Oral English Teaching to Pre-school Children.doc

Oral English Teaching to Pre-school Children学前幼儿的英语口语教学方法和技巧AbstractBased on the problems of oral English teaching to children, the author thinks it is a pressing issue to solve these. After looking over a number of relative materials, the author thinks it is the best way to solve these from childrens characteristics. Then the author takes 5-year-old children for example, and analyzes their psychology. With these characters, the author details from childrens sensation, perception, memories, thoughts, imagination and attention to teach them. Through these ways, children will speak fluently and naturally.Key Words:Children； oral English； teaching；skill摘要在分析了当代幼儿英语教学中的现状和问题后，笔者认为迫切需要找到一条适合学前幼儿教育的道路。在查阅大量相关资料后，笔者认为从幼儿心理入手来解决这些问题是最好的办法。为此，笔者以5岁幼儿为例。在分析了他们的心理特征后，具体从5岁幼儿的感知觉、记忆、思维、想象和注意等5个方面入手来教5岁幼儿的英语口语。由此使幼儿英语口语变得流利、自然。关键词:幼儿； 英语口语； 教学； 方法 Introduction“Language is at the center of human life. We use language all day” (Cook, 1). Some people are able to do something in more than one language. Knowing another language may mean: getting a job, a chance to get educated, etc. It affects peoples careers and possible futures, their lives and very identities. “In a world where probably more people speak two languages than those who speak one, language learning and language teaching are vital to the daily lives of millions”. For pre-school children, it is difficult to learn oral English, so the teachers play an important role in a class.In English learning, oral English, which is the key point for children, fosters childrens abilities in using English verbally. Speaking is one of the most important ways to express ones feeling and mind. Especially today, with the development of the society, teaching children oral English is more necessary and popular. But there are many problems. In such poor condition, children cannot speak English very well. Even if they have a lot to say, they cannot open their mouths. This paper takes 5-year-old children for example, departing from the traditional instruction, and bases on childrens characteristics to find the best way to teach them oral English.The first part of this paper discusses the problems of the oral English teaching to pre-school children. One of them is the traditional instructionthe Teacher-centered Instruction. It firstly mainly introduces the definition and the causes of the traditional instruction. From the conception it is easy to know that the instruction emphasizes the teachers function, which is the problem of that instruction. In addition, it emphasizes grammars, but ignores pronunciations, and claims students to remember words mechanically. Such education only makes students know the grammar of English instead of speaking English fluently. Following that, the author introduces the problems in kindergarten, which is the second one. The second part analyzes the problems that are mentioned in the first part. In this part, the author analyzes the endangerment of these problems. For example, it cannot provide sufficient language input and practice for students. So it is a press issue to change these problems. Then the author analyzes the importance to solve these problems. Thus the author takes 5-year-old children for example to find the best way to teach children oral English, which is the main content of the third part. In this part, the author introduces the childrens characteristics. Based on that, teachers can teach children from the sensation, perception, memory, thought, imagination and attention. The last part is the conclusion. With the ways mentioned in the third part, childrens oral English will make a great progress. Teachers will have the best way to teach children oral English, also the quality of education will be improved greatly.  . The Problems of Oral English Teaching to Pre-school ChildrenChinese education has progressed for 5000 years, while there are traditional teaching methods: emphasizing grammar, ignoring pronunciation, and remembering words mechanically. The following is the main characters of the traditional instruction. Following that, the author analyzes the problems in kindergarten.A. The Traditional InstructionThe traditional instruction, which is the Teacher-centered Instruction, is an instructional theory that claims that teachers are the dominators and deciders. It can be traced back to antiquity. The basic content is teachers how to prepare and teach students well, and it seldom considers students how to learn. It emphasizes the outside stimulation instead of students cognition. Then students become the passive receivers. Obviously, this kind of model is founded under the institutional theory “Transmition-Receive” and the behaviorist theory “StimulateResponse”.   The Traditional PPP (“Presentation”, “Practice”, and “Production”) model (Su Dingfang, 22) used for classroom instruction also belongs to the Teacher-centered Instruction. When the bell rings, a teacher comes in, and then he begins to teach. Among that time he only gives students litter time to speak, and even no time. Until the bell rings again, the teacher goes away. That is the common style of the teaching methods in schools. Teachers realize their tasks, but what about students? Whether they also realize their learning purpose or not? Of course they do not.It affects the education greatly all the time, even now in the modern age. The next is the reasons of the spread of the traditional instruction.The first is examination and the pursuit of entering a better school unilaterally. In order to get high marks and improve the rate of entering a better school, teachers pay more attention to the small part of students who are good at studying, but not the whole. Someone makes a vivid image and calls such situation “accompaniment system”. Furthermore, teachers only care for students knowledge instead of their qualities. The result is that students are just busy doing endless homework all the time, and their bodies and spirits are impressed negatively. Even about the knowledge, the learners only remember it mechanically, but cannot use it flexibly. In the 21st century, the competition among every kind of employments is very keen. So everyone wants to get into the best school, which has the highest rate to enter key schools. Therefore, to some degree, these problems do not appear accidentally, and they are not the responsibilities of schools and teachers. Additionally, there are other problems, such as traditional cultures, educational system, entrance examinations, educational judgment, etc.B. The Problems in KindergartenFirst, because some people do not understand the definition of “bilingual education” or only want to pursue more benefits，they open only one or two hobby classes for teaching oral English in the kindergarten, and the teachers just simply teach several words, or phrases, or sentences, even if some of them only teach English twice in a week. With such condition, the founder also calls his kindergarten “bilingual education”. Second, some teachers are not qualified. Some people think teaching children English is a simple thing. So whoever knows some English words can teach. That is wrong. A qualified bilingual teacher had better have steady knowledge about English; master the psychology pedagogy of children and be skillful at teaching theory and practice. But in China, there are 43% present- teachers are not graduated as English majors (Cui Xiaoling, 2006), and most of them are not teachers in the kindergarten. But they are teachers in other schools or foreigners. Third, teachers only speak mother language or only speak English in the class. They do not know the relationship between mother language and English. This method is not good for children's cognition. Fourth, learning English is becoming more and more popular, so all kinds of books appear. But among them there are many inferior books intermix, which is bad for children to learn English. An Analysis on the ProblemsTeaching with the traditional instruction is bad for children to learn oral English, because it has a great many endangerments. Also the status quo in kindergarten is not affirmative. So it is important and necessary to solve these problems. The flowing is the endangerment of these problems and the importance to solve these problems.A. The Endangerment of These ProblemsThe traditional instruction cannot provide sufficient language input and practice for students. Teachers just pay more attention to vocabulary, or they only analyze grammars. Thus students have few or no chance to take part in communication. Knowledge can be divided into declarative knowledge (about knowing what) and procedural knowledge (about knowing how) (Shu Fang, 23). The first one, what the traditional instruction belongs to, is something about grammar and vocabulary, which is only the declaration knowledge and has nothing to do with communication. So students may form a wrong idea. That is, if they grasp the rule of the language, they can also communicate naturally and accurately. As a result, most of the students will be intellectual talents, but not innovative talents. They can get high marks in every examination. But actually they cannot use the learned knowledge agilely. When they open their mouths they always make mistakes. What is worse, they cannot widen scopes, enlarge the cultural knowledge, and develop their thoughts. All of those are harmful for them to meet the need of the society. In kindergarten, there is a saying: if children can speak English fluently, and then the English teaching is successful. Also there is another saying: if children can get high marks in English examination, and then the English teaching is also successful. Both of the judgments are not scientific and reasonable because of only emphasizing one of the childrens abilities. If teachers always teach grammars, and ask children to remember words, after a long time, the children will lose the interests for learning oral English. If children cannot imitate pure pronunciation and learn oral English well, it is difficult for them to learn well English in the future. So it is necessary to change the situation as soon as possible. About the detailed ways the author will discuss in the third part.B. The Importance to Solve These ProblemsThe traditional instruction is too extreme for children to learn English, and the problems in kindergarten affect children deeply. So it is urgent to change the situation. According to the statistics of UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization), there is 90% of the accumulable science knowledge coming from the recent 30 years, but only 10% of 30 years ago. James Martins budget, who is an expert on imitations in Britain, also indicates the same tendency: Human knowledge increases one time every 50 years in 19th century; every 10 years in the early of 20th century; every 5 years in 70s; and just every 3 years in recent 10 years (He Kekang, 103). According to the budget, the author compiles a rude table.The first line “Y” are some different dates, the second line “X” is the sum of human knowledge, which is increasing multiplicatively. Supposing the sum of human knowledge is 1 in the year of 1800. From the table, it is easy to find that knowledge increases slowly at first, but it becomes quicker with the lapse of time. (The author just analyzes rudely. Nobody can know the actual sum of human knowledge.) So the total knowledge is exploded increasing, and the old knowledge is quickly out of time. Like productions, knowledge changes sharply. Obviously, the traditional instruction with lower rate of efficiency will no longer meet the educational need in informational society. If human also use the traditional methods, a great deal of knowledge will not be known before it is out of date. Ways to Teach Children Oral EnglishLast two parts have dealt with the problems of oral English teaching to children. In the following, this paper focuses on the ways to solve the problems of teaching oral English to pre-school children. How to solve the problems? What is the best way to teach them? That is a combination of childrens autonomous learning, teachers function, and parents cooperation. According to the childrens age, the most important part should be the teachers function. What had teachers better do? First of all, it is necessary to know childrens characteristics. Then teachers can find a suitable way to teach them oral English according to their characteristics. To some degree, the author takes 5-year-old children for example.A. The Characteristics of 5-Year-Old ChildrenPsychology is a science for researching the mental activity of human beings, which can be divided into mental process and personality (Zhang Yongsheng, 10). The first one includes the progress of recognition, feeling, and will. Among them, recognition is the most basic one, which includes sensation, perception, memory, thought, imagination and attention. However, personality includes interest, ability, temperament and character. The psychology of children, which focuses on researching the rules of the mental development and the personality of every child, is a branch of psychology (Zhang Yongsheng, 11). To some degree, the paper only analyses the characteristics of 5-year-old children.It is a series of needs that make the childrens psychology progress (Zhang Yongsheng, 11). At this age, oral language is the main tool for communication. So children always ask endless questions. Such as “where is the Sun?”, “What are made up of star?”, “Why can dog bark?” Additionally, they want adults to treat them as companions. Such cooperation (between adults and children) is called recognitive interconnection (Li Shiqin, 13). If adults do not treat them as companions, children will become stubborn. Another style of interconnection is the form of character. Because practice needs high wisdom, children would like to contact with adults as students instead of contacting with their companions. The best actual effect is that children can study in school. So children had to contact with their companions, which is very important. They can complete a program together, check their companions and correct mistakes by themselves. Among contact, it is imitation that appears frequently (Li Shiqin, 13). In addition, childrens thoughts have a close relationship to languages. Language can express what children are thinking, thought is the source for childrens speaking. Only after two times, can they remember something, their ability of reproduction is better than they were. Furthermore, children are highly sensitive to the sound of language. When they listen to some words, they can contact with something immediately. For example, when a teacher asks children to stand up, they will not think that “Stand up” means “起立” in Chinese, but they will quickly contact “Stand