（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）口语课课堂语境的构建——小组活动的组织.pdf

重庆大学硕士学位论文 中文摘要 i 摘 要 语言交际能力的培养需要一个有利的环境在中国这样一个英语作为外语的 环境下口语教学在很大程度上依赖于课堂根据作者的观察在目前的口语课 课堂语境中存在着一些问题如在老师的角色课堂活动学生对英语口语的学 习动机课堂气氛学生之间的合作学生的心理状态等方面这些问题大体可 分为三类情景的社会的和心理的观察结果给英语口语教学的启示是构建 一个有利于口语教学的包含情景语境社会语境和心理语境的三维课堂语境在 情景语境中老师应根据实际需要转变自己的角色对于小组成员构成小组活 动安排等方面应进行策略分析在社会语境中两大对好的社会语境的构成必 不可少的因素不应忽视老师的启发和引导及小组活力在心理语境中老师要 考虑到焦虑抑制自尊和动机等因素的影响并采取措施克服其不良影响 关键词课堂教学语境小组活动交际能力 重庆大学硕士学位论文 abstract ii abstract the author of this dissertation suggests some methods to improve the classroom teaching context of spoken english class. the development of communicative competence needs a beneficial environment. according to the observation, the author finds some problems concerning the teaching context. the problems can be grouped into three dimensions: situational, social and psychological. in the dissertation, on the basis of observation, the author suggests a classroom teaching context consisting of three dimensions: situational context, social context and psychological context. in situational context, the teacher should take appropriate roles according to the actual need. also, about time arrangement and group composition, a strategic view is needed. in social context, two essential factors for the formation of a beneficial context must be given full attention: facilitation and group dynamics. in psychological context, the teacher should help students maintain positive state and find ways to overcome the negative influence of the affective factors. this is also the pedagogical implication of the study. keywords: classroom teaching context, group work, communicative competence 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter one introduction 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 english teaching in china since the reform and opening up, college english teaching has made remarkable achievements. the language competence of students has been remarkably strengthened. in other words, for the last 20 years, university students of china have made great progress in english study. but, with the globalization, the international communication is becoming frequent. globalization brings people from different cultures into direct contact. in china, since the reform and opening up, the contact with outside world is happening with increasing frequency. the new situation makes greater demands on university students. it also makes greater demands on college english teaching. the investigation by fo zheng, pang jixian practice of interaction; access to many target language setting etc. considering the above respects, group work is a commonly used technique. at the same time, a fact is that the spoken english teaching is still not satisfying. even after graduation, many students still find it difficult to open their mouth. they dont know how to communicate with others in english. so, here, in the dissertation, the author will investigate the spoken english teaching in classroom by observation and then suggests some methods to improve the english teaching context. the study is an empirical one and observation and questionnaire will be used. the intention of the study is to give some suggestions to make classroom teaching context closer to the natural setting and to help spoken english teaching achieve more. 1.4 general organization the whole dissertation consists of five chapters. the first chapter introduces the english teaching in china, clarifies the research objective and introduces the general organization of the dissertation. the second chapter is the literature review part. firstly, communicative competence and context theory is examined from a historical view. then, is the 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter one introduction 3 introduction of theoretical bases of group work. then, the approach of group work is looked into. the third chapter is about the study. first, the author describes the classroom observation and questionnaire. then, the author sums up the results of the observation and gives a discussion of the results. the fourth chapter is concerned with pedagogical implications for spoken english teaching. the fifth chapter is the conclusion and limitation part. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 4 chapter two literature review 2.1 communicative competence the ultimate aim of english teaching is to develop students communicative competence. so, first, we should know what communicative competence is. communicative competence is a term hymes introduced in the mid-1960s (hadley, 2003). communicative competence involves both knowledge of or competence in the language, and the capacity for implementing, or using this competence (bachman, 1990:84). in the theory of transformational-generative grammar, chomsky distinguished between an idealized native speakers underlying competence and the individuals performance. chomskys competence-performance distinction served as the basis for the work of many other researchers interested in the nature of language acquisition. hymes has continually stressed the social nature of language and argued for a wider view of linguistics than one limited to the grammar of sentences (spolsky. 