英语口语课堂上的学生消极参与及其对策_柯艺.docx

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1、 Acknowledgements My sincere thanks first go to my supervisor, Professor Chen Weizhen, who has gone over the initial drafts and olTered valuable advice and suggestions. Fm also more than grateful to Ms Hu Pingying and Ms Wei Zhengzhu, senior lecturers at Fujian Industiy Vocational School and Fujian

2、Business Vocational School respectively, who have helped me with the planning and data analysis of this research project. I owe much to my colleagues and my students, who deserves my warm thanks for their patience and cooperation throughout the whole process of the project. If it had not been for th

3、e help and encouragement from all the people mentioned above, the completion of the paper would not have been possible. Needless to say, for the shortcomings that still remain, the responsibility is entirely mine. 英语口语课堂上的学生消极 参与及其对策 【内容摘要】八十年代，海姆斯的交际能力概念被介绍到我国。自此， 越来越多的语言学家、研究者和教师意识到语言交际能力的重要性。人们 开

4、始认识到语言教学的最终目的是培养学生的交际能力。我国的外语教学 经历了前所未有的改革。随着新大纲、新教材的陆续出台，统治英语教学 多年的语法教学的单一模式已被打破，课堂教学已从侧重于语言知识的传 授转向侧重于语言交际能力的培养。但是，根深蒂固的传统的教学方式和 人们的观念难以在短期内得到根本的改变。大多数学生所学的英语仍然是 哑巴 英语。我国学生经过多年的英语学 习所具备的语言有效运用能力 与英语教学大纲的要求存在差距，学习者语言交际能力普遍低下，这是一 个不争的事实。该问题的严重性也得到越来越多学者的关注。在口语课堂 上，是什么严重制约了学习者语言交际能力的发展？不同的学者对此有不 同的看法

5、。例如，依照 PennyUr(I996:121)的观点，是因为学习者的自我 抑制，在口语课堂上的消极参与、不肯开口，课堂机会不均或母语的使用 等。在口语教学的实践中，作者发现令教师最头疼的就是学生的消极参与。 口语课堂常出现教师说学生听的变异模式，这显然违背了口语教学的宗 旨。本 文针对学生在口语课堂上消极参与的问题进行了原因问卷调査并通 过对调査结果进行数据统计与分析，阐述了导致学习者消极参与、不肯开 口的诸因素；文章还探讨了如何运用人本主义教学方法，充分发挥学生的 主观能动性，让学生主动开口，达到提高语言交际能力的目的。 关键词 ：归因，焦虑，人本主义教学方法 The Problem of

6、 Students* Inactive Participation in the Oral English Class and its Countermeasures 【 Abstract】 More and more linguists， language researchers and teachers have been aware of the importance of the language communicative competence since Hymes concept of communicative competence was introduced to Chin

7、a in 1980s. They have come to realize that the ultimate goaJ of language teaching is to train students to acquire the ability to communicate and that speaking occupies an important and indispensable position among the four basic language skillslistening, speaking, reading and writing. However, for d

8、ecades the greater part of the Chinese teachers have been quite used to the traditional way of teaching a foreign language, which has long been dominated by a teacher-centered, examination-oriented, grammar and vocabulary-based method The deep-rooted ELT tradition can hardly be changed within a shor

9、t time. The English most Chinese students have learned is “mute English”. The reasons that particular students acquire low ora competence after years study are no doubt various and multiple. Different researchers have different opinions about its causes. According to Penny Ur (1996:121), some of the

10、 problems in getting learners to talk in the classroom are as follows: inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation and mother-tongue use. In the oral English class, the author finds the most serious problem is their inactive participation in class activities. The teacher often experience

11、s that he/she has to keep on speaking while learners keep silent as listeners, which greatly hinders learners development of oral competence. This paper tries to deal with the problem of leamers, inactive participation in class activities. Through quantitative research, it studies the causes of the

12、problem, analyzes its attributions and proposes some countermeasures by adopting a humanistic approach so that the problem can be dealt with sensibly so as to give back voices to inactive or silent students in the oral class. key words: attribution, anxiety, humanistic approach Synopsis More and mor

