浅析故事教学法对醴陵三中初一学生英语学习的影响(英文版).doc

AbstractClassroom teaching is an important part in the process of studying. Story telling is a relatively new method for language teaching. This thesis focuses on the effects of story telling in Junior High School. The researcher conducted a study by using questionnaire and interview. The collected data showed that the students in the No. Three Middle School of Liling are interested in story telling and the classroom atmosphere could become active and positive when story telling method was utilized. The data also showed that the method of story telling has influence on students learning, including their motivation and input. In the research, the author gives some practical suggestions on using the method of story telling, contents of stories, moment of telling stories and the ways of telling stories.Key words: Story Telling; classroom atmosphere; learning effect摘 要课堂教学是学习过程中一个重要的部分。故事教学是一个相对新颖的语言教学方法。作者通过访谈法和问卷法对故事教学作了一系列研究。研究数据表明醴陵三中初一学生对故事教学很感兴趣，采用故事教学法后，课堂气氛也能够变得很活跃，很积极。研究发现故事教学也对学生的学习效果有影响，包括他们的学习动机和输入形式。作者通过分析，给出了一些可行的建议，包括所讲故事的内容，讲故事的时间和讲故事的方式三方面的内容。关键词：故事教学；课堂气氛；学习效果Contents1. Introduction.1 1.1 The background of the Study.11.2 The Significance of the Study .11.3 The Research Questions.2 2. Literature Review.22.1 Related Theories.32.2 Related Studies.53. Research Design.63.1 Subject.63.2 The Research Instrument.63.2.1 Questionnaire.63.2.2 Interview.6 3.3 Data Collection Procedures74. Results and Findings.74.1 Results of Questionnaire.74.2 Results of Interview.94.3 Findings of Questionnaire.94.4 Findings of Interview.105. Discussion and Conclusion.115.1 Summary of the Findings.115.2 Discussion.115.3 Suggestions on Using the Method of English Story Telling.125.4 Conclusion.135.5 Limitation of the Study.14ReferencesAppendices 1. Introduction1.1 The Background of the StudyIn 1860s, G .Lozanov created the “Suggestopedia”. He claimed that we could make a combination usage of hint, association, imagination, intelligence, physical strength, music and so on to develop the sub-consciousness, to stimulate students interests, then create a relax and joyful environment for students to study a language.Tang Bin (2009) says, “Making the students have classes with interests.” That is to say, a teacher must make the class joyful to attract students attention and stimulate their interests on study. Dai Honghong (2009) says, “Happy teaching can improve the students interests of studying”. As one of the happy teaching method, story telling has been researched before. Yu Suzhen (2004) wrote an article named “Story Telling in Primary School”. She said, “Stories solved the problem of childrens lack of interests on English.” Chen Ruli (2004) also conducted a research on English story telling in the primary school. Based on the above studies, the researcher chose junior high school students as the subjects of the study. Are these “big children” still interested in the story telling? What are their opinions about story telling in English class? The researcher focused on the two aspects: the effects of using stories during an English class, and the possible suggestions aroused by the findings of the study. 1.2 The Significance of the StudyStory telling method focuses on the positive and active aspect of the classroom teaching with a greater flexibility. It could change the traditional English teaching and learning methods. It would change the class in which the teacher dominates the students and the book into the class in which both teacher and students could participant in and learn together. Therefore teachers and students could build equal and democratic relationship together. Gail Ellis and Jean Brewster (1991) said: “Stories are motivating and fun and can help develop positive attitudes towards the foreign language and language learning. They can create a desire to continue learning.” In other words, it can change the students passive acceptance of knowledge to positive learning of knowledge. Students are placed in an easy and active state to learn. This also changes the traditional passive teaching situation of textbook knowledge. Students are learning and accumulating knowledge through listening, participating and thinking. It focuses on developing students interests in learning and improving the efficiency of classroom teaching and learning.The investigation on the effects of English story telling might be able to help the teachers in No. Three Middle School of Liling to change their teaching methods toward the students. It could also help the teachers find out what the students need are and what is the better way to teach their students. 1.3 The Research QuestionsThe research questions are as follows:1) What kinds of English stories attract the first-year students of Liling No. Three Middle School？2) Does the method of story telling influence the first-year students English learning effect and interest in Liling No. Three Middle School？