中学生提高英语口语的方法

中学生提高英语口语的方法Methods of Improving Oral Englishof Middle School StudentsContentsAbstract 1Key words 1IIntroduction2IINecessity for Improving Students Speaking Ability. 2IIIAdvantage of Improving Students Speaking Ability5IVProblems of Improving Students Speaking Ability.6VThe Ways of Improving Student Speaking Ability.75.1 Solution for the Teachers Part .75.1.1 Use Group Work75.1.2 Base the Activity on Easy Language75.1.3 Keep Students Speak the Target Language.75.1.4 Practice with a Text.75.1.5 Communicative Practice.85.1.6 Types of Activity.95.2 Solution for the Students Part .11VIConclusion.12Reference.13Methods of Improving Oral English of Middle School Students摘要： 英语是一种重要的语言,因为它不仅仅在英国和美国,也在世界上很多国家使用.它是世界上运用最广泛的语言.世界上大多数商业信件都使用它.随着世界交际的广泛增加,说英语变得越发的重要. 在这个竞争激烈的时代里，英语已经成为现代人必备的技能之一。然而，尽管学了若干年的英语，我们在实际交流中，依然会感到力不从心。在学习英语的同时也存在着不少的问题,我本人认为有必要提高学生的口语能力。在这篇文章中,我试着讨论提高口语能力的必要性和优越性,讨论这些问题的同时给出一些提高英语口语的方法。关键词：口语 提高口语的技巧 口语的能力 中学 发展Abstract: English is one of the most important languages, because it is spoken not only in England and American, but also in many other countries of the world. Its the most widely used language. Most business letters around the world are written in English. Half of the telephone calls are made in English. Their percent of the worlds books and magazines are written in English. Besides, English is one of the five United Nations official language. With the increasing of communicating with the world, spoken English is becoming more and more important. In this new century, which is full of challenge and competition, the English language ability has become one of the important living skills. However, with years of hard study in English, it is still difficult for most Chinese learners to use English freely in daily life. Although there are problems existing in English study. I think its necessary and possible to improve students speaking ability. Here in this article, I try to discuss the necessity and advantages of improving students speaking ability, and also suggest approaches of students to improve their spoken English and discuss some problems.Key words: oral English; approaches of improving oral English; speaking ability; middle school; developmentIIntroductionWith the increasing of communicating with the world, spoken English is becoming more and more important. Recently, middle school English teaching reform is on everyones lip, and the appeal for improving teaching method and learning environment has been advocated all the time. For many years, we have found it difficult to enable the students to communicate freely and make them express their ideas clearly.Why is it so hard to get them to speak English fluently? I believe there may be several reasons: Most of the speaking activities are of the traditional types, such as reading the dialogue, reciting texts, doing translation, and the materials chosen for the students are non-authentic where students feel deadly bored instead of appreciating them and accepting them. Many teachers do not have any idea of the role of speaking, nor do they know the importance of providing a natural circumstance of speaking. Some teachers only lay emphasis on accuracy with no thought of fluency, which makes students worry too much about their mistakes. Almost all-important examinations do not consist of an oral test, which causes both the teachers and students to neglect oral language.IINecessity for Improving StudentsSpeaking Ability Now, English is one of the key subjects taught in nearly all middle schools in China. It is a course which spans all the six school years and takes up 1,014 teaching hours. However students good at listening and understanding cannot always speak well. A sharp ear does not always produce a fluent tongue. There has to be training in the productive skill of speech as well. In many cases, listening should lead naturally on to speaking. For college students in China, oral English is a major course as important as the listening course. However, it has not gained its due place in English class in middle school. Though there is much oral practice in the textbook, some teachers ignore the teaching of speaking. There are still teachers who mainly speak Chinese in English classes. They argue that students would not understand if they speak English. Recently, our country makes a big reform in English teaching. The focus of textbook is speaking skills, teachers must help students use English to communicate, but it is a long way to process. Most students only use some easy sentences and cannot express their thoughts and feelings.When teachers teach, they have to take their learners purpose and need for learning into consideration. They know that English is not learned only for reading and getting information, since every language is a tool for analyzing, expressing and understanding. So speaking, as a means of expressing, plays a very important part in learning English. Especially when considering the world developing trend, it goes without saying that international contact, trade and co-operation are becoming and will become more and more frequent, and our graduates will have more and more opportunities to attend the international conferences and they need to be able to communicate in English so as to put the ability of communicating in English in a more important position, because English has been accepted as an international language. If our graduates can only read in English without the ability to speak it, how can they meet the need of the requirement of international communication? Thus improving the students ability is now under the advocating of our Education Ministry and is up to consideration. It is necessary also because it can make students have several advantages in learning the language well.The communicative or functional view of language is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning. The semantic and communication dimensions of language are more emphasized than the grammatical characteristics, although these are also included. The target of language learning is to learn to express ideas and feelings or convey information. Learning a language involves listening, speaking, reading and writing. While listening and reading are “input” process, speaking and writing are “output” process, which are interrelated to each other. Students can use the “input” theyve got to produce the “output”, and in turn, speaking and writing will reinforce