13、e linguists, language researchers and teachers have been aware of the importance of the language communicative competence since Hymes* concept of communicative competence was introduced to China in 1980s. They have come to realize that the ultimate goal of language teaching is to train students to a

14、cquire the ability to communicate. However, for decades the greater part of the Chinese teachers have been quite used to the traditional way of teaching a foreign language， which has long been dominated by a teacher-centered, examination-oriented, grammar and vocabulary-based method The deep-rooted

15、ELT tradition can hardly be changed within a short time. The English most Chinese students have learned is “mute English” Although more and more teachers and linguistics researchers have accepted the communicative approach and have come to realize the urgency and importance of training learners to a

16、cquire the ability to communicate, we shall feel sad about our time-consuming and inefficient English teaching and learning when we have read Wang Qiming (2002:27) research paper. The results of his survey of 293 college students show that students5 language competence cannot meet the requirement of

17、 the development of social economy. His survey reveals that after their two years English study in college, 22% of them still have some difficulty in following the teacher5s teaching in English, 30% cannot speak English, and 58% cannot start simple daily conversations with foreigners. As to their En

18、glish oral competence, none of them can express their ideas freely, 17% of them can only have some simple conversations, 53% of them can only answer questions raised by teachers in class and 30% of them cannot speak any English. The reasons that particular students acquire low oral competence after

19、years* study are no doubt various and multiple. Different researchers have different opinions about its causes. According to Penny Ur (1996:121), some of the problems in getting learners to talk in the classroom are as follows: inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation and mother-tongu

20、e use. In the oral English class, the author finds that the most serious problem is their inactive participation or silence in class activities. The teacher often experiences that he/she has to keep on speaking while learners keep silent as listeners， which greatly hinders learners development of or

21、al competence. This paper tries to deal with the problem of learners inactive participation in class activities. Through quantitative research, it studies the causes of the problem, analyzes its attributions and proposes some countermeasures by adopting a humanistic approach so that the problem can

22、be dealt with sensibly so as to give back voices to inactive or silent students in the oral class. The paper is composed of four chapters. Chapter One points out the problem of inactive participation in the oral class. Many English teachers have the experience that it is a tough job to make students

23、 speak in the oral class. t4A Chinese student is still reluctant to speak English when he or she has had a 3,000+vocabu 丨 ary and 1,000+hours of leaming”(Liu Xuetao 2000:60). “The Chinese students appear to be passive and nonverbal; their language learning was much influenced by heir mother tongue a

24、nd their customs, as compared to the American students and the French students, which is one of Gao Youmeis (2001:50) major findings after her investigation carried out mainly in ESL/EFL classrooms on the campuses of the universities in the U.S.A., England and China. The majority of the Chinese stud

25、ents belong to inactive learners. And inactive participation in the oral class greatly hinders the development of leamers, oral proficiency. It has the following harmful effects: (1) Inactive participation restricts the development of students5 oral proficiency. Those students who cannot acquire the

26、 necessary oral competence, therefore, cannot cope with their future professions and practical uses in society. (2) If students are not active in class, teachers will remain to be only the lecturers to dominate the whole class and students to be the passive listeners as before. Learner-centered appr

27、oach, which is being advocated now, will forever be a mere scrap of paper and never be put into practice. (3) Top and active students are always the dominant controller in class activities, leaving those inactive as silent listeners, and thus the active will go better and become more active whiJe th

28、e inactive wiJJ go worse and become even quieter in the oral class. What cause learners1 inactive participation or silence in the oral class? In order to find out the real and common reasons, the author designs a questionnaire and carries it out among 729 English-major students from four vocational

29、schools. The questionnaire consists of two parts, the first of which is about learners5 general condition of learning oral English and the second of which is about the reasons for inactive participation in the oral class. Chapter Two reports the investigation on the causes of the problem, and reveal

30、s three major findings through careful data analysis: (1) The majority of the students have come to be aware of the importance of learning oral English. However, speaking is still largely neglected in most junior high schools, which disappoints students a lot. We see that although most of the studen

31、ts (89%) start to learn English at junior high school, oral English is not included as part of the learning. (2) Most of the students (65%) regard themselves as inactive learners in the oral class and 50% of them (13% always and 37% often) often keep silent in the oral class, which shows that the pr

