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1、How to Improve Students Oral English Ability 1. IntroductionWith China entry into the WTO and successful bid for the Olympic Games in 2008, Chinese people will inevitably have much more contacts with people all over the world. Therefore, there is clearly a need for learners to speak and interact in
2、various situations through English. As we all know, ever since, or even before the opening-up policy and the reform of China, Chinese students have studied English language for a considerable long time, and great achievements for teaching and learning English have been seen everywhere in schools, bu
3、t for some reason or another, the oral English ability of the Chinese students is always an inferiority to their other abilities and skills. From many teachers practice, we have discovered that the majority of students, equipped with large vocabulary and adequate grammatical knowledge, still cannot
4、communicate appropriately and fluently with native English speakers or non-native English speakers. Therefore, how can we help students enhance their oral English ability to a higher degree? In which way can we achieve a better effectiveness in oral English course for students? In modern society Eng
5、lish teaching in China usually starts in the junior middle school; in many large cities it begins in the upper elementary school, even earlier in the nursery. However, even the most diligent students with the most responsible teachers often cant achieve correct pronunciation, stress and intonation,
6、let alone the ability to speak and understand English in their life and things. Why is the situation that serious? That is because: first, most teachers in the classroom use their mother tongue to explain grammar and vocabulary in the text and then translate the whole text in Chinese; second, the st
7、udents are asked to spend a lot of time listening to detailed explanations of the structure of language in the text, and engaging in dull and de-contextualized pattern drills. Most of them are rather passive in their study and having been used to being fed with various kinds of language knowledge, a
8、nd few of them have ever had an opportunity to practice oral English. Furthermore, most of the students know little about western cultures. English language learning in Chinese environment becomes a rather daunting and tedious task. This kind of teaching method is very useful for passing written exa
9、ms and translation work, but in a long run it is less useful for students to speak it in daily life. The old-fashioned translation and grammar-rule methods are extremely wasteful and inefficient, for students are actually encouraged to make mistakes: they are asked to perform skills before they are
10、adequately prepared. Teachers who use such methods unwittingly create the very problems they seek to avoid. At some point in the course their students inevitably become incapable of going on: they have to go back. They have become remedial students and teachers are faced with the problem of remedyin
11、g what has been incorrectly learnt. No approach could be more ineffective, wasteful and inefficient.In order to know better about the condition of oral English abilities using by school students, the writer performed an investigation on that. The survey was carried out in a middle school. All togeth
12、er 60 students answered the questions and all the questionnaires were taken back successfully.Table: self-evaluation of the strongest and poorest English skills StrongestListeningSpeakingReadingWriting30.1%11%47.6%11.3%Poorest14.5%61.7%8.1%14.5%It displays that nearly half of the students think thei
13、r reading competence is the strongest among the four aspects and 30% of them evaluate their skills, and speaking and writing are considered as productive skills. Students dont have an optimistic attitude towards their productive skills. And it reflects the teaching focus is still put on reading abil
14、ity.From the questionnaire, we can draw conclusions as follows:First, students should pay more attention to their oral English ability. A majority of them have a poor speaking ability. They must recognize that spoken English is essential for communication.Second, students have a strong ability of re
15、ading. So the teaching focus should be put on speaking ability.Above all, teachers are required not only to help students become efficient readers but also to improve their oral English ability. So the first step is to get some ideas about how students study it and find put the problems they meet. 2
16、. Deficiencies in the Students Oral English Learning2.1 Problems on the Teachers 2.1.1 Teachers Lack of StrategiesWith the growing importance of English as an international language of communication, English teaching, esp. oral English teaching has drawn more and more attention from the society. But
17、 for many years in China, most middle school student desire to go to the university. So in many classroom courses most teachers emphasize wholly on the students reading and writing ability, lots of students cannot even achieve correct pronunciation, stress and intonation, let alone express themselve
18、s clearly and fluently in English after spending three years in English classroom. “Deaf and mute English” has become the popular phenomenon in Chinas English language teaching. The traditional teacher-centered, examination-oriented, grammar-based, vocabulary- based classroom teaching and learning c
19、an be seen everywhere in China. Teachers are very skillful in explaining grammar rules, sentence structures and words in details, while the students are very passive in taking down notes and memorizing what their teachers ask them to recite. Few opportunities have been given to the students for mean
20、ingful practice. As a result, students are clear with the usage of grammar rules and words isolatingly, but are weak in using then in real communication, which is deviated far away from the goal of learning English. So far, most Chinese students learn English from their teachers in the classroom. Th
21、at is to say, the teachers and the classroom play a very important role in the process of English teaching-and-learning. So in order to change the present situation of learning English in school, the teachers must apply some effective teaching strategies into their classroom in order to encourage th
22、e students to talk.Here are some useful strategies the teachers can use in the classroom:Advice-offering teaching strategy: which means, teachers dont criticize students incomplete, awkward or even incorrect answers, but give good advice while they are speaking.Discussion teaching strategy: which me
23、ans to ask some students to talk a topic in or after class to foster the personality of challenge and adventure and precise thinking.Question-asking teaching strategy: which is inevitable and frequently used by teachers in the process of teaching.Above all, the major reason why the students oral Eng
24、lish ability is poor is because the language teachers lack teaching strategies. If teachers can use at least one or two strategies noted above, the students oral English ability would be improved a lot.2.1.2 Teacher-centered ClassroomWe all know that teacher-centered activities used to dominate most
25、 of the class time in the oral English teaching and learning class. During the whole class, the teachers occupied most of the class time who did most of the work for their students: the students followed whatever the teachers read, copied whatever the teachers write, and recited whatever they were r
