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英语口语资料How To Develop The Oral Language of Ordinary Senior High School Students in Shanghai I. Introduction   What I intend to focus on in this paper is how to develop the ability of oral communication of senior high students in an ordinary school. For many years,...

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How To Develop The Oral Language of Ordinary Senior High School Students in Shanghai I. Introduction   What I intend to focus on in this paper is how to develop the ability of oral communication of senior high students in an ordinary school. 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 little 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.   Therefore, in the first section of my assignment, I will introduce the current approach used in my situation in China. Then comes the second section in which I will show my understanding of effective teaching approaches by means of both reading some current language books and having the courses on language development and methodology in teaching a foreign language. In the third section, I am going to illustrate the practical steps I propose to take to make the teaching of oral language more effective, together with the procedure of a dialogue teaching. In the last section I will try to draw some conclusion from this discussion. II. Home Teaching Situation   To begin with, I would like to show the problems of why the current approaches of teaching are less effective to develop the students’ speaking ability.   Although speaking has been included in the National Plan for English teaching in schools in China for the past 15 years, the percentage of time devoted to activities in which students can communicate with each other in English remains small in the whole class. Similarly, the method of giving priority to listening and speaking has been advocated, yet it has had little effect. Both teachers and students think it neither realistic nor necessary to teach or learn speaking. It seems to them that their main objective is reading not speaking. They may also think speaking is not a skill worth cultivating because Chinese students have little chance to communicate with native speakers. And more readily they will admit that whether the students can go to university or a college mainly depends on the reading and writing, not speaking, for almost all the important examinations do not consist of oral test.   There is a pattern drill in each unit in Senior High textbooks, but most of the drills, which are not authentic but mechanical, do not reflect the real purpose of communicative ideas. Traditional ways of teaching English are dominant in the so-called new textbooks, with a lot of grammar, reading materials and too many boring vocabulary exercises.   In addition, many teachers themselves are not fluent in speaking English, nor do they know how to teach it effectively in a class of 45. It is really a big problem for a teacher to get everybody to have the opportunity to practise speaking English.   However, whatever the reason may be, as Premier Zhu argues, “speaking, like listening, reading and writing is a skill which should and must be developed in schools.”   Let me take “dialogue teaching” as an example, most teachers of English follow the traditional way: Learn the vocabulary, read the dialogue, translate it into Chinese, have difficult points explained, memorise the dialogue. As a result, an overwhelming majority of students cannot make them selves understood, let alone talk with the native speakers after twelve years of learning English. A. The Possibility and Necessity of Teaching Oral Language   In my opinion, those who think the major objective of the students is reading not speaking have ignored some obvious pedagogical facts:   Firstly, generally speaking, people have the notion that learning English has something to do with oral English. When one says some students is 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). III. Theories of Teaching Oral Language   Secondly, 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.   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. B. The Importance of Using Integrated skills in Teaching Oral Language   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, Speaking   Receptive Skills: Understanding, Reading   Productive Skills: Speaking, Writing   Written Language: Reading, Writing   Since 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:   a) They provide opportunities for using activities naturally, not just practising it.   b) Many pair-and group work activities call for a variety of skills, sometimes, simultaneously, in order to involve all the learners.   c) Students seem to learn better when they are engaged on activities more than one skill.(1991,130)   Therefore, when we teach oral language, we should get the students involved in an oral communicative activity to do some writing or reading or listening in order to accomplish the task which the activity asks them to perform, just as Harmer points out, “…there are cases where individual skills may be treated individually, the principle of integration is thought to be important.” (1991,52) C. Integrating Skills in Activities:   Byrne argues that, “We are not of course suggesting that single skill activities are not effective: there will in fact be many occasions when we shall ask the students just to talk or read or write, because this is appropriate.” He then emphasizes, “Equally, however, we should be looking for opportunities to knit skills together, because this is what happens in real life.” (Byrne, 1976, 131). As we all know, the main aim of foreign language teaching is to help students achieve some kind of communicative skills in the foreign language. Therefore, the teacher should organize classroom activities, create a free atmosphere within the class or group and give the students hints to use the activities in class to integrate their skills.   