1998:131). hymes (1971) thought that chomskys theory of competence posits ideal objects in abstraction from social cultural features that might enter into their description. acquisition of competence is seen as independent of sociocultural features. so, hymes espoused a much broader view, in which grammatical competence is only one of the components of knowledge that native speakers possess. this broader notion of communicative competence incorporated sociolinguistics and contextual competence as well as grammatical competence (hadley, 2003:3). savignon also did studies involving the concept of communicative competence in the early 1970s. she defined communicative competence as the ability to function in a truly communicative setting-that is, in a dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adapt itself to the total informational input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors (hadley, 2003). as to the key components of communicative competence, canale and swain, drawing on the work of many scholars, including campbell and wales, hymes, savignon, charolles, munby and widdowson, formulated a theoretical framework for communicative competence that, in the modified version described by canale, consisted of four major components: (1) grammatical competence: refers to the degree to which the language user has 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 5 mastered the linguistic code, including knowledge of vocabulary, rules of pronunciation and spelling , word formation and sentence structure . (2) sociolinguistic competence: addresses the extent to which the second language can be used or understood appropriately in various contexts to convey specific communicative functions. (3) discourse competence: involves the ability to combine ideas to achieve cohesion in form and coherence in thought. (4) strategic competence: involves the use of verbal and nonverbal communicative strategies to compensate for gaps in the language users knowledge of the code or for breakdown in communication because of performance factors (hadley, 2003:5-6). the acquisition of such competence is fed by social experiences. considering the english teaching context in china, one feasible approach is to construct a spoken english teaching context which is as close to natural setting as possible. 2.2 teaching context 2.2.1 context “context theory” was first proposed by malinoviski. after that, the study of this theory has developed a lot. the components of context have been developed from linguistic context, situational context and social context to different subjective factors, e.g. psychological background, mood and identity and career (qtd in wang, 1989). in sociolinguistics and language teaching, different contexts lead to different degree of attention, which then leads to the differences in style. certain genres may tend to occur in situations that afford greater or lesser attention to ones performance, certain topics may remind people of how they are speaking, different interlocutors may make people nervous about their self-presentation, and so-forth (eckert, 1996). in labovs view, style is a function of attention paid to speech (richford as the speaker pays more attention to language form, she uses one style, and when she pays more attention to meaning, she uses another. when the speaker is focused on meaning, she produces linguistic forms with little attention to accuracy, and when the speaker is focused on form, she may try to produce a set of linguistic forms that are more accurate. labov (1970) believed that the formality of context also influences the attention paid to speech. so, in communication, all such factors as topic, role of the participants and setting will influences the speakers choice of style. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 6 oral proficiency of foreign language is an important asset for anyone seeking employment in business and industry in the modern world. students must eventually know how to use the language forms they have learned in authentic communicative situations. while in those authentic communicative situations, the speaker may encounter communications whose registers range form very informal to very formal styles. so, to develop students communicative competence, opportunities must be provided for students to practice using language and learn language in a range of contexts. language use in the classroom, ought to be contextualized. a balance of practice with tasks drawn from the whole continuum of styles needs to be provided. 2.2.2 teaching context 2.2.2.1 definition teaching context can be divided into macro and micro one. macro teaching context includes social context, cultural context, community context, family context and so on. micro teaching context refers to the one in language classroom, which is established by teacher, learners and learning content. since the present author wishes to establish a helpful classroom environment, micro teaching context is the focus of this dissertation. the context of teaching includes anything in the surrounding environment: physical, social, institutional and personal, that influences teaching and learning. the physical environment includes the classroom where teachinglearning occurs. the social environment including the relationship between teacher and students and the cultural norms play a significant role in what can and does occur in the classroom. the institutional norms play a similar role as cultural norms but perhaps more strongly affect what behavior the teacher and students see as acceptable. last, but not least, is the personal context which each instructor brings to classroom. the classroom is a particular context with particular features different to others (blatchford etc, 2003:154). in any classroom, there are identifiable contexts for learning. these contexts can be described in terms of a number of dimensions, including the number of members in a classroom group, the nature of the interaction between members in the group, and the type of learning task that is being undertaken. also, from research, we can find that teaching context doesnt exist in davance and does not exist without change. it develops with the co-participation of teacher and learner, and with the development of their teaching and learning. so, we can make teaching context develop toward a direction favorable to spoken english learning through the analysis of learning and teaching and we can construct a new classroom 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 7 teaching context. 