26、equired to. This put the students in a very passive condition and they were not given any chance to perform orally what they had learnt from their teachers and the textbook in the class. So the teachers just focused on what they should teach according to the school curriculum without paying attentio
27、n to the needs of the students. As a result, the students could only remember whatever the teacher said in the class, but couldnt use them properly in real conditions.2.1.3 Teachers Roughly Tuned TalkRoughly tuned talk is language, which the teacher exposes to the students, and the students can more
28、 or less understand even though it is above their own productive level. The students cannot receive sufficient input since they do not live in English-speaking environment and most of them attend schools where English is taught as a curricular subject. So the teacher is a major source of roughly tun
29、ed input. The English teacher should provide a large amount of roughly-tuned information for the students according to the content of teaching in order to enlarge the amount of input, e.g. when teaching the text about shopping, the teacher should supplement some more words the students need in their
30、 daily life except the words in the text. Such as microwave ovens, VCD machines, digital cameras, tennis shoes, MP3 players, CD players, micro radios, mini-discs, computers, etc. When teaching the lesson about Christmas. E.g. how to decorate the Christmas tree, how to get ready for Christmas, who is
31、 Jesus Christ and who is Santa Claus. The supplementary language and cultural knowledge will make the class more interesting and lively. But it is worth pointing out that roughly tuned talk can only be presented at slightly beyond the students current level and cannot lead to the students frustratio
32、n.2.2 Problems on the Students ThemselvesThe students and the teacher are two very important factors in the organizer. The teaching cannot success without their great efforts and the problems cannot arouse from one side. So the students also have some problems need to be solved. Here I just list two
33、 problems:2. 2. 1 Students Lack of MotivationMany factors need to be taken into account, when we consider the qualities of a good learner, such as attitude, motivation, personality, anxiety, empathy and confidence. Among these, motivation is a decisive factor that cannot be neglected in English lear
34、ning.Motivation is divided into two parts: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation concerns factors from the external influences, such as, pressure, encouragement, rewards, teachers and parents, the learning atmosphere and punishment, etc, while intrinsic motivation refer
35、s to ones positive attitude, desire for learning, interest.In my opinion, most of the students are lacking in intrinsic motivation to speak their oral English because ever since the reform in China, Chinese students have learned English for a considerably long time, and great achievements can be see
36、n everywhere in consequence. But for a long time, under the pressure of entering university examination, school students only take English as one of the major subjects for entering the university, thus they overlook the real goal for learning a foreign language. In order to become a university stude
37、nt, both teachers and students are busy doing a lot of everyday examinations. They have no time, no energy, no environment and even no motivation and interest to practice their oral English. They depend too much on the teacher. They pay too much attention to the examinations, or to getting teachers
38、and parents praise, to avoiding failures or losing face. Many students dont know the other use of learning a language. That is why they just follow the teachers directions without their own goal.According to this view, motivation involves the interest and maintenance of curiosity. Therefore, for the
39、se students, the major role of the teacher is to arouse and maintain their curiosity and interest, which can push them to get involved in the classroom interaction. 2.2.2 Students Shyness and Negative Self-imageA prominent characteristic of some English learners is shyness and negative self-image. T
40、hese students seldom initiate a conversation or discussion with the teacher or other students, because they dont like to take risks, which is crucial to rapid progress in language learning. According to Goffman, it seems that one of their major concerns for them is not to lose face in class, either
41、the “positive face”, that is “their need to be appreciated by others”, or, the “negative face”, that is, “their freedom from interference by others”. For them, not being able to continue speaking fluently is a threat to ones positive face, but asking for help may be viewed as a threat to ones negati
42、ve face. Shyness deprives students of their opportunities to practice speaking English in class. Furthermore, it leads to increased inhibition. Thus students tend to obtain less input and to make less effective use of the input they do obtain. Shyness and inhibition do have a negative effect on impr
43、oving oral English ability. For these students, if the teacher is too eager to push them into classroom interaction when they are not ready yet, they will be even shyer and refuse to participate in class activities. Whats worse, some students will be on guard against the teacher. So the teacher shou
44、ld instill “willingness to communication” into students step by step, help them to realize they can get more if they open their mouths and encourage them to express themselves without being frustrated by the mistakes they make. In some cases, some students are not successful in language learning due
45、 to their negative self-image. Once a student forms a certain self-image of himself, he will act upon it just as if it were true. For example, if he conceives himself to be a “failure language learner”, he will lose confidence in himself, and he will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good i
46、ntentions. And his failure will further strengthen his negative self-image. Thus, he is involved in a various cycle. The students with unsuccessful self-image are passive and difficult to inspire. Therefore, the teacher should shoulder the responsibility of helping build up their self-confidence and
47、 form passive self-image. If the teacher could change these students self-image, their attitude toward the language learning would change accordingly. They will become active in classroom, even if they have difficulty expressing their ideas, they wont give up and will try again. 2.2.3 Students Lack
48、of Strategies Learning strategies are the specific procedures that learners use with individual learning tasks. When confronted with a classroom-learning task, students can choose several different ways of completing the task. Each of these choices or strategies offers particular advantages or disad
49、vantages, and the use of an appropriate learning strategy can enhance success with the learning task. Therefore, an important aspect of teaching is to promote learners awareness and control of effective learning strategies and discourage the use of ineffective one. Oxford defines learning strategies as “specific actions used by the learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations.” She