A Communicative Approach to Speaking Activities In High School English Teaching.doc

a communicative approach to speaking activities in high school english teaching牛津英语课堂教学中说的活动 i. introduction language is for communication. wills, j (1987) suggests that the most important thing of all is that teachers should be able to teach their students how to communicate in english, not just how to do grammar exercises or choose a b c or d as the correct answer. to do this, teachers should aim, not only to teach english in english, but to create the genuine communicative situations that arise in the classroom for meaningful language practice, and to allow plenty of time for oral production activities after the practice stages of the lesson. the purpose of this paper is a practical one to discuss certain speaking activities to strengthen english teaching so as to enable students to communicate more effectively in english. this paper, of course, is not intended as first introduction to english teaching in high school. teachers may have already been familiar with these activities that i will refer to. my purpose of the thesis is to suggest that a communicative approach to speaking activities should be made full use of in our high school english teaching, because in china, at present, although most students have a good mastery of linguistic knowledge and are always good at structural analysis and can do multiple -choice questions extremely well, they lack communicative competence, that is to say, they can not use the knowledge they have learned from their text books in practical situations. the discussion is directed mainly towards a communicative approach to speaking activities, such as pair work, group work, role play, the debate, information gap and games, their importance and disadvantage as well.through these speaking activities, teachers can help students go beyond the mastery of grammatical structures of their textbooks, to the point where students can use them to communicate meanings in real situations in the future.ii. using speaking activities develops students communicative competence1. the present situation of english teaching in middle schoolin china, most of the children begin to learn english at the age of thirteen or fourteen or earlier in some big cities like shanghai and beijing. that is to say, it is the age when they enter the junior middle school. from then on, they will study english for six whole years through both junior and senior grades. as we all know, many years ago, an old set of english textbooks was used for both junior and senior students. each lesson in these textbooks had the same arrangement of contents. there were little listening or speaking components in them. students only learn some language points and grammar rules, and as a result, they could hardly open their mouths to communicate anything in english. according to investigation to ten middle schools in the north-west city of china - urumuqi (乌鲁木齐市), among which two are key middle schools, four are subsidiary middle schools and the other four ordinary middle schools, approximately 70% of the english teachers have used the old textbooks for at least ten years, and they have been used to teaching english in the traditional way. in other words, except a few simple classroom english, they tend to use their mother tongue in conducting the class. speaking activities in the classroom are few. thus, those students who will enter the college or universities still lack real ability with their high scores. therefore, the improvement and change of teaching method becomes an urgent problem. obviously, it is necessary to advocate the communicative teaching method, and teaching english through english means both teachers and students speaking and using english in the classroom as often as they possibly can.fortunately, a new set of english textbooks -oxford english has been introduced to middle schools in china. it is clear that teaching aim of oxford english is mainly focused on training the communicative ability of students. teachers are encouraged to create an english language atmosphere for students in class, and lead students to form the habits of listening, speaking, reading and writing, instead of only making them remember some grammar rules, vocabulary and sentence patterns.2. effective speaking activities for promoting students interestthe communicative method is a way of teaching language which takes account of input, practice and communication output (harmer, 19983:38). teaching english speaking in a non-english speaking situation is a very challenging and difficult job. although great efforts have been made, not much effect is achieved. then, the importance of speaking activities is once again stressed, and teachers should try to create and use some speaking activities, because in these activities students have more opportunities to speak, to practise and to cooperate. when the students become the center of the classroom, they have more freedom in expressing themselves and they can do better in practice. indeed, interest is the best motivation. david (1989:325) said, interest is the wings of the wisdom by which you will fly to nice places. maybe, at the beginning, many students are shy, with the fear that they might make mistakes. teachers should encourage some bold ones to speak first in these activities. gradually more and more students would participate. as students speak more in class, their motivation becomes higher, and they feel more interested in english.on the other hand, corson (1987:46) expresses, teachers in middle schools have a key responsibility in promoting studentscommunicative competenceusing psychology theories through effective activities. that is, schools should provide an environment in which students are encouraged to use simple english to explore