2.2.2.2 the necessity of the construction of classroom teaching context the ultimate aim of foreign language teaching is to help learners develop communicative skills. these should be reflected in classroom tasks and activities. also, in china, the foreign language learners are studying english in a english- as-foreign language setting. for them, it is very important to experience real communicative situations in which they learn to express their own views and attitudes, and in which they are taken seriously as people. at the same time, claims appear that communicative language teaching is inappropriate in many contexts as in china. such contexts are characterized by high-structure, transmission mode of learning, in which teachers control the action (nunan, 1999), and in which teachers act as the deliver of information. considering the above two points, we know that, to help learners develop communicative skills, we should not only take advantage of all situations in which real communication occurs naturally, but also create many more suitable ones. the classroom cant recreate the full impact of life in a natural environment, but it can provide some of its characteristics. 2.2.2.3 factors that need to be considered when constructing teaching context many studies have indicated the relationship between speaking opportunities and communicative competence. many researches have shown that as opportunities to use the language in meaningful situations increase, so does the acquisition (chafe, 1998:6). so, teachers need to provide more and better opportunities for students to develop oral proficiency. also, language which occurs in a context that is “supportive and motive, communicative and referential, developmentally appropriate and feedback rich” will be much more likely to be acquired (chafe, 1998:8). cooperative learning is gaining broad acceptance in a multitude of language learning classrooms, principally because of its contributions to improving the overall climate of the classroom and its potential for providing supportive and expanded opportunities for learners to use the language. so, when constructing teaching context of spoken english class, we must consider two large points: quantitatively, offering the students more opportunities to speak, to apply their knowledge to authentic language use situations; qualitatively, providing a more relaxed, supportive atmosphere. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 8 in china, a frequently used strategy to construct teaching context which can quantitatively offer students more opportunities to speak and can qualitatively provide more relaxed, supportive atmosphere is group work. in the following part, the author will introduce the theoretical bases of group work. 2.3 theoretical bases of group work there are four basic modes of classroom instruction: whole class, groups, pairs and individuals with whole class instruction remains the most common one. (some people think pair work is simply group work in groups of two (brown, 2001). the author agrees to the four-mode division.) but, the use of group work in education, especially in language classes, is a growing trend. group work is one of the techniques which are central to maintaining linguistic interaction in the classroom. group work is a generic term covering a multiplicity of techniques in which three or more students are assigned a task that involves collaboration and self-initiated language. group work usually implies small group work, that is, students in groups of perhaps six or fewer. large groupings defeat one of the major purposes for doing group work: giving students greater opportunities to speak. group work doesnt mean simply dividing students into groups and asking them to work together. by group work, we mean students working together as a group or team. the teacher may be involved at various stages, but the particular feature of group work perhaps its defining characteristic-is that the balance of ownership and control of the work shifts toward the students themselves. group work should involve students as co-learners (zajac learner-learner relations being more horizontally organized and power being more likely to be evenly shared. so, the learner feels less anxious and more confident when interacting with peers during group activities. 2.4.2 inhibitions of group work even though theoretical and pedagogical arguments in favor of group activities have been advanced, foreign language practitioners may have reservations about their use. some teachers are afraid of group work. they feel they will lose control or students will just use their native language, and so they avoid it. but group work doesnt mean simply putting students into groups and having them do what you would otherwise do as a whole class. and the limitations or drawbacks to group work are surmountable obstacles when group work is used appropriately (brown, 2001). 1) the teacher is no longer in control of the class. depending on the context of teaching, sometimes, control could be a very important issue. group work still allows you to play the role of director, manager, facilitator and resource. in those rules, there is still an adequate degree of control, the class will not necessarily run away with you. 2) students will use their native language. in efl situations, it is indeed possible that students in small groups will covertly use 重庆大学硕士学位论文 chapter two literature review 13 their native language. how can it be overcome? the most important factor, is setting the climate for group work. you can impress upon the students the importance of practice in the foreign language for eventual success; inform them of the security offered by the small group etc. 3) students errors will be reinforced in small groups. teachers are usually concerned about the fact that students will simply reinforce each others errors and the teacher wont get a chance to correct them. there are enough researches on errors and error correction which tell us that teachers overt attempts to correct