesive forceand team spirit; students do the things what they want to do and consider themselves always in the right, they couldnt get well with each other, they are so poor in mutual cooperative spirit, and also they lose heart in their studies, so, some people began to investigate the problemsin the classroom and want to find a way to solve these problems.In our country, we started this research at the end of 1980s. Since the last eighteenth, cooperative learning becomes one of the important targets in the study of teaching theory and practice.We have a great achievement. For example, the Department of Education in Hang Zhou University has made teaching experiment about Group and Cooperative Learning. And Shandong Province has developed the research and experiment about Cooperative Teaching. They have promoted the group work in China.Group work is mentioned in The Resolutions about the Reform and Development of Basic Education from State Council. It is said that “we must encourage the students to work in groups not alone, stimulate the conversation between the students and improve the students and the teacher at the same time”. Students are learning internal course. The external effect of the teachers and learning environment only works through the learners involving actively and internalizing environment.New English Curriculum Standard (2001) demands clearly that primary and middle school English course emphasize on the development of the students integrated language competence aiming at the students interests, life experience, practice, participant, cooperation and communication. One of the most important reforms of the basic education curriculum is to change the students learning method, so many teachers pay much attention to the group work, and it is also used widely in Junior English class in China.According to the researches in these years, the theoretical basis of group work can divided into the following:1) Social Interdependence Theory: interaction with other people is essential for human survival. In an educational setting, social interdependence refers to students efforts to achieve, develop positive relationships, adjust psychologically, and show social competence.2) Cognitive Development Theory: the cognitive developmental perspective is grounded in the work of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Piagetian perspectives suggest that when individualswork together, social cognitive conflict occurs and creates cognitive disequilibrium that stimulates perspective-taking abilityand reasoning. Vygotskys theories present knowledge as a societal product.3) Behavioral Learning Theory: the behavioral-social perspective presupposes that cooperative efforts are fueled by extrinsic motivation to achieve group rewards (academic and/or nonacademic). 94) Input and Interaction Hypothesis: Krashen (1981) distinguished two language-learning concepts: learning andacquisition. Learning refers to learning the language through conscious teaching, while acquisition to mastering the language through getting familiar with the language system. Krashen emphasized, mastering the language is mostly the result of using the language in communicative activities, not the result of simply practicing language techniques or learning the knowledge of the language. Krashen thought that to master a language, students must pass “comprehensive input”. If the input is above the limitof the level of a person, acquisition comes put naturally.5) Constructivism Theory: a constructivist view of Teaching: A constructivist approach to teaching emphasizes the fact that no two teachers and no two teaching situations are even the same. For the constructivist, both the content of any lesson and the way in which it is offered are part the person of each individual teacher. The need here, therefore, is for teachersto become more self-aware with regard to their beliefs about education and how those views themselves come to be shaped. At the same time,they need to be aware also that they themselvesare being constructed by their learners and their words, their actions and their interactions from part of every individual learners own construction of knowledge. A constructivist view oflearning: social interaction emphasizes the dynamic nature of interplay between teachers, learners and tasks, and provides a view of learning as rising from interactions with others. Learning never takes place in isolation; we organize the importance of the learning environment or context within which the learning takes place.1.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Group WorkIn this chapter, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of group work. Then, we can control the group work very well in the classroom only if we can grasp the characteristic of it, and we can apply the group work flexible. Meanwhile, we must pay attention to the problems or change the problems into good instruments which can foster the classroom teaching or active the climate.1.3.1 AdvantagesGroup workhelps to solve the problem of classes that are too large to offer many opportunities to speak, if just halfof your class times were spent in group work, you could increase individual practice time five-fold over whole-class traditional methodology.Small groups provide opportunitiesfor student initiation, for face to give and take, for practice in negotiation of meaning, for extended conversational exchanges, and for student adoption of roles that would otherwise be impossible.Group workgives the students chances for greater independence. Because they are working together without the teacher controlling every move, they take some of their own learning decisions, they decide what language to use to complete a certain task,and they can work with out the pressure of the whole classlistening to what they are doing.Decisions are cooperatively arrived at, responsibilities are shared. 