concept, solve problems, organize information, share discoveries and explain personal ideas. in class the theory of psychology concerning building up students interest should be put into practice of teaching speaking. useful and interesting activities will arouse students interest in speaking and develop their communicative abilities. furthermore, if the teacher uses english most of the time in class, it will give students good opportunities to listen and respond to spoken english. this will help studentspick upwords and expressions beyond the language of their textbooks.many ways in the communicative method can be used to train the students communicative competence. the following are some speaking activities for promoting students in speaking.3. some speaking activities1). pair workthis activity provides the students with the intimate setting of a one-to-one work situation and thus students are more likely to allow their inner dialogue to be released. questioning and re-appraising their own ideas will also be easier in the company of a well-known companion. the obvious reason why we need to use pair work is volume of practice. if only one student is speaking at a time, there is no way learners will get enough practice to really master english. so, the most efficient way to practise is pair work, because in pairs, students do not risk losing face by making mistakes in front of the class. pair work is also fun. when students enjoy what they are doing, they always do more with more interest. that leads to better learning.teachers sometimes worry about noise and lack of indiscipline when pair work is used in class. much depends here on the task that the teacher has degree of interest during the activity. the teacher should try and makes sure that the pair work task is not carried out for too long. the students who are left in pair for a long time often become bored. if the noise rises to excessive levels, then the teacher can simple stop the activity and proceed to the next step. 2) group workgroup discussions can be defined as one of more meetings of a small group of people who communicate face to face in order to fulfill a common purpose or achieve a common goal.( ernest, g. bormann and nancy, c. bormann, 1988:19 )group work in the middle school can be approached in two ways: by group talk, where the talk itself in the aim of the activity, or by group discussion, where the activities are directed towards a wider curriculum aid and is used as an instrument within a lessons structure.if used effectively, group talk can be of great importance. in middle school english classes, the teacher should make certain rules to enable students to speak in english as much as possible. in group talk, students can either talk in english on a certain topic or talk freely to practise certain words and expressions they have learned. thus, an english-speaking environment is provided, which spurs students to use english by brushing up common english usage they have born in mind. what is worth noticing is that students become self-conscious of their role, which makes of much more importance to their communication in english.group discussion can be conducted in various ways. the teacher should offer certain topics for group discussion. the discussion may be carried out either in the way of free talk or in the form of the debate. in this sense, group discussion raises higher demands to students than those of group talk. certain vocabulary and ideas should be collected and presented. this method might be time-consuming. therefore, it might be better the teacher to assign the students in advance for certain preparatory work, which will save time in the end and more effective.discussing about books or pictures take a variety of forms but usually share common goals at the middle school level. a). to give students the opportunity to talk in small group. b). to encourage students to speak. c). to allow them to show their attitudes and understandings. d). to consider reasons for their opinions. e). to give feedback and comments. group work gives students far more chances to speak english. working in groups encourages students to be more involved and concentrate on the task. students feel secure and anxious. group work can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole-class activity. in the process, students can help each other and share ideas. on the other hand, the teacher must have a good control of the class in group work, and make sure that the duration will not extend over the students interest span.3) role playrole play increases motivation. role play aims at developing students competence so that it can meet their real life communication needs.the unprepared, unrehearsed dramatization used in role play is well suited to the interest and temperaments of (senior) middle school students. based on materials from any source ( esp. a dialogue or text from ss book ). role play can be a tilling device in its impact, providing an unforgettable experience for individuals who are cast into the role. its links with the development of communicative competence are obvious.five steps can be recommended in employing the approach: a).select the role play situation; b).choose the participants; c). create the setting through discussion in small groups of role players; d). act out the situation; and e). invite an following-up comment from audience. on the other hand , role play is a way of bringing situation from real life into the classroom. when students do role play, they should be asked to be imaginative. they may imagine a role (in other words, they pretend to be a different person) or a situation (in other words, they pretend to be doing something different). in general, the more familiar a role or situation is, the easier it will be. suitable roles for school classes would be (1) people