It may be stressed that the teacher should provide the students with suitable and interesting activities that will focus their attention. Since they may be shy, inexperienced, at a low level or worrying about mistakes, the teacher had better look for some easy, useful and interesting activities for particular level students to keep talking more in class.   The following activities, to paraphrase what Byrne (1976,132) describes, may be well recommended to show how to integrate skills by getting the students to work in pairs or groups: Questionnaires   Questionnaires are a simple way of giving the students meaningful question and answer practice. For use they should relate to a topic of some kind, e.g. likes and dislikes about food, activities, abilities etc. the answer required should be either yes or no, or one of the frequency adverbs (never, hardly ever, sometimes, quite often, regularly etc.)   If students are going to write their own questionnaires, it is helpful to elicit some ideas from the class first and perhaps write these on the board. Then ask the students to make up their own questionnaires, using some of these items. They can work in pairs for this, thus providing an additional source of talk. They may interview more than one student. They can also be asked to report what they have learned to another student or to the whole class.   When students of pairs or groups collaborate on the production of the questionnaire, they will talk and write. At the interviewing stage, they integrate talking and writing as well. In comparing the results, they have reading and talking. Quizzes   Quizzes are similar to questionnaires but the answers are usually factual, which often involve knowledge. To turn quiz writing into an oral practice activity, you must ask the students to work in pairs to produce the quiz. This will involve talking and writing. Each pair should then ask another pair of students to answer the quiz orally, which involve some talking, listening and writing as well. When the quiz is passed back to the students who wrote it, they will get reading and talking integrated. Describe and note   Describe and note is a type of information gap game, where one student describes a picture, which one or more students try to draw, asking questions as they do so. For this version, the students who are listening make notes, asking questions if they want clarification. They then compare their notes. Finally they use their notes either to describe the picture orally or to produce a written description. Draw the picture   Two or more students collaborate to produce precise instructions needed for drawing a picture or map. This involves detailed discussion leading to writing. These instructions are then passed to other students, who read, talk and then draw. The two pictures are then compared, which often leads to more talk. “How much can you remember?”   in this activity, the students, working in groups, look at a picture for 2-3 minutes before turning it face down. Then, they are asked to write down what they can remember. They then compare their notes and use theme to produce an oral or written description of the picture. Finally they turn the picture over and compare with their version. Stories This can take two forms:   The students work in groups to produce a scenario, which is then exchanged with another group for role-play work. Scenarios can be about everyday realistic-type situations, which should not only encourage the students to use functions such as asking for and giving information, asking for permission and apologizing but also give some room for talk of a general kind---and of course some fun.   The students work in groups to produce two short stories (each 4-5 sentences long), which they then mix up to form one text. The “jumbled” stories are then exchanged with another group, who have to work out the two original stories. It may well be mentioned that teachers should be careful enough not to adopt an over-critical attitude in activities. Edge (1989, 37) gives the reasons as follows:   Students need the experience of uninterrupted, meaningful communication if they to learn to use the language.   If students are to say anything meaningful, they need to feel that people are listening to what they are saying, not to how they are saying it.   Making mistakes in language use is not only normal, but necessary to language learning.   In short, from those types of activity suggested above, we may notice that those activities can introduce a “talk” component into the normally silent activities of reading and writing. We may also find how purposefully the skills are used in the way in which the students talk, read or write “in order to get something done” (Byrne, 1976, 132) IV. Practical Applications   Instead of dwelling on how to put each and every activity at length into practice, I would like to present a teaching procedure with some comments afterwards.   I will use the Shanghai Course Book, which is currently in use in Shanghai, as an example: UNIT SEVEN Dialogue     ------ Language Structure: The –ing Participle as Subject   A: Did you watch the news programmer on TV last night?   