2The other great advantage of group work is that it gives the teacher the opportunity to work with individual students. While groups A and Care doing one task, the teacher can spend some time with group B who need special attention. Group work also has other advantages: it fosters learner responsibility and independence, can improve motivation and contribute to a feeling of cooperation andwarmth in the class. 4In all, group work has advantages as these:1) Group work generates interactive language2) Group workoffers an embracing affective climate3) Group work promotes learner responsibility and autonomy4) Group work is astep toward individualizing instruction1.3.2 DisadvantagesGroup work also has some disadvantages. As with “separate table” seating, students may not like the people they are grouped with. In any one group, one student may dominate while the others stay silent. In difficult classes, group work may encourage students to be more disruptive than they wouldbe in a whole-class setting, and, especially in a class where students share the same first language, they may revert to their first language, rather than English, when the teacher is not working with them. 2Teachers fear they may lose control, that there may be too much noise, that their students may over-use their mother tongue, do the task badly or notat all: and their fears are often well founded. 4 Some people, both learners and teachers, dislike a situation where the teacher cannot constantly monitor learner language. In a word, everything has two adverse aspects, only if you understand it and using the group work and avoid some problems might be happen as you use the group work, then, you can use it successfully.2. Some Popular Group WorkActivities We can look at group work as central to maintaining linguistic interaction in the classroom. There are so many kinds of group work activities can be done in the classroom: practicing dialogues with a partner; simple question and answer exercises; performing certain meaningful substitution “drills”; quick (one minute or less) brainstorming activity; checking written work with each other; preparation for merging with large group; any brief activity for which the logistics of assigning groups, moving furniture, and getting students into the groups is distractive. So, the first step in promoting successful group work, then, is to select an appropriate task. In the other words, choose something that lends itself to group process. Lectures, drills, dictations, certain listening tasks, silent reading, and a host of other activities are obviously not suitable for small group work. Typical grouptasks include: games, drama, interview, role-play and practice dialogue. All these are the concrete use of group work activities in the classroom teaching.2.1 GamesA game could be any activity that formalizes a technique into units that can be scored in some way. Guessing games are common language classroom activities. 3 We can discuss the designation and organization of English classroom games from the competitive view: 1) Tested memory: Just as the teaching of alphabets, words and sounds, we can play the game “Whats missing?” The teacher can write some alphabets or some words or some sounds on some graphics which is made by papers. The teacher can show all the things for the students, and let them know what is written on which graphic. Then, you disarrange the graphic, and show the blank to students. Ask some students to say what was referring to in the paper. This game could be used to reinforce the structure “What color is/are .? Where is/are.? Whats in/on.? Is/Are there.? How many. are there.? Whos.? What is/are.doing?” It shows as a chain exercise. 92) Compared reaction: It is always used to check students practiced degree of the knowledge and the ability of ones reaction: 9 you can play the game “Simon Says”, if there is “Simon Says” before the structure, you must do the things opposite the instruction. If there isnt, you must do the things what they want to do. Just as the instruction is “Stand up!”then, you must stand up and if theinstruction is “Simon Says, stand up!” you must sit down quickly. It also can be used in other courses game.3) Competed speed: It can play as “the relay race”,it can be used to quiz students expression in English and thespeed of using English to solve some problems, it is playedby the group and they must pay attention in team spirit. 94) Contested investigation: It is played as that the teacher writes some alphabets as “s i t h a t e n e wh o u r e a d a y” on the blackboard, let the students find the words they can recognize in these alphabets from left to right, which group is the first and the most find the words in time. 95) Contended imagination: You can apply condition, picture or blackboard drawing, let the students imagine, they can make some tales.Games are used so much in the cla