2. Literature ReviewAndrew Wright (1995) pointed out: “Stories are particularly important in the lives of our children; stories help children to understand their world and to share it with others.”Story telling is an entertaining and joyful teaching method which a teacher could use in the class according to the content. Stories, often short and concise, are used by teacher to illustrate or stress the content, even replace the lecture to attract students attention, stimulate students interests and inspire students thinking.2.1 Related Theories2.1.1 Input and Language LearningAccording to Hu Zhuanglin (2006) “It is self-evident that language learning can take place when the learner has enough access to input in the target language. This input may come in written or spoken form. In the case of spoken input, it may occur in the content of interaction （for example, the learner attempts to converse with a native speaker, a teacher, or another learner）or in the context of non-reciprocal discourse ( for example, listening to the radio or watching a film).”According to Krashens Input Hypothesis (1981), learners acquire language as a result of comprehending input addressed to them. Krashen brought forward the concept of “i+1” principle, for example, the language that learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence so that they can understand most of it but still be challenged to make progress. He thought that there were many affective factors to influence the learning procedures of a language in his Affective Filter Hypothesis. The factors were motivation, personality, and affective state.2.1.2 MotivationGeorge Yule (2009) wrote a book named “The Study of Language”. He thinks there are several factors which combine in a profile of the successful L2 learner. Obviously, the motivation to learn is important. It has been noted that those who experienced some success are among the most motivated learners. Thus, motivation may be as much a result of success as a cause. A language-learning situation that encourages success and accomplishment could consequently be more helpful than one that dwells on errors and corrections. Indeed, the learner who is willing to guess, risks making mistakes, and tries to communicate in the L2 will tend, given the opportunity, to be more successful. An important part of that opportunity is the available of “input”.2.1.3 Story TellingAs one of the most positive methods to teach the students, the story telling method has been researched by many scholars. In 1998, there came a book called “Storytelling with Children” -one of the series of Alan Maley, the book is a complete one to introduce the story telling method from the primary school to a higher level. He not only tells us the ways on how to choose, tell and read stories, and the significance of the story telling. He shows us many useful stories on English teaching. He considers story telling as an important teaching method. Whats more, in this book, the author provides some examples about stories and lesson plans, grammar and stories, topic and stories. Every part of the book is very concrete and vivid.John Morgan and Mario Rinvolucri (2007) wrote a book named “Once Upon a Time: Using stories in the language classroom”. In this book, authors show us some stories, and then give us some suggestions on how to tell stories and what we should focus on when we tell stories according to different teaching content. They think stories solve the problem of motivation because children have a constant need for stories and children will always be willing to listen or to read the stories if the right moment is chosen.2.2 Related StudiesYu Suzhen (2004) wrote an article named “Story Telling in Primary School”. She said, “Stories solved the problem of childrens lack of interests on English.” She thinks most children are active and they have strong curiosity. They have deep interests to the new things, but the interests couldnt keep too long. The material of stories is endless, and we can also find the materials that students are interested in.Chen Ruli (2004) conducted a research called “Story Telling in English Teaching”. She focused on why story telling is fit for primary school English class. According to her, there are two reasons: firstly, the method of story telling could meet the demands of the New Curriculums; secondly, it could fulfill childrens psychological characteristics and the characteristics of language learning. She also provided suggestions on the four steps of story telling in English class: warming up; presentation; practice; and follow-up. Meanwhile, in her paper, she gave readers six pieces of advice on choosing stories. It included the age of the children; the childrens familiarities to the stories; the interesting roles in the stories; and the repetition of the stories; and the time of telling a story. Wang Jianfeng（2004）made a research on story telling too. He concluded that stories could help students perceive the language in listening; strengthen their sense of language in reading; improve the language sense in the speech of stories and creating the stories. Liu Caixia (2009) made a research on how to make classroom atmosphere alive. She concluded many useful methods to improve the atmosphere in the classroom. One of these methods is story telling. She said: “Story telling, describing, computer simulation can develop students interests in learning.” She thought story telling could make class interesting.Shi Zhuanfu（2009）made a research on primary school English teaching. He pointed out that English stories telling in primary schools played a decisive role in the English teaching process which fulfilled the childrens curious nature and they were willing to imitate. Story telling met the childrens psychological characteristics. 