HOW TO IMPROVE STUDENTSORAL ENGLISH ABILITY.docx

how to improve students oral english abilityabstractwith the opening-up of china, english teaching has been getting more and more attention, especially since beijing won the bid to hold the 2008 olympic games. people are enthusiastic about learning english .as a result, english teaching and reform are coming to a turning point, which predicts a bright future in english education in china.now, a 9-year voluntary education program is put forward in china. a standard english course is being used to replace the former teaching outline. the new standard adopts the international system according to which english language education is divided into 9 levels. this has changed the old style of teaching, which attaches importance to grammar and vocabulary. adopting the new standard helps to develop the students ability to use english in their daily life, by focusing on arousing their interest, and encouraging their participation.the new method will place less stress on “reading and writing”, in favor of “listening” and “speaking”. so now, speaking is getting more and more important in middle school english teaching. this paper discuss how to improve students speaking ability and expound the theme through three aspects as follows:the importance of speaking.some barriers in the process of speaking communication.essential methods for improving students speaking ability.the issue will be discussed from the perspective of a teacher of english in junior middle school and a possible conclusion will be reached with the help of some theoretical and practical support.key words: speaking、communication、ability、middle school、english teaching.一、 introductionenglish is a popular language -especially in the new century. as is known to us all, it is the most widely used language in the developing world and its getting more and more important nowadays. recent estimates suggest that more than 400 million people speak it as their first language, with more than 1800 million people speaking it as second language. it is an official language in a large number of countries and is widely used in air traffic control and academic gatherings. nowadays, with the opening-up of china, english teaching has been getting more and more attention, especially since beijing won the bid to hold the 2008 olympic games. people are enthusiastic about learning english. most of our students begin to learn english from grade 3 in primary schools. however, classroom teaching has long been the only way to learn english in china, and the method has usually involved cramming grammar-translation knowledge into learning a language. but this approach of teaching and learning english is evidentially passive, because it goes against the principle of english teaching, which requires that listening and speaking take the lead in english teaching, and on the basis of these two skills, reading and writing will be cultivated. so speaking as one of the four language skills has played a very important role in english teaching in middle schools. whats more, with the reformation of new process of teaching, it requires that the students will have the expressing ability to receive and pass information in english in real occasions. but many students often can speak well in class or in relaxed occasions, and when they are put in a real condition, they cant. why does it appear? well, it is affected by many elements one of the elements is their english speaking ability. so it demands the english teachers in junior schools to develop the students speaking ability. so also it is necessary for the teachers to help the students develop the ability of speaking.二、the importance of speaking（一） the importance of speaking existing in the language of human beings“language is vocal ,this means that speech is the primary medium of language. while writing is secondary. firstly, for any language speech existed long before the writing system came into being. even today languages which have lonely a spoken form outnumber language which have a well-developed writing system. secondly, normal children always learn to speak first. they begin to read and write only when they have reached the school age. thirdly, speech is more important than writing for peoples daily life. a person who cant read and write is only an illiterate. however, a person who cant speak is normally regarded asdisabled. so speech is very important in the development of human beings.（二） the position of speaking in the four language skillsof the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, &writing), listening takes the first step. however, communication is a two-way activity. when you can understand what is said to you, because of some reasons, you cant speak out what you mean, then the communication cant be continued. so this communication will become a fall. during the learning of a language, listening and reading are a process of understanding and absorption, speaking and writing are a process of expression and use. understanding and absorption are foundation while expression and use are improvement. that is, the former is a process of input; the latter is a process of output. without the latter, the development of the language practical ability to understand and absorption will be meaningless. it is impossible to master the english and to form the ability to use english comprehensively only relying on the input of language. the expression of spoken and written should also be used to check and improve the language absorption and the thinking ability. while the language input is increased, the favorable practical activities of output will also be done constantly on the basis of understanding. and the final aim of language teaching is to develop the students ability to communicate in the form of spoken and written. thereby, the listening ability must rely on the speaking in a way. moreover, it is proved that if the speaking is trained best, it will be helpful for students confidence to learn english.(三) the importance of speaking existing in the teaching syllabusthe aims of teaching syllabus stipulates that “ english teaching in middle schools are mainly to train students to have a definite foundation of listening and speaking so as to attain the aim to communicate comprehensively with others in english.”it requires the teachers of english to organize their 45-minute class in english to create a living and lively english environment of english learning. thus the students listening and三、some barriers in the process speaking communication.（一）phonetic barrier“the articulator apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas or cavities: the pharyngeal cavity-the throat, the oral cavity-the mouth, and the nasal cavity-the nose. the air stream coming from the lungs may be modified in these cavities in a variety of ways. it may also be modified in the larynx before it reaches any of the cavities.”because of the point ,the learners should be required to know every part of pronunciation of humans body and can pronounce the pure english .however, for most students in the process of their learning, they are greatly influenced by their teachers, especially teachers phonetics. but at present in many areas, especially in the rural areas, schools are short of specialized english teachers. some other teachers who are not familiar with the sound linking, plosive, stress, etc. are asked to teach english. maybe they are competent in teaching english grammar and language points, but it is surely difficult for them to speak fluent and pure english. and also some schools cant afford modern machines, so the students cant imitate the pure english, so their speaking ability cant be trained favorably, when they communicate with others, they often find their pronunciations are different from others . so they cant understand what is said to them. therefore, their listening ability will be influenced and the confidence of communication also be influenced.