familiar to students from everyday life, e.g. parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, shopkeepers, doctors. (2) characters from the textbook, and from other books. suitable situations for classes would be: (1) situations which students see or take part in everyday life. e.g. shopping, holidays,using local transport, asking the way to places. (2) fantasty situations from stories they read, or from the textbook. here is a role play demonstration based on a dialogue from senior english for shanghai -book 2, unit 2.e.g.role play gives ss a chance to use english. students can often imagine themselves in different situations and roles when they play games. so by using role play in class, we are building on something that students naturally enjoy. role play encourages students to use natural expressions.4). the debateit is an activity for senior students. it has value in encouraging speakers to appreciate others points of view and to do some preliminary work in order to make themselves relatively expert in the subject matter.the debate can be done in big group or in the whole class. teacher should write a topic or draw a picture on the blackboard according to the text. the range of the topic should be wide in order that students can have enough words and interest to debate. the teacher should encourage students to express their new ideas about the topic and the drawing on the blackboard, for example: (still based on the senior english for shanghai, book 2,unit 7, topic for discussion)step 1. teacher write the topic on the blackboard with a drawing based on the topic:topic: what do you usually do when a person begs a favour of you?if you help him, do you expect anything in return?step 2. divide the class into two groups. one group is on a side, the other one is on b side.step 3. they begin to debate for their own view.through this debate, students have a chance to speak and express their opinions. it will make students feel it very interesting to speak english and their speaking ability can be improved further.in this activity, what needs special attention is that the teacher chooses the debate topic with great care, that is, the topic should suit to students. if so, scope of knowledge and ability to express, otherwise, students cant have many ideas, the effect of speaking practice will be greatly reduced.5) information capdoff (1988) suggests that in order to create a need to communicate, the two students in each pair should be given different information. in this activity, one student has some information and the other student has to find it out by asking questions. by sharing this separate information they can complete a task.it is an ingredient in most real-life communication, and the practice of specific language can be made enjoyable and fairly communicative. the following example will show information gap: step 2. student a has an empty grid, and student b has the card with the information.step 3. student b dose not show the information to student a. student a completes the girl by asking questions using what/what time/when/how.this activity provides interesting language practice. although the activity is quite controlled and sentences are simple the students are really exchanging information and using language communicatively. however, there is a big problem. teacher has to distribute many pieces of paper (card), make sure students in each pair get different parts of the activity, and stop students looking at each others information.6) gamesa game is an activity carried out by cooperating or competing decision-makers, seeking to achieve, with a set of rules, their objectives.(rixon, 1981:3)games may help and encourage many learners to support their interest and work.(wright,1984:1) and: games also help the teacher to create context in which the language is useful and meaningful. indeed, in middle school, using games in english teaching can be profitable exercise in english communication to the effective use of games to arouse students motivation and interest to increase the students abilities to learn language through playing a game in classroom. teachers should try to offer many opportunities and encouragement to students to practise more.at the beginning of the game, the teacher can give some interesting and attractive topics to the students for discussion, in order to stimulate their curiosity. these topic should have some connection with the game which is about to be played. and also, teachers should try to create a natural situation in which students can be happy and relaxed to finish the game, so that the language can be practised effectively and unconsciously. however, games also have their own limitation. there is a danger of students being over-excited and good class order might be affected. a teacher certainly would hope that his lesson will go smoothly and effectively. if there is much noise and the teacher can tot control the class well, some students will lose interest. then, it is impossible that the aims of teaching can be reached efficiently. so, teachers should pay more attention to organizing games.in short, games can increase motivation to learn the language motivation to the language as students, especially weaker ones, feel a real sense of achievement when they manipulate a game.(hubbard, 1987:19)the six activities mentioned above can promote students interest in english speaking. it is hoped that teachers will make full use of them according to different situation.iii. conclusionto sum up, a lot of benefits might be obtained through using these speaking activities in english language teaching, although there exist some limitations, many kinds of speaking activities can help bridge the gap between linguistic and communicative competence. language is not basically knowledge but a skill to be mastered and used i