On high school English teaching简论高中英语教学.doc

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1、简论高中英语教学On high school English teaching【Abstract】 Classroom teaching is the main way for students to learn English. But in senior high school, a lots of probelms still exsit in the English teaching especially in the teaching of reading and writing. In this paper, the importance and methods of readin

2、g and writing will be further discussed. Classes should be learner-centered, with meaningful, functional activities, often, classes begin by finding out what the students dont know. These classes operate on the assumption that there is a great deal of information that students lack and that the teac

3、her and textbooks will impact that information to the students. Teachers who hold this assumption view students as plants waiting passively to be fed and watered. But I think the students should be regarded as explorers, active learners who bring a great deal to the learning process and at the same

4、time, draw from their environment as they develop new understandings. The basic principle will be used in the teaching of reading and writing.【Key words】 reading;writing;techniques;English;EducationI. Why teach readingThere are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important

5、part of the teachers job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure. Anything we can do to make reading easier for them must be a good idea.Reading texts provide good models for English writing, provi

6、de opportunities to study language vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way to construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.

7、The last but not the least, students must read widely because only a fraction of knowledge about the world can come from other experiences in their short lives.II. What kind of reading should students do?When the teachers give reading class to students, they should notice a balance-a balance to be s

8、truck between real English on the one hand and the students capabilities and interests on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, signs and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, teachers can use

9、these. But for longer prose, teachers can offer their students texts, which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. Anyway, the materials to be read should be interesting and meaningful. Teachers should become better acquainted with books written sp

10、ecially for teenagers and dealing with their problems.III. What are the principles behind the teaching of reading? i) Permit Students To Read No one has learned to swim by practicing the skills of backstrokes, flutter kicks or treading water while staying on the edge of the swimming pool. Yet, in th

11、e teaching of reading teachers often do just that. Rather than let the students into “the water”, teachers keep them in skills books learning rules about letters, syllables or definitions of words rather than letting them into the book itself, permitting them to be immersed in the language which com

12、es from the authors as the readers try to reconstruct the written message.ii) Encourage students to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the languageOf course, it is important to study reading texts for the way they use language, how many paragraphs they contain and how many times t

13、hey use relative clauses. But the meaning, the message of the text, is much more important. Teachers should help students understand that the main reason to read is for them. They have to have their own purpose to read and reading must make sense, they have to find ways of doing something about it.

14、They should be encouraged either to reread or to continue reading to gain meaning. But they must realize that the meaning is not in the teacher, but in the interaction between the reader and author. Students should be encouraged to ask themselves repeatedly, “Does this make sense to me?” Students sh

15、ould be encouraged to reject and to be intolerant of reading materials that do not make sense.iii) Encourage students to guess or predictReaders guesses or predictions are based on the cumulative information and syntactic structure they have been learning as they have been reading. Therefore, their

16、guesses are more often than not appropriate to the materials. Students have to realize that risk taking in reading is appropriate; that using context to decide what words mean is a proficient reading strategy and that they have the language sense to make appropriate guesses which can fit both the gr

17、ammatical and semantic sense of what they are reading.iv) Match the task to the topic Once a decision has been taken about what kind of reading text the students are going to read, teachers need to choose good reading tasksthe right kind of questions and useful puzzles, etc. Asking boring and inappr

18、opriate questions can undermine the most interesting text; the most commonplace passage can be made really exciting with imaginative and challenging tasks. Working in groups, the English teacher and students take turns asking each other questions following the reading. The teacher may ask, “ What is

19、 the significance of the characters age?” These questions require inferences based on details from the reading text. Section Two-How to teach writing (Developing correctness in students writing)“Students learn to write by writing, and they learn to write correctly by writing, revising, and proofread

20、ing their own work”-with some help or direction from the teacher when it is necessary. They do not learn to write correctly by studying about writing or doing isolated workbook exercises unrelated to their own writing. So, the most important technique a teacher can use to guide students toward gramm

21、atically correct writing is to let them write, let them write things related to their own experiences. There is no limit to the kinds of text the teacher can ask students to write. Teachers decisions, though, should based on how much language the students know, what their interests are.“Do I read a

22、paper and ignore all punctuation, what good is that for students?We spend hours at night with papers-Im not sure the students get as much from it as the time I spend on it.”These comments by senior high school English teachers discussing the process of marking student papers reflect the dissatisfact

23、ion and frustration of many teachers over the problem of dealing with the errors in student writing-the obvious mistakes in spelling, punctuation-Traditionally, teachers have worked to correct errors in two ways: by teaching grammatically correctness through exercise in grammar texts; by pointing ou

24、t all errors when making student papers.Most students find it very dispiriting if they get a piece of written work back and it is covered in red ink, underlings and crossing-out. It is a powerful visual statement of the fact that their written English is terrible. Of course, some pieces of written w

25、ork are completely full of mistakes, but even in these cases, the teacher has to achieve a balance between being accurate and truthful on the one hand and treating students sensitively and sympathetically on the other. Some techniques can be used in dealing with the errors in student papers:i) Selec

26、tivity Rather than engage in intensive error-correction when responding to student writing, teachers are encouraged to adopt a more moderate approach to error. If the teacher over-corrects the students mistakes, the students would be likely to focus on errors instead of ideas. Students are more like