B: No. I’ve almost stopped watching news on TV. I usually listen to the news on the radio.   A: But seeing news events on TV is much better than just listening to reports about them on the radio. …seeing news events on TV is much better Just listening to reports about them on the radio (is) Listening comprehension Listen and fill in the blanks.   1. __________ is easier than speaking it.   2. __________ is bad for health.   3. __________ is not allowed here.   4. __________ is very helpful to language studies.   5. __________ is no easy job.   6. __________ is their work. Aims: 1. To help the students develop their oral discussion skills. 2. To help the student reinforce the –ing participle as subject. Procedure: 1. Preparation of the dialogue:   Be familiar with the dialogue.   Decide the allocation of time for different activities:   Warm-up 5 minutes; presentation 15 minutes; practice 10 minutes; follow-up 10 minutes; listen 5minutes   Write the dialogue on the small blackboard and cover it with paper in order to introduce the dialogue orally. 2. Presentation of the dialogue:   Warm-up activity: ask students to work in pairs to do ready prepared questionnaires (see the ones below):   ---They ask their partner about “Likes and dislikes about TV Programmers”. They then fill in their partner’s answers. Yes No News Plays Films Sports Advertisement Entertainment TV Radio Never Often Sometimes Very often Always     Ask students to listen to the dialogue (played on a recorder) 1-2 times with books shut, then answer the following questions:   a. Did B watch the news programmer on TV last night?   b. Does B like to watch the news on TV?   c. What does A prefer to doing, watching the news on TV or listening to the news on the radio?   Explain the entire dialogue simply and briefly in English, removing the paper on the small blackboard bit by bit.   Expose –ing participle as subject, then ask students to work in groups or pairs to give some more examples of –ing participle used as an subject.   Ask students to repeat the dialogue after the recorder (1-2 times) 3. Practice of the dialogue:   Divide the students into two groups to take roles to read A and B.   Ask some pairs to act the dialogue.   Ask students to close the books and write the dialogue as much as possible from memory.   Then ask them to compare what they write down with their partners, then open their books to compare with the exact dialogue.   Finish listening comprehension. 4. Follow-up activities:   Ask students to work in groups to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a TV set or a radio, then fill in the table below, which will lead on to a written job after class.    TV Advantages Disadvantages Radio Advantages Disadvantages   Ask students to work in pairs to describe what they like or dislike to do in their leisure time, using –ing participle as an subject.   Ask the students to create a dialogue, which can be assigned as written work homework, then practise in pairs and finally acted out in class   In a language teaching classroom like that, I believe, the teacher can take the students’ mind away from the printed text and the classroom into a real life situation in the out-side world, thus starting a real conversation in some activities. The students’ oral ability will be hopeful developed by integrating listening, reading and writing in activities. Therefore, as an English teacher, from my point of view, he/she should always pursue two parallel lines of teaching oral language. One is forging the instrument, for example, developing the students’ competence; the other is giving guided practice, such as aiding the students’ performance. He or She may also be aware that learning pronunciation, vocabulary, and structures, memorizing dialogues and having pattern drills are not just ends in themselves, but means to an end: learning to communicate. Follow up activities, therefore, including all kinds of oral practice and transfer activities become very necessary. V. Conclusion   In my essay, I have attempted to show the necessity and possibility of teaching oral language, and explained the importance of integrated skills. I have also explored how to integrate the skills in activities to make the teaching of oral language more effective. In closing I would like to argue that the best way to develop the students’ oral ability is: make the students talk, then let them talk, and listen to them talking! Bibliography Abbott, G., Greenwood, J., Mckeating, D. & Wingard, P.(1981) The Teaching of English as an International Language. Glasgow Byrne, D. (1986) Teaching Oral English Longman House Doff, A. (1988) Teach English---A Training Course for Teachers Cambridge University Harmer, J. (1991) The Practice of Language Teaching Longman Widdowson, H.G.(1978) Teaching Language as Communication Oxford University Littlewood, W. (1992) Teaching Oral Communication Oxford Rivers, W.M. (1968) Teaching Foreign-Language Skills The University of Chicago Press   英语口语测试的研究 广州市教育局教研室 陈福华  一、 进行英语口语考试势在必行        教育部所制订的九年义务教育全日制初级中学《英语教学大纲》(试用修订版)第五部分“教学评价”中提出: “形成性评价的结果在学生的学业评价中应占一定的比例。应重视形成性评价对学生英语语言学习的激励作用。教师要通过考查、观察和与学生活动的交流,对学生的书面作业、口头回答、演讲、朗读等课内外的学习行为和学生活动的学习能力、学习态度、参与程度、合作精神等作出评价。” “终结性评价的方式应包括听力、口试等在内的期中、期末考试等。……考试形式要包括听力测试、笔试和口试。”由此可见,考查学生的英语的口语能力是英语教学评价的重要组成部分之一,进行英语口试可以对英语教学起到很好的反拨作用,促进学生听说读写能力的全面发展,在英语教学评价中实施英语口试势在必行。      近年来我市的从化市、荔湾区、东山区等区(县级市)和省实验中学已在形成性评价中进行了英语口试的试验,并取得了一定的成果。但由于各种条件的
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