32、oblem of inactive participation is serious and cannot be neglected any more. (3) As to inactive participation in the oral class, the students owe it mainly to the factors of their own personality and ability. The external factors 】 ike teachers, teaching materials and so on are only in a secondary p

33、osition. In spite of this, students place high hopes on teachers to help them solve the personality and ability problem. Chapter Three analyses the attributions to the probJem, internal and external factors. Individual learners internal factors, which play the key role in preventing learners from ta

34、king an active part in activities in the oral class, go mainly to his/her anxiety, low self-efficacy or self-esteem, lack of courage of taking risk and cognitive factors. Gardener and MacIntyre define language anxiety as ctfear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the s

35、econd or foreign language(Oxford 1999:59). Anxious language learners may focus their attention on their perceived inadequacies, the potential for failure, and the consequences of that imagined failure, rather than concentrate on the task itself (Clement 1997: 269). As a result, when in communication

36、, they divide the mental resources and devote themselves less well to the task. The arousal of anxiety makes learners more reluctant to speak. This is because they under-estimate their competence. This, in turn, leads to a vicious cycle. That is, anxious reluctant to speak less communication compete

37、nce -* more anxious more reluctant to speak. Banduras self-efficacy for learning refers to students beliefs about our capabilities to apply effectively the knowledge and skills they already possess and thereby learn new cognitive skills, (Schunk 1989:14, quoted from William & Burden 1997:129) Resear

38、ch shows that there is a positive relationship between ones self-efficacy and his/her proficiency, that is, the higher the learner self-efficacy, the better he/she will perform on achievement tasks in study. Once the learners perceive themselves as incompetent, they may choose to escape from study o

39、r just give up. It is useful for language learners to take moderate but intelligent risks. However, our students are afraid of making mistakes. In cognitive theory, language production, speaking and writing, is seen as an active process of meaning construction and expression. In the authors investig

40、ation, 80% of the subjects regard not knowing how to express themselves in English as one of the reasons for their inactive participation, which shows that cognition factors pJay a role in meaning cojistruction and expression. Learners oral competence cannot be acquired if they havent developed all-

41、round language competence, got enough language input, or eliminated the negative transfer from Chinese. The external factors involve the teacher, the traditional teaching and learning, teaching materials and activities and assessment system. Teacher5s factors play the most important part of ail the

42、external factors. They involve the teachers talk, patience, tolerance and methods he/she uses in teaching. In the words of Johnson (1995:9): Teachers control what goes on in classroom primarily through the ways in which they use language. Effective teacher talk can stimulate leamers, interests, crea

43、te a better language situation for learners, guide and adjust classroom communication activities so as to help learners to produce effective language output. However, not many teachers talk is efficient. There exist two problems in the teachers talk in the oral class:(l) The teachers talk occupies t

44、oo much class time in the oral class. (2) The feedback the teacher gives to students is often negative rather than positive. Besides, some other factors also restrict learners5 active participation in the oral class. They are the teachers patience, the teachers tolerance of learners errors, the trad

45、itional teaching and learning, teaching materials and activities and the assessment system. As to the problem in the oral class, the investigation shows that most of the students owe their inactive participation to themselves. As analyzed above, leamers, factors may be divided into two main types, u

46、nhealthy emotions and low linguistic competence. To solve the problem, first of all, teachers must be aware that feelings are as important as knowledge in the learning process and both have to be given the same weight in teaching. However, learners, emotions have long been neglected in the teaching

47、in China. Secondly, teachers must be clear about their responsibilities. It has been shown quite clearly in the investigation that in spite of the fact that most of the students attribute their inactive participation to themselves, they place their high hopes on teachers to help them solve the probl

48、em. We should feel glad that more and more people, esp. learners themselves, have come to realize the importance of speaking. They are eager to acquire high oral proficiency. So it is an urgent task for the teacher to help them overcome the obstacles and improve their oral ability. In Chapter Four,

49、the author proposes some countermeasures by adopting a humanistic approach so that the problem can be dealt with sensibly: Create a nonthreatening learning environment. If learning is to be successful, it is crucial that teachers establish in their classrooms a climate where confidence is built up, where mistakes can be made without fear, where learners can use the language without embarrassment, where all contributions are valued, and where activities lead to feelings of success, not f