27、ly to grow as writers when the teachers primary purpose in reading student papers is to respond to content. However, if attention to content and correctness are combined when making papers, it is more helpful to select one or two kinds of errors the individual student is making than to point out eve

28、ry error in the paper. The teacher can identify a selected error, show an example or two on the student paper, and either explain the correct form or direct the student to a handbook for further explanation. It is always worth writing a comment at the end of a piece of written work -anything from “W

29、ell done” to “This is a good story, but you must look again at your use of past tenses-see X grammar book page xx.”ii) Error-analysis Another method for working with student error, one that can be especially fruitful for teachers, is to approach it from an analytic perspective. Teachers, as error-an

30、alyst, look for patterns in the errors of an individual student, tries to discover how the mistake arrived at the mistakes by analyzing the error (Lack of knowledge about a certain grammatical point; A careless one or a mis-learned rule?), and plans strategies accordingly.iii) Publish Student Writin

31、g The final basic strategy is publishing. Students need a reason for laboring over a draft until it is perfect; the urge to see oneself in print can be a powerful drive toward revision and proofreading.To me March 28th was a lucky day. It was on that particular evening that I found myself at central

32、 stage, in the spotlight. Winning the 21st CenturyEricsson Cup Seventh National English Speaking Competition is a memory that I shall treasure and one that will surely stay. More important than winning the Cup is the friendship that has been established and developed among the contestants, and the c

33、hance to communicate offstage in addition to competing onstage. Also the competition helps boost public speaking in China, a skill hitherto undervalued. For me, though, the competition is a more personal experience. Habitually shy, I had been reluctant to take part in any such activities. Encouraged

34、 by my friends, however, I made a last-minute decision to give it a try. In the course of preparation I somehow rediscovered myself, a truer me. I found that, after all, I like communicating with other people; that exchanging views can be so much funand so much rewarding, both emotionally and intell

35、ectually; that public speaking is most effective when you are least guarded; and that it is essential to success in every walk of life. At a more practical level, I realized knowing what you are going to say and how you are going to say it are equally important. To take the original ideas out of you

36、r head and transplant them, so to speak, to that of others, you need to have an organized mind. This ability improves with training. Yet there should not be any loss or addition or distortion in the process. Those ideas that finally find their waysintosanother head need to be recognizably yours. Lan

37、guage is a means to transmit information, not a means to obstruct communication. It should be lucid to be penetrating. In China, certain public speaking skills have been unduly emphasized. Will it really help, we are compelled to ask, to bang at the podium or yell at the top of your lungs, if you ha

38、ve come with a poorly organized speech, a muddled mind, and unwillingness to truly share your views? Above all, the single most important thing I learnt was that as a public speaker, you need to pay attention, first and foremost, to the content of your speech. And second, the structure of your speec

39、h: how one idea relates and progresses to another. Only after these come delivery and non-verbal communication: speed control, platform manner, and so on. Pronunciation is important, yet of greater importance is this: Is your language competent enough to express your ideas exactly the way you intend

40、 them to be understood? I was informed afterwards that I was chosen to be the winner for my appropriately worded speech, excellent presence and quick-witted response. In so remarking, the judges clearly showed their preference: they come to listen for meaningful ideas, not for loose judgments, nor e

41、asy laughters. Some contestants failed to address their questions head on. Some were able to, but did not knowswheresto stopthe dragging on betrayed their lack of confidence. The root cause was that they did not listen attentively to the questions. Or they were thinking of what they had prepared. As

42、 I said in my speech, It is vitally important that we young people do more serious thinking . to take them issues like globalization on and give them honest thinking is the first step to be prepared for both opportunities and challenges coming our way. We need to respond honestly. A competition like

43、 this draws talented students from all over the country. And of course, I learnt more things than just about public speaking. Since in the final analysis, public speaking is all about effective communication. And this goes true for all communications, whatever their setting. Thirty years ago, Americ

44、an President Richard Nixon made an epoch-making visit to China, a country still isolated at that time. Premier Zhou Enlai said to him, Your handshake came over the vastest ocean in the worldtwenty-five years of no communication. Thirty years since, China and America have exchanged many handshakes. T

45、he fundamental implication of this example is that the need to communicate across differences in culture and ideology is not only felt by the two countries but by many other nations as well. As we can see today, environmentalists from different countries are making joint efforts to address the issue

46、 of global warming, economists are seeking solutions to financial crises that rage in a particular region but nonetheless cripple the world economy, and politicians and diplomats are getting together to discuss the issue of combating terrorism. Peace and prosperity has become a common goal that we a

47、re striving for all over the world. Underlying this mighty trend of global communication is the echo of E. M. Forsters words Only connect! With the IT revolution, traditional boundaries of human society fall away. Our culture, politics, society and commerce are being sloshedsintosone large melting p

48、ot of humanity. In this interlinked world, there are no outsiders, for a disturbance in one place is likely to impact other parts of the globe. We have begun to realize that a world divided cannot endure. 【Reference】1Gu Xueliang, The Basic Technical Training in English Teaching, Hangzhou University

49、Press, 1998.2Wilga M.Rivers & Mary S. Temperley, A practical guide to the teaching of English as a second or foreign Language, New York: Oxford University Press, 19783Smith F. Understanding Reading (2d ed), New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 19784David Freeman&Yvome S. Freeman, A Road to Success for Language, New York: Oxford University Press