Effective Ways of Teaching Spoken English25.docx

1、Effective Ways of Teaching Spoken English25Effective Ways of Teaching Spoken EnglishAbstract：Oral instruction now becomes the major concern of many pedagogy approaches, among which the Communicative Teaching Approach (CLT) and the Task-based Learning (TBL) are the most typical ones, which aims at ac

2、hieving the communicative goal of the language and helping students become communicatively competent. There are many techniques or ways based on the principle of CLT and TBL. The purpose of this thesis is to look into the different techniques of teaching spoken English in order to find out the effec

3、tive ways for Chinese learners. The writer mainly focuses on the communicative use of three techniques: discussion, role-play and communication games. She discusses each technique in detail and provides guidelines and examples to illustrate how to use them in real teaching. She has also suggested se

4、veral kinds of tasks as support. After a general review on their contribution to communicative competence, the writer comes to the conclusion that these communicative tasks should be very effective in teaching spoken English since they enable students to learn to communicate through communicating in

5、 real-life tasks. They should be very effective when applied in Chinese classroom. Hopefully, my thesis will provide some good ideas for oral English instruction in China. Key word: Communicative Teaching Approach Task-based learning spoken English instruction 教授口语有效方法探讨 摘要：口语教学已经成为了众多教学法关注的中心，其中交际法

6、和任务法是两个最为典型的例子。他们的教学目标是实现语言的交际目的，帮助学生提高语言的交际能力。在交际法和任务法的基本原理下有一系列常用的教学方法，这篇论文的目的便是探讨各种口语教学方法并找出适合中国学生的教学方法。笔者主要讨论了对三种教学方法小组讨论，角色扮演和交际性游戏的交际性应用。并对每种教学方法进行了仔细的分析讨论，针对如何应用于实际教学提出了一些指导原则和具体实例。笔者同时也提供了几种任务来支持以上原理。通过对这些教学方法和任务的效用进行了简单的分析，笔者得出：交际性任务是口语教学中一种极为有效的方法。在交际性任务中，学生可以亲身体验类似现实生活中的交际场景，通过交际来学习交际。因而十

7、分适用于中国课堂。希望这篇文章可以为我国的口语教学提供一些帮助。关键词：交际法 任务法 口语教学1. IntroductionSpeaking is the most basic means of human communication. Almost every language in the world begins with a spoken form but not a written one. Additionally, when a child begins to learn his mother language, he is exposed to a natural envir

8、onment of his mother language and able to speak far earlier than able to write. Due to the importance of the skill of speaking, oral instruction now becomes the major concern of many pedagogy approaches, among which the Communicative Teaching Approach and the Task-based Approach are the most typical

9、 ones. While the old or traditional approaches pay more attention to the skills of writing and reading, the communicative approach and task-based learning focus mainly on the development of communicative oral skills. Wang (2004) mentions in Introduction to TESOL Methodology that the goal of teaching

10、 speaking in general is for oral communication and for helping learners to become communicatively competent. However, learning to speak competently is a complex task especially in China. First, learners are exposed to an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) environment and continue to speak Chinese a

11、fter class; they therefore lack the environment to practice what they have learnt in the classroom. Second, classes in China are usually too big for everyone to get chances to speak in class. Finally, it is easy to notice that teachers in China always pay more attention to accuracy than fluency. The

12、y tend to correct the mistakes students made about grammar or structures and it will more or less frustrate students, thus making them more reluctant to speak in the future.To help students get good mastery of real spoken English and achieve the communicative goal of the language, Communicative Lang

13、uage Teaching (CLT), with its focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on the mere mastery of the structure, has become rather popular in English language teaching, and especially in the oral English instruction. Meanwhile, Task-based Learning (TBL), which presents student

14、s with a task instead of language structures, provides students varied exposure to languages and chances to practice speaking in real-life activities. There are various kinds of task in TBL, if we present students with some communicative task to perform in oral class, it should be very effective for

15、 the improvement of their spoken English.The purpose of this thesis is to review the researches into the ways or techniques in teaching spoken English based on the principle of CLT and TBL and try to find out the effective ways that can be applied to teaching spoken English in Chinese context. For e

16、ach kind of technique, I will suggest some effective activities. Hopefully, my thesis will provide some good ideas for oral English instruction in China. 2. Literature Review2.1 CLT and task-based approachesThe development of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dates back to 1970s, based on the th

17、eory of British functional linguists, who maintain the importance of the context of situation in understand a language and American linguists, who propose the term communicative competence to represent the ability to use language appropriately, as Wang (2004) points out in her works. Peoples focus o

18、n language learning shifted from language structures to its use as a communicative vehicle to convey information. Therefore, CLT was born as a new approach to promote the development of communicative abilities.According to Hughes (2002), the communicative approach aims at fostering the development o

19、f learners communicative competence, which is identified in the study of Canale and Swain (1980) from four dimensions, i.e. grammatical competence, discourse competence, social-cultural competence and strategic competence. Hughes (2002) also points out the following characteristics of CLT: (1) place

20、 a high value on language in use, (2) regard errors as a natural part of the progression towards a greater understanding of target language, (3) link teaching methodologies to appropriate communicative tasks, (4) tend to favor inductive, students centered routes and put learners at the center of the

21、 learning procedure. Task-based Learning (TBL), which is a kind of responses to the above fundamental tenets, becomes quite popular now. As cited in The practice of English language teaching(Hedge, 2001), the TBL was greatly popularized by N Prabhu (1987), who, working with schools in Southern India

22、, speculated that students were just as likely to learn language if they were thinking about non-linguistic problem as when they are concentrating on particular language forms. In Task-based learning, students are always presented with a task they have to perform or a problem to solve and the focus

23、of the lesson is the task, but not the form. Different from PPP (Presentation, Practice, and Production), Task-based learning is like a PPP upside down. Students are given a task to perform and only when the task has been completed does the teacher discuss the language that was used and make correct

24、ions and adjustment. Therefore, a task can be divided into three steps: pre-task, task cycle and language focus. In the pre-task, teachers explore the topic with the class, helping students to understand task instructions. Students may hear a recording other people doing the same task. During the ta

25、sk cycle, students perform the task in small groups while teachers monitors from a distance. They then report on the task to tell the rest of class what has happened. At last stage, students examine and discuss any specific features of any support text they have referred to for the task and teachers

26、 may conduct some form of practice of specific language features which the task provokes (Harmer, 2001) . There are evidently many advantages according to Richard Frost, from a very popular language teaching website teaching English (http:/www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/methodology/task_based.shtm

27、l): (1) students are free of language control. (2) A natural context is developed from the students experiences with the language that is personalized and relevant to them.(3) The language explored arises from the students needs.(4) It is a strong communicative approach where students spend a lot of

28、 time communicating.(5) It is enjoyable and motivating. From above review, we can find out that both CLT and TBL care much about the communicative and oral ability of students. There are a few issues which are of highly importance in learning spoken English. One is about the input hypothesis of Kras

29、hen (1985), which points out that there is a need for meaningful input which will engage learners in working with language at a level which is slightly above their competence. Hedge (2002) interpreted “meaningful” as “relevant and topical to learners and their interest” or “realistic”. So a comparab

30、le real-world task, which is a natural part of TLB, will be very useful to language learners, especially in oral English learning and teachers should provide students topics that are interesting to students and also suitable for acquisition. Another issue comes to the role of students in activities.

31、 According to Wang (2004), students are the center of the classroom. They should actively manage the learning activities and learn to communicate through communicating. Beside, since communicative approach pays more attention to fluency than accuracy, errors are a natural part of language developmen

32、t and should be tolerated. Teachers should not intervene in activities to correct the mistakes made by students in grammar, structures or pronunciations. Teachers in CLT classroom should either be a facilitator helping participants get well through communication or act as an independent participant

33、(Richards& Roger, 1986).2.2 Factors promoting good communicative tasks As I have mentioned above, CLT mainly focuses on the development of fluency rather than accuracy. Brumfit (1984) argues that fluency activities develop a pattern of language interaction within the classroom which is as close as possible to that used by competent per