the “input” theyve got though listening and reading, which is very important in language learning.Learning a language is like playing the game of constructing pictures with colorful pieces. If one part is lacking, people may feel upset and unsatisfied. Once it gets fixed, people will feel happy and encouraged, and have the sense of being successful. Learning a language is the same, for if students are lacking the speaking ability, theyll feel that theres a hole to be mended. So they wont feel satisfied. Once they can speak, theyll feel so happy and confident to learn something new. So improving students speaking ability, which has been ignored for so long time, can also build up their confidence and thus arouse their interests in learning the language further, for the better they feel they learn, the much better they want to be. Then in order to speak more fluently, theyll try to listen more and read more to get the “input” for the “output”, which will result in a very good achievement in English learning, and therefore paving a good way for their future work.Oral language can be very useful for the development of reading and writing skills. As Rivers points out, “When we read and write, we call upon what we know of the language orally.” (Rivers, 1968, 20). He goes on to say that there must be a connection between reading and speaking. If the students are reading, then they are using their oral language, too. If a student has poor oral language, his reading ability may also be poor. Similarly, Rivers (1968) argues that writing involves oral ability as well.Generally speaking, people have the notion that learning English has something to do with oral English. When one says some students are good at English, people will naturally think he or she can speak English well. It may well be suggested that students come to school to study English with the strong wish that they come to learn to speak it. For example, in my experiences, children after their first lesson always show their satisfaction when they say “good morning” or “thank you” to each other. Their attitude towards English is very positive and they are eager to learn more. I would suggest that speaking could increase the students interest in and enthusiasm for English learning. “The development of oral ability is a good source of motivation for most learners” (Harmer, 1991, 53).Although many teachers with poor oral ability may have some difficulty in teaching English, however, it is by no means impossible for them to do so. It can be suggested that they teach oral language by the indirect method. The teachers who lack oral ability may use a recorder to provide an authentic accent and some authentic materials like dialogue for students to imitate. They can also make good use of class time for active participation by all their students. So the teachers can make up for their deficiency in oral ability by encouraging the students participation with well prepared lessons, highly organized activities and effective techniques.The view that speaking is not a skill worth cultivating because Chinese students have little chance to communicate with native speakers may be judged shortsighted. We would realize that the generation we are teaching will have much more access to English speakers in the future with the further development of the open-door policy. It would be a pity for the teachers to find their students severely inhibited and embarrassed when the opportunity arises for them to speak English.English is the most widely used language in the world. It is spoken as the first language by more than 400 million people. It is spoken by most people in the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But it is also used very widely as foreign language in many other countries of the world. For example, Chinas opening-up policy encourages more people to learn English. Chinas entry into WTO encourages more people to learn English and Beijings successful bid for the 2008 Olympic games encourages more people to learn English. On the other hand, young people must learn English if the want to have a better future. After we learn English, we can read a lot of English books and magazines. We can find the information on the Internet. With the help of English, we can know more and more knowledge, so English is very important. IIIAdvantage of Improving Students Speaking AbilityLearning a language involves listening, speaking, reading and writing. While listening and reading are “input” process, speaking and writing are “output” process, which are interrelated to each other. Students can use the “input” theyve got to produce the “output”, and in turn, speaking and writing will reinforce the “input” theyve got though listening and reading, which is very important in language learning.Learning a language is like playing the game of constructing pictures with colorful pieces. If one part of it is lacking, people may feel upset and unsatisfied. Once it gets fixed, people will feel happy and encouraged, and have the sense of being successful. Learning a language is the same, for if students are lacking the speaking ability, theyll feel so happy and confident to learn something new. So improving students speaking ability, which has been ignored for so long a time, can also build up their confidence and thus arouse their interests in learning the language further, since the better they feel they learn, the much better they want to be. Then in order to speak more fluently, theyll try to listen more and read more to get the “input” for the “output”, which will result in a very good achievement in English learning, and therefore paving a good way for their future work.As Harmer suggests, “One skill cannot be performed without another. It is impossible to speak in a conversation if you do not listen as well, and people seldom write without reading-even if they only read what they have just written”(Harmer, 1991, 52).The diagram below shows how all four skills are related (Byrne, 1991, 8):Spoken Language: Understanding, SpeakingReceptive Skills: Understanding, ReadingProductive Skills: Speaking, WritingWritten Language: Reading, WritingSince the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are interrelated and interacted with each other, as we can see from the above, it may be suggested that the four basic skills should be taught inclusively rather than separately, as Byrne argues, we need to see why