3. Research Design3.1 SubjectIn this paper，the author chose 100 students randomly in Grade 1 of Zhushan Middle School (the No. Three Middle School of Liling) to fill questionnaires. These students are in the countryside and their teaching conditions are poorer than those in the city.Five teachers and five of the 100 students were chosen randomly for interviews.3.2 The Research InstrumentThe author utilized these instruments for the research: questionnaire; interview.3.2.1 The QuestionnaireOne hundred students were asked to fill the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to collect data on the effects of stories, including the students familiarity to story telling method, how much they like the stories, the effects of the story telling on the students interests and the atmosphere of the class; and the strategies on how to choose stories, how to tell stories, and how to combine the stories with the textbook.3.2.2 The InterviewThe interview aimed to investigate on teachers English teaching methods, their choices of English story types, and students attitudes towards English story telling in the class.3.3 Data Collection ProcedureThe data were collected as the following two steps: Firstly, the questionnaire was handed out to the 100 students of Grade 1 in Liling No. Three Middle School, and then collected. Then, interview was made after questionnaire. Five students were interviewed after answering the questionnaire, and five teachers were interviewed after that.4. Results and Findings 4.1 Results of QuestionnaireAfter sorting out the questionnaires, the author finds some important data as follow:Table1 Students attitudes on English story tellingPercentageitemsitemsquite agreeagreelittle agreeDisagreequite disagreeI like stories.65%12%21%2%0When my English teacher has class, I like the teacher telling us stories.13%16%59%10%2%I think I will be interested if my English teacher has classes with stories.19%27%49%4%1%If my English teacher tells stories during the classroom, this can increase my enthusiasm.23%13%53%7%4%I think if my English teacher tells stories, the classroom atmosphere will be more active.15%41%35%7%2%I would concentrate my attention to the class if my English teacher tells stories.30%21%29%16%4%I think it is a waste of time to tell stories while we have English classes.3%1%025%71%The English stories which my English teacher tells us are helpful for my study if the stories are linked to the textbook.68%22%9%1%0My English teacher often tells us different stories, like experience, films, and so on.17%12%46%18%7%Table 1 showed us the data of the students opinion on story telling in English class. Table 2 Students opinions on the types of English stories Novels73Movies & TV38Own Experience73Life Stories 76Famous Works85Rumors4News Broadcast64Anecdotes of Celebrities86Newspaper/Magazine56The Entertainment News3Political Affairs67Technology42In this Table, students showed their favorites about the stories. It revealed that anecdotes of celebrates and famous works attract students the most.Table 3 Students opinions on when a teacher should tell English stories itemnumberBeginning of the classMiddle of the classBack of the classFrom the beginning to end.2481832The time of telling a story in the class is very important; its much useful when tells stories at appropriate time. The data showed that students believed that in the middle of the class would be the most appropriate moment to tell an English story.Table 4 Students opinions on the content of storiesRelated to the textbook24As a complement of the book 75whatever1The result showed that most students believed that the content of stories should be the complement of the textbook.Table 5 Students opinion on how to tell storiesRead according to notebook0Reciting like recite the book1Telling with emotions99Table 5 showed us that teachers should tell stories with emotions but not simply just read them.4. 2 Results of interviewThe results of interview showed only three students were interested in English, and another two were not. Four of them thought their teachers were teaching them with traditional ways which had classes with no stories, no games, no pictures and other teaching aids and the class was boring. One student liked English and her English teacher very much. According to her, the class was very interesting and easy to learn, and the English class was active, interesting, and attractive. They could learn in relax and happy atmosphere. All students thought that they liked the English class which was joyful and interesting with most stories or games connected to the textbook, that is to say, they could learn in a happy and enjoyable atmosphere.Two teachers would tell stories while other three chose to speak loudly or call the students who did not listen to the teacher when they were distractive.In order to keep or stimulate students interest, only two teachers mentioned that they would tell stories. Three of them chose to play games, sing songs, make some cards, draw pictures, and listen to the music.4.3 Findings of Questionnaire From Table1, we know that 98% of the students like stories, and 88% students like story telling while only 4% think it is a waste of time to tell stories during class. Table 1 also shows us 99% of students think it is a helpful way to tell stories if those stories are connected to the textbook. About 80% of them think they can immediately become concentrated if their English teacher tells stories. Over 90% of students think story telling can make classroom atmosphere alive. Nearly 90% of students think they could become interested if teacher tells stories.According to Table 1, it is easy for us to know that students like stories and we can teach them English by using stories, and it is easy to catch their attention by story telling.Table 2 shows us what kinds of stories a teacher should tell. And obviously, most students like anecdotes of great people and their great works. They like anything happened around them, for example, their experience, the life experience of their teacher and so on. The entertainment news and the rumors are the least which they would like to hear. Table 3, Table 4 and T