（二） grammar barrieralthough we emphasize again and again that the aim of our language teaching is to communicate, we still should have some knowledge of english grammar. in english, there is a change of tense. and the order, which the action happens, can be presented by the change of verbs, which many students often ignore these points when they communicate with others. as a result, some unnecessary mistakes will happen. for example, a student wants to express this meaning “i have been to beijing.” not knowing the difference between “have been to ”and “have gone to”, so he says, “i have gone to beijing.” if he knows their difference, he will not make this mistake.（三）mental barrieran american psychologist has had an experiment among three thousand people like this: what do you worry about most? there are all kinds of answers, such as death, dump, loss of relatives, diseases, etc. but to our surprised, about forty percent of people think that what people worry about and frighten most is to speak before people. from this experiment, we know that some uncomfortable feeling will happen in mother tongue to communicate. and the uncomfortable feeling will be more serious in the second language. most students will have some mental barrier or psychological barrier during the speaking training or the speaking communication, and we often find that the students will amplify well in warm-up in class. however, in real occasion, they will only have a look at the other people without any word even if they meet the same situation as that in class. maybe they also want to speak to other freely. just because of lack of the confidence, they cant speak well, and they would rather watch others communication. in their opinions, they should speak english purely and fluently and there are no grammatical mistakes even to wonderful stage when people communicate. then the communication will be continued pridely, or others maybe laugh at them. in english class, this aspect is often appeared. some students worry about their pronunciation and intonation, so they will only say “im sorry” as the answers to the teachers questions. all these will influence the improvement of speaking ability. their speaking ability increasingly becomes worse under the lack of training so long time.of course, the above mentioned is not the only factors to obstruct the improvement of speaking ability. and there are some other factors to influence the speaking ability.四、essential methods for improving students speaking ability.（一） create a good language surrounding to arouse the students enthusiasm for english learning.1、 a“real”environment of english learning is of great help.the traditional grammar-translation teaching method played a definite role in middle school teaching over the past decades, but this method of learning english through chinese translation in class has not entirely catered for the new situation of learning a foreign language. we should bring the students to a full realization of the fact that learning english always through chinese translation certainly does not help them improve their skills of using english. but we havent a good language surrounding to speak english all the time, which has always big problem for our chinese english learners. and we know that teaching in class is the basic form of english teaching. firstly, the english in his class should be on the basis of the students understanding easily. dont let the students have the room to express in chinese. and the teachers should help them learn to think in english and encourage them to answer the questions in english. to the beginners of learning english, they often dont dare to answer the teachers questions in english because of some reasons. so the teachers should encourage them with patience and let them give up the shy minds. and the teachers should conduct their lessons in english as much as possible, so as to force the students to get used to listening speaking and thinking in english. before a new lesson, teachers can create some situations for the students to respond to them and then to paraphrase a few sentences or to retell a story etc. on the other hand, for their answers, the teachers should give them proper estimate and let them have a successful feeling of getting knowledge. then they will be glad to speak it more and more. thus the students feel in a real environment of english like those native learners. actually in such a lively atmosphere, the students have been motivated to convey their ideas in english. of course, it is quite clear that the students ability of speaking must be well and effectively trained. in my classroom, there are many piece of paper with “english corners” on the wall. before class, i often let them see some english film in order to feel western conditions and customs and attract their interest for english learning.2、some measures for arousing students interesta、three-minutes speech before class .at the beginning of a class, students are often asked to come to the blackboard to give the others a duty report.b、give more chances to the students to do pairs work ,making up their own dialogue.c、make full use of audio-visual aids to create situations .d、carry out some activities, such as: speaking/reading competition, chinese forbidden, english corner, etc.e、play games .e.g. pass the message, make more sentences as quickly as possible.f、modify li yangs crazily speaking english .（二） help the students lay a solid base of english phonetics.if there is something wrong with a student s pronunciation, then, obviously, he cant understand whats on in the communication. and increasingly it will influence the students confidence of communication. so teacher of english should help students lay a solid base of english phonetics, which includes accurate pronunciation, good intonation, sound linking, plosive and strong and weak forms .it is proved that students with good pronunciation and intonation have obvious advantages in speaking just as a writers opinions can be obtained by reading between the lines, a speaker s intention can be revealed from the intonation and tunes he uses. for example, the students of one of my classes arent often vigorous when i ask them to read after me, they often read slowly. then i read loudly, and then the students read louder, too. whats more, it is also proved that good pronunciation and tunes not only help himself develop the confidence of english learning, but also help others surrounding him try to improve their speaking ability. as the youth have a strong presented expect and most of them hope that they can have fluent and pure english then become the focus and the admiring people to the public, which make them have a better confidence in their life.（三） give more chances to the students to develop their speaking ability as well as the other three skills (listening, reading and writing)in class, the students should be given more time to speak and they cant be regarded just as audiences, which will not have a good teaching effect and the students speaking ability also cant be trained .the teachers should let the students take part in the