integrated skills activities are important.IVProblems of Improving Students Speaking AbilityThe good students in class can get good marks, but some of them dont like speaking. They think speaking English is less useful than written English. They just read books and recite them. They even dont want to talk with others in English. They dont listen to others and answer them; they just want to answer the teachers question to get good impression. Some weak students lack confidence. They think their English is poor. They are afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by others.There is one problem that some of students dont like English and especially dont like speaking in class. They think it is difficult to learn English well and it is hard to speak English without textbook. Sometimes their writing work is full of mistakes. More often, the students complain that the classes are becoming more and more boring. On the other hand, many students are afraid of learning a new language, especially when they are asked to present in front of others. They prefer to refuse such a chance even they know that it can help them examine themselves in language learning. No matter what kind of language a learner learns, he or she will always encounter such a tough and embarrassing problem. Therefore, many learners choose to be quiet and only study some grammars or structures. For them, that would be “safer”. Thus, many experts believe that this anxiety really plays a major role in learning situations, especially in the group learning situations. Anxiety typically happens when the students are practicing listening and speaking. As we know, speaking in public without additional training is the most horrible experience to anxious students even though they are pretty good at drilling or giving prepared speeches. Anxiety would cause students to have difficulties in discriminating sounds and structures or in figuring out the real meaning of what they heard. Anxiety really influences students real performance. For example, the teacher knows some student might know the answer and so the teacher ask him or her to answer the question. If he or she were anxious and nervous, then he would reply nothing, just feeling embarrassed and frustrated. Anxiety ruins everything. In addition to students own specific characteristics, the role of the instructor, the teacher, is also a main factor to cause students anxiety. Teachers seem to have the tendency to criticize and correct students errors. That really discourages students. In fact, if teacher can use encouragement more instead of criticism, students would have more confidence to learn actively in class. As teachers, we should make students understand that making mistakes is normal and acceptable. I always let my students know that there are no so-called easy or difficult questions. There are only questions that confuse them. Therefore, they should feel comfortable to ask any questions that they dont understand. They dont have to be afraid of making mistakes in front of other classmates because that means they have more opportunities to learn the correct knowledge than others. Community Language Learning Approach appears to be the most suitable method to teach the anxious students, because its main purpose is to reduce students anxiety. VThe Ways of Improving Student Speaking Ability5.1 Solution for the Teachers PartAs we know, theres no speaking class for the middle school. So speaking activities have to be managed in a way combined with other activities as reading or writing, which I dont think is necessarily a bad or frustrating thing to do, because in this case, we can give students reasons to speak, instead of asking them to speak for the sake of speaking.5.1.1 Use Group WorkThis increases the amount of student talk in a limited period of time and also lowers the inhibitions of students who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class. In groups work, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together.5.1.2 Base the Activity on Easy LanguageThe language should be easily remembered and produced by the students, so that they can speak fluently with little hesitation. It is a good idea to teach or review important vocabulary before the activity starts.5.1.3 Keep Students Speak the Target LanguageThe best way is simply to be there yourself as much as possible, reminding students and use yourself as a model.From the study of the nature of speaking, we can see that speaking skill integrates both listening and speaking. Thus it is not enough to provide sample dialogues in teaching speaking. Classroom activities play a very important role in developing students ability to express themselves. A successful speaking activity is characterized by students talk, even participation, high motivation and acceptable language.5.1.4 Practice with a TextThe drills discussed above are mainly designed to practice structures or patterns. Then how do we practice with texts? In this part examples are given of ways of using a passage for oral practice. Dialogues can usually be used in the same way, although sometimes they also offer opportunities for controlled role-play.1) Question and answer practiceThe teacher asks questions about the text and students answer. For easy questions, you may ask students to answer in chorus; for difficult ones, you may ask individuals to answer; for a few challenging ones, you ask them to discuss.2) Right/wrong statements The students are asked to say whether a statement is right or wrong according to the text. If it is wrong, they are asked to give the correct version.T: Is this right or wrong? Listen. What do you think,.?A: Its right.T: Do you agree, .?B: Yes, its right.T: Yes. Now what about this sentence? Is it right or wrong, .?C: Its wrong. T: What do you think, .?D: Its wrong.T: Good.3) CorrectionThe students are asked to correct statements, and have to give more information about a particular item in the text.4) Giving reasonsThe students have to explain the reason of a statement5) Stating resultsThe students have to say what happened as a result of the event or action they hear.Other kinds of text-based activity for oral practice will depend on the type of text. For example, with narrative texts, you can get the students to say what event happened after another, thus leading them to retell part of the story. With dialogues, you can get them to identify the speaker (i.e. Who sai