Teaching Strategies of Improving Tibetan Junior middle School Students’ Oral English.doc

Teaching Strategies of Improving Tibetan Junior middle School Students Oral EnglishIIntroductionEnglish is the worlds most widespread language. The ultimate objective of learning English is to communicating with others freely. Thus, to improving studentsoral English proficiency is one of the most important aims of English teaching. However, oral English teaching has always been a weak link in Chinas English teaching，let alone the students from minority areasTibet. And students communicative competence is even more far from satisfactory. However, Hu Chundong published the English teaching method in 1990 in which the author emphasizes that speaking, is to evoke students interest, foster their positive attitude to English, set up their confidence which can help them communicate in daily life in simple English for establishing the foundation to learn English much deeper later. Besides the teachers have to set up merry circumstance and atmosphere, students are enjoyable and happy to take part in the English speaking activitiesHow to improve the quality of oral English teaching has become an imperative problem for Chinese educators to solve. This article, therefore, by analyzing the problems existing in spoken English teaching in Tibet, aims at putting forward some effective methods for Tibetan junior middle school spoken English teaching. It is hoped that it can help to improve the teaching and learning of spoken English in Tibetan middle school. So as to enhance the students interest and confidence of learning English in Tibetan IIFactors influencing Tibetan students oral EnglishIn recent years, quite a few scholars focused on the problems existing in English teaching in minority areas and carried out significant researches. Their findings have significantly promoted English teaching in these areas. Zhong Ling, Wang Ying pointed out in their books many problems and strategies regarding spoken English teaching in minority areas. The authors emphasize that on the basic of understanding mother tongue, students should learn more about the English vocabulary and grammar. Besides, the authors think that its necessary to conquer the psychological burden for students in minority areas, and then speak out loudly and bravely. Wu Fang Ping (2006) emphasizes the changing quality of education background and she stresses on improving the students oral English level. Students in minority areas regarded English as a foreign and third language. Students should be also highly relevant to the teaching of the mother tongue. Above all, the factors influencing Tibetan students oral English can be classified into the following four aspects: language environment, interest, language foundation and students personalities.2.1 Poor language environmentTibet Autonomous Region is located at longitude 78o25'-99o06' east and latitude 26o44'-36o32' north on the southwest border of China and covers the majority of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is bounded by Xingjanq, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunan provinces of China. In a word, Tibet is a far and islated place in China. Due to the geography reason of Tibet, in most areas in Tibet, educational level of most parents is not very high. Some parents dont know how to read or write even a Chinese character, so they dont have correct understanding on their children education. Even there are a lot of parents who pay little attention to English education, so that some students in terms of mind are also affected by their parents. According to some parents in pastoral areas, to add English in primary schools course is to increase academic burden on students, and also financial burden to parents. Many parents believe that there is no chance of contact with foreigners, so Chinese, mathematics courses are enough for primary school students. Although the English teacher has repeatedly emphasized the importance of English, students always have no response to these emphasizes, parents are the same indifferent. English teachers have no way but feel helpless.Another reason is that Tibetan students lack truly effective language learning environments. Research consistently has shown that traditional lecture methods, in which professors talk and students listen, dominate high schools English classrooms. In this case, there is little opportunity for them to practice English. Although now there are a lot of CDs, tapes, and even the network online which can help students practice spoken English, these things are very difficult to conduct interactive communication. If it is impossible for attend to comnet with English,how can students master English well? And now there is a form to practice English, that is, English Corner. As for the English Corner, there is often such a fnacy: a large group of people are surrounding a foreigner, what students do is to listen to what he says. The aim of purpose is difficult to achieve of practicing spoken English. The lack of truly effective communication environment is really the biggest problem for Tibetan students in their English learning. 2.2 Students lack of interests in speaking  The purpose of learning a language is usually for communication, and communication involves all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. When a person who you want to communicate with is in front of you, you have to speak out what you want to express, but most Tibetan students have much difficulty in speaking. So how to improve the ability of the students is a troublesome problem for teachers.Althrongh teachers have pointed out the importance of speaking ability in English again and again, students still share little interest in English speaking. There are two reasons for this phenomina: on one side, most Tibetan students are used to using body language instead of language expression. For instance, when a Tibetan student is asked to the teachers office, he will usually nod or shake his head to the teachers question. Especially when the student is criticised, he will either and keep silent, or just smile, instead of giving any explanation. All in all, most Tibetan students are unwilling to speak in their daily life.Another reason is that most Tibetan students English level is not high, so they have much difficulty in oragnizing English language to express what they want to say. In a long way, they will be reluctant to speak English or even give up speaking English.2.3 Students poor English foundation The overall level of oral English of Tibetan students is far from satisfaction. The Tibetan students poor Oral Proficiency has the following features: a small voice when speaking English, strange pronunciation, unclear ideas expressed, excessive anxiety, tension and stage fright. Usually, they will fall into a confused mental state when they are asked to speak. And even for some, they can hardly make a fluent self-introduction in English, or they even dont know how up make up a standard sentence. For a small portion of students, they can hardly pronounce the 26 English letters standardly. This is no extravagant at all. As for the deep reason for their poor speaking proficiency, the students English foundation is very poor. Tibet locates in northwest continental China, with minorities mostly living in mountainous areas and countries, less communication to outside, relatively monotonous living. The whole situation of education in Tibet is generally poor. Especially, due to the isolated geography, English education has many problems. For the majority, they have not learned English well even in primary schools. Whats worse, some primary schools still dont offer English class even today. The general low starting point is the biggest barrier for their further English learning in junior high schools. While foreign language studying is a transferring from mother tongue to target language, the minority students suffer a distance from indigenous language, Tibetan, to English. That is to say, what the learner wants to express firstly comes from mother tongue, and then is translated into target language. To a sense, the “translating intermediate” means a transition from one thinking way to another, which denotes the minority learners would suffer a two-time transition, with an inevitable “loss” in the change from national language to target language. In respect that these learners have a complex of national inferiority, learning English is very difficult for them.2.4 Personalities of Tibetan studentsAffected by national characteristics, geographical environment and historical reasons, Tibetan students are accustomed to using body language to express their thoughts and feelings, rather than using oral language to communicate. In addition, for the poor speaking ability of students in Tibet high school, another reason is their in-going characters. Tibetan are naturally burn not talkative, they are used to communicating with the help of facial expressions and body language. For students, there is no exception. Although they are aware of the importance of learning spoken English and also hope that they can speak fluent English, they can not get out of their own psychological barriers so that they feel fear of making mistakes or loosing face. As a result, they dare not to speak English in front of others. In class, they are unwilling to read English loudly, rather they read or write silently. As time goes by, what they have learned is the “dumb English”, which seriously affects students speaking ability of English.III. Methods to improve Tibetan Junior middle school students oral English 3.1 Creating interesting English language environment As discussed above, most tibetan students lack interest in speaking, so creating interesting English language environment is the first task for teachers. How to achieve this task, the teachers should posess a sense of humor, be humanity to every student and be initiative in class.To begin with, “He makes his course interesting.” is the No. 1 among the top ten qualities for a successful language teacher in the study by Denis Girad. It is self-evident to say that humor does reduce learners shyness and encourage them to volunteer to participate during the classroom language teaching and learning process. Secondly, the word “humanity” here means each language learner is an individual distinct from each other. This requires that the teacher must show interest in all his or her students and show no preference in terms of the relationship between teacher and learner. Language teaching is an art rather than a science. It is the teachers responsibility to integrate students with each other. The criteria set by M.Scott Peck can help judge how well this objective has been achieved: Do the people involved communicate honestly with each other? Can they drop the posturing and mask-wearing that can characterize much of group dynamics? Are they committed to accept support and bear with each other? “When such an atmosphere develops in the classroom, it is a thing of beauty. The class becomes more inclusive and builds a sense of unity. Students and teacher get to know each other and feel safe to express themselves, disagree, and even be vulnerable with each other.” (Tom Allen, 2000) Lastly,    “Initiative from the teacher gives lifeto language learning.”(LEE KOK CHEONG, JAMES VILLANUEVA, 1983) Here the word “initiative” means to be creative, imaginative and not confined by traditional or conventional ideas. Terry Dozier said “Teachers are a tremendous source.” The other side of the coin is that unless teachers are involved in meaningful ways in addressing our education challenges, especially in todays high schools, very little will change. Here are two examples taken from Applied Linguistics (Gui Shichun, 1987) about giving meaningful example sentences to the students rather than just tedious meaningless sentence patterns. (1)    Comparison         Teacher: She is 35, but he is 45.         Student: He is older than she is.         Teacher: The Hudson is an important river, but the Mississippi is very important.         Student: The Mississippi is more important than the Hudson. (2)    In order to / for Teacher: What do you go to the post office for, stamps or envelopes? Student: You go to the post office for stamps. Teacher: What do you go to the bank for, to take out money or to buy tickets? Student: You go to the bank to take out money.      This way the teacher creates a certain context for the students to learn to use the language points and this initiative teaching avoids getting the students to do the monotonous practice of making sentences again and again without an actual context involved. 3.2 Developing students interest in oral EnglishMore forms of activities should be applicated in class to develop studentsinterest in oral English, like performance, songs, etc. Nowadays, Warm-ing-up activities before class is commonly used in English schoolbook in middle school. We may well make use of it to help form an English atmosphere, including news report, story-telling, games, speeches, diologue-acting, etc. Listening, reading, speaking and writing have impacts with each other, and depends on each other. Listening and reading are information input, while speaking and writing are information output. Input cant work without output. So we should seriously consider the development of students habit of reading magazines and listening to English broadcast. If students share with each other the news theyve read, it can both broaden their eyesight and lift up their ability of listening, reading, speaking and writing. For example, in order to welcome the 2008 Olimpic Games, students are requested to make a speech “About Olimpic” for about 5minutes. To join in the activities, they may try hard to find as much words or information as possible from all kinds of mediums. Students can also be asked to make storys in different forms: Something interesting himself has experenced.Make a senseble story according to some picrures. Make a senseble story according to some provided words and phrases.This kind of form can best exert studentsimagination.They may individually make up different uncanny storys out of your expection. Retell the text learning. It is very helpful for both teachers and students. Firstly, it can help teachers to know how their fellow students get on with the text, and further improve or exchange the present teaching methods, berrering the quality of their teaching. Speaking out the main ideas, even commenting on the texxt and giving some imagination or suggestion is the obvious way to show the students understandings of the text, and to mark out how they can use English as a language. Secondly, it can improve students ability of oral expression. Doing like this leads students to abandon the former way of just dealing with test papers, or caring much for