Winding up an English Class 英语课堂结课的探析

1 Introduction There comes an old saying Creativity is the spirit of a country Creativity is demanded and advocated under the circumstance of new curriculum reform and the main battlefield of creativity education is in the class In the real class teachers attach importance to the creativity of lead in while the creativity of winding up a class is neglected for a long time Winding up a class is the last stage of a class which is the application of conclusion in the lesson planning It is as decisive as lead in A completely perfect class needs not only an arresting beginning but also a wonderful ending The reasons for this are as follows It is the need of reinforcing what the students have learned It is an opportunity of freeing the students minds and developing their interests It is the bridge of different knowledge transformation Actually the art of winding up a class is so essential that lots of educationists pay attention to it There is a large quantity of findings on winding up a class theoretically home and abroad Educationists and experts have already come up with several styles of winding up a class effectively such as summary style and suspense style which are the consensus in the aspect of teaching Under the circumstance of new curriculum reform happy ending style such as winding up with games matches songs and something like these has been reached a consensus among some savants Apart from these methods a few experts creatively put forward the way of judgments They claim that a good class can be ended by self judgments of both teachers and students and mutual judgments of each other All these findings are reference for real teaching a part of which has been applied to classroom teaching However subjects and types of lessons vary so the methods of winding up a class should give a change accordingly For this aspect there is no systematical research Besides nowadays winding up an English class is so neglected that the effect of the class is not so good Therefore the writer will analyze the misunderstandings and problems of English teaching and illustrate the application of winding up an English class to different types of lessons on the basis of junior middle school English teaching to show that winding up an English class by summarizing reinforcing and developing can be used effectively in 2 different types of lessons to enhance the efficiency of class and free the students The Importance of Winding up an English Class In lesson planning there is a portion of conclusion But in real lesson teaching it is called winding up a class It means that the teacher will take some time to wind up the class with various ways usually at the end of a lesson In fact the end of lesson summary is a very important stage for the teacher to take the learning further and deeper by helping students to refer back to the learning objectives It is also a time for the teacher to create a sense of achievement and completion of tasks for the students 王蔷 60 For a language teaching lesson most learners the starters in particular feel it difficult and boring It is hard for them to concentrate on the whole class So it is necessary and pertinent to winding up a class successfully A marvelous end of lesson summary ends the lesson but not the pleasure The art of winding up an English class properly comes into effect more than the teacher can see The importance of it is also more than experts can describe There are four main points in detail A Summing up and Highlighting the Important and the Difficult Winding up an English class successfully is to present the knowledge systematically to the students by summarizing the content of lesson displaying the intrinsic rules and highlighting the important and difficult and to impress the students Everything gets an aim Every lesson teaching gets one too Usually the teacher knows the aims of teaching well when they are planning the lesson However every stage of a lesson is designed on purpose and they get their own objectives thus the students especially the starters can grasp the important points As Xia Lianru says what the students achieved during the process of learning is patchy and unsystematic no matter how clear the lesson planning is 103 So at the end of lesson summary the teacher should help the students outline and make what is learned clear As long as the students have logic and systematical knowledge and get the aims of the lesson they will master them quickly In a word winding up an English class properly is good for 3 summing up and highlighting the important and difficult conceptions then for reinforcing the new knowledge B Transforming Knowledge and Broadening Mind Knowledge transformation is a useful ability of learning It is also a helpful approach of learning Transforming knowledge means connecting the new knowledge with what the students had learned before At the end of a lesson the teacher usually helps the students combine the new language points to other similar ones and broaden their minds to think over them In this way students will develop a habit of transforming No matter the transformation is positive or negative it does good to the students Positive transformation makes them learn well and fast Negative transformation makes them puzzled and also can stimulate their interest curiosity and anticipation about what they feel puzzled A nice ending of lesson is a bridge of the new and the old the back and the forward the inside and outside of the class It is an opportunity to broaden the students minds Besides scientific ending of a lesson can help the students transform not only the knowledge but also the way of learning and personal emotion The students would transform the way of learning English to other subjects and the pleasure of learning to the interest of other knowledge 杜贺喜 24 Therefore winding up an English class can transform knowledge and broaden mind C Developing the Abilities of Memorizing and Learning All the wits are derived from memory In fact the process of learning is a kind of memory a complicated process from memorizing to recalling 范安平 程魏 56 Whether the students master the materials is about whether they can recall them correctly However where there is memory there comes forgetfulness Everyone knows Ebbinghaus famous rules of forgetfulness It says that the process of forgetfulness takes place slowly gradually People usually forget what they memorized quickly at the very beginning So it is important to recall the materials of memory and reinforce them Then the end of a lesson is a kind of impromptu recalling to some extent Recalling and retelling what learned in the class can consolidate the memory Apart from this the process of memorizing is not influenced by the materials back and forward So the effect of doing recalling work at the end of a 4 lesson in time is much better than that of it after several hours By this way the teacher can develop the students abilities of memorizing and learning like expressing transforming and self presentation as well D Cultivating Interest and Freeing the Class Interest is the best teacher When a student is interested in something he will learn it positively in a happy mood and the efficiency is obvious If students feel learning English interesting then learning English is no longer a burden for them Besides interest is an analyst to learning Traditