初中生英语口语障碍分析和应对策略.docx

ContentsChinese Abstract2English Abstract31. Introduction 41.1 Research Background41.2 Research Significance42. Literature Review52.1 Identification of Oral Ability52.2 Theoretical Basis53. The Obstacles to Learning Spoken English for Junior Middle School Students63.1 Existing Obstacles in Students63.2 Existing Obstacles in Teaching83.3 Existing Obstacles from the Learning Environment94. The Coping Strategies to Learning Spoken English104.1 To Cultivate Students Motivation104.2 To Promote Creative Teaching Mode134.3 To Improve Language Environment165. Conclusion18References20初中生英语口语障碍分析和应对策略摘 要英语作为一门学科，对初中生来说是一个挑战。虽然对英语口语重要性的认识正在加强，初中生的英语口语能力培养也受到越来越多的重视，学生用英语作为交际语言的能力也在慢慢地提升，但是受应试教育的影响，初中生的英语口语能力相对还比较薄弱。因此，中学英语教师必须把提高中学生英语口语水平当作一项重要教学工作。本文主要分析、阐述了初中生英语口语能力培养方面存在的问题，从而有针对性地提出了初中生口语能力培养策略。首先从学生层面出发，学生应转变为“升学”而学的理念，以及追求更高效的口语学习方法；其次从教师层面研究，教师应该改变传统教学的观念，并与时俱进，不断提高自身专业素质，尽量为学生创设轻松愉悦的课堂氛围并缓解学生口语学习的焦虑感；最后从学习环境的层面出发，提出了学校与家庭可以合力，共同为学生创造一个良好的语言学习环境。关键词：初中英语口语；障碍；策略An Analysis of the Obstacles to Learning Spoken English for Junior School Students and Coping StrategiesAbstractEnglish, as a main subject, is a challenge for junior school students. Although the awareness of promoting spoken English is being strengthened, junior school students spoken ability is gaining more attention, and students communicative ability is changing for the better, their oral expression is still not so outstanding. Therefore, middle school English teachers ought to take more effective measures to improve middle school students oral English. This article will explore the existing obstacles in junior school students oral English and seek for appropriate solutions to solve them. In addition, proficient training strategies for junior school students oral English will be proposed. Firstly, the students are supposed to change the concept of learning for “higher grade” into the pursuit of more efficient spoken language learning methods. In addition, the teachers had better put aside those stereotypical teaching modes and keep pace with the times. They need to continuously improve their vocational skills and try to create a relaxing atmosphere for students and alleviate their anxiety in the class. Finally, to create a better learning environment for students, it is proposed that schools and parents work together so that the students can naturally form the habit of learning.Key words: middle school students oral English; obstacles; strategies1. Introduction1.1 Research BackgroundAt present, there are a great many of English learners in China, while most of the time, the students in general couldnt improve their spoken English without obtaining valid knowledge. One of the main reasons is the lack of examinations for oral English in most middle schools, which leads to the ignorance of oral training in English classes. Nowadays, the society demands not only those who learn English and do well in daily examinations or written works, but also talents with comprehensive ability integrating listening, reading and writing and speaking abilities.1.2 Research SignificanceLanguage plays such an indispensable role that human beings cant have normal communication without it. People learn English for communication. Under the concept of advocating core literacy teaching, “speaking” is regarded as an important approach to keep in touch with people around the world. As China is developing so quickly, it is approaching to the worlds politics, economy, and culture. Under such situation, English is becoming an international language and people use it almost throughout the world. Spoken English shows its unique significance. A traditional phenomenon among Chinas teaching is that teachers usually put more emphasis on language points. English teachers spend much time promoting students written expression, while neglecting students oral expression. The result may be that a lot of junior middle school students only learn written English well while they couldnt express what they think fluently in oral English. Hence, the students spoken ability isnt promoted and even remains weak. In addition, students learn English seriously because they have to finish their assignments and pass the examinations, which departs from the original learning target. As a matter of fact, improving oral English expression, requires not only to fulfil the teaching task, but also to meet the changing social needs.Cultural linguistics researches suggest that language contains all the social evolution of a country and reflects its cultural characteristics. Gillain Brown figured out the distinction between spoken language and written language: the primary function of spoken language is to sustain the social relations for people and convey information (Brown, G., 2000). When children learn a new foreign language, they also receive more foreign culture. Therefore, language and communication cannot exist independently without culture. In other words, people cant totally master a new language if they dont own adequate culture about that country. Keeping more contact with English culture helps the students have better and profound understanding about foreign culture, and form their world-consciousness. This requires teachers to consciously cultivate students awareness of cross-cultural communication through teaching procedures. Gradually, students perception of language will be promoted.Spoken language has attracted more and more attention in China. The majority of educators have carried out many researches on spoken language teaching, and also proposed a variety of teaching methods. However, the quality and effect of oral teaching still need to be improved and oral English teaching is still a problem worthy of further exploration in China.2. Literature Review2.1 Identification of Oral AbilityAccording to Bachmans (1990) theory of Communicative Language Competence, language communication is the process by which learners use language knowledge in specific social situations. American sociolinguist Hymes (1972) first proposed “communicative competence”. During the period of practicing a new language, learners will experience some obstacles at first, but they may keep trying to make themselves understood. Swain (1985: 85) holds the view that reasonable language output is essential. The output of language may affect how much you “take in” the language. So practice plays an indispensable role in language communication. British scholar John Wilkins pointed out that the task of classroom teaching should not only teach students correct pronunciation and grammar knowledge, but also develop students oral expression and communication skills.2.2 Theoretical BasisMany celebrities abroad have their own understanding of spoken English. For example, famous Hungarian translator Kaza Rombu is fluent in more than 10 foreign languages. She believes that the process of learning a foreign language should be a successive procedure, even if you squeeze out 10 minutes a day to practice it, you can make much progress. Furthermore, you should make full use of your spare time. Dont be afraid to practice a foreign language. Hatch, an applied linguist, believes that the difficulty of learning a second language is not less than that of learning your mother tongue. Students can acquire a second language through discourse communication. American linguist and anthropologist, Hymes (1972), put forward the theory of “communicative competence”. It emphasizes students comprehensive communicative ability, advocating student-centered and communication-oriented teaching. Thus, students enhance the ability to grasp more information through communication. It can be seen that communicative ability is absolutely important in English learning, it is imperative to improve students oral English ability.How the students perform during the communication is certainly influenced by how their English teachers give the lecture. English teachers to some extent set an example for students with a fully English teaching atmosphere, they should try to offer students a good language environment, and gradually improve students sense of communication (逄杰, 2019(31): 102). And teachers need to change their traditional teaching mode during which the teachers always play the leading role while the students have to passively accept the relative grammar functions. The requirements of English teaching in China are developing towards the direction of “listening and speaking first, reading and writing next”. New Curriculum Standards for Junior High School English requires that English teaching should focus on training students comprehensive communicative abilities. In this way, they can use appropriate vocabularies and syntax to listen, speak, read and write to achieve valid communication. Therefore, cultivating students proficiency in English oral communication is one of the main objectives of junior middle school English teaching.3.The Obstacles to Learning Spoken English3.1 Existing Obstacles in StudentsThere exists many factors that limit the students aspiration to learn. As is known to all, its impossible to use a language fluently for communication without constant oral practice, let alone skillfully master the language. However, the fluency is considered as an important indicator to judge learners English oral ability. Lesson (1975) argues that fluency contains the speakers ability to use limited material to naturally express their ideas with complete phonemes, and correct syntax and sentences. While one of the problems is that most students are not so active in the class. They always prefer to be the listeners. There are two major reasons for that. One is called psychological factor. Most of the students are lack of self-confidence. In the initial stage of English learning they dont form the habit of saying what they learn and sharing what they think about. According to Krashens (1985) “Affective Filtering Hypothesis”, emotion plays a very important role in the following aspects: learners learning process and anxiety will hinder learners from mastering grammatical rules and making progress in language learning. Another factor is students lack of knowledge accumulation. Students dont consciously to accumulate a large number of vocabularies, this may result in obstacles to express. Thats why they can not smoothly mobilize vocabulary to organize language in a logical way, which also limits their expression.As to psychological factor, personality influences the learning process. Comparing other aspects of English learning, “speaking” is much more complicated and is more easily affected by the psychological factors of the students. In the process of learning foreign languages, junior middle school students have some difficulties mastering basic practical skills such as reading aloud or reciting. Students are afraid of being laughed at or criticized for their mistakes, so they avoid speaking English much. Inferiority is a psychological phenomenon. Its also a symptom for their lack of confidence. Fear and frustration make them unwilling to speak English. When required to practice, they are ashamed to express. This kind of situation is common among junior high school students. Therefore, its potential harm should arouse our attention (曹宁, 2005). Class participation affects how the students master the oral skill. In junior middle English classes, the students prefer to listen to teachers grammar analysis carefully or take some notes instead of answering questions actively. Even if they know the answer to the question, many students avoid directly answer the question. They think it is a sign of modesty, while students who answer might be regarded as pushy. This kind of psychology causes the students feel shamed to keep practicing. Thus, not so many students are willing to open their mouths to express. For them, they can hardly clearly express their real ideas with what they have learned in the class. When they something wrong or something deviate from correct answer, they feel kind of embarrassed if they are laughed at by the classmates. Gradually, students lose the interests in English communication and prefer to stay silent rather than make a fool of themselves in front of their classmates and teachers. As a result, students have less and less practice, it gets more difficult to improve their oral English.3.2 Existing Obstacles in TeachingMonotonous teaching method also makes students oral learning ineffective. It doesnt make much contribution to improving students synthetic language ability. The conventional teaching method is cramming-teaching in which teachers always regard themselves as the subject during teaching procedures and seldom have further interaction with their students, which to some extent decrease students interest in learning. Teachers do not realize that their students are the subject in the class, and do not give students the opportunity to create English expression. As a result, students make no progress in their oral English. In modern society, English education in middle schools is still exam-oriented in essence. Vast majority of teachers believe that passing those relative examinations or improving students scores are the most important. This concept directly affects the teaching of spoken English. Traditional oral English teaching tends to simplify and vulgarize oral training. Although there are simple oral interaction in the class, the content is almost related to the textbook but not real communication. In such an oral teaching mode, teachers rarely create contexts for the content or specific vocabulary in the articles, nor do they guide students to analyze the authors thoughts and emotions from an overall perspective. Mechanical reading of English is not a good way for students to understand the essence of the language, nor is it good for students to form English thinking. Limited teaching content also restrains teaching effect. In most English classes, the teacher spend much time on syntax analysis of the text. Language points and the content of the entrance exam play the primary parts in teaching. Moreover, many teachers simply extract some frequently-used phrases and language points from the text as key teaching content. Only a few teachers guide the students to seek for in-depth background information of the learning material. One of the traditional teaching methods is to divide the material into several parts and explain some detailed language points, then guide students to do a lot of written practice. Students just listen to the lecture their teachers give. Including some fixed collocation and grammar knowledge, the teacher-centered mode makes the students rarely have a chance to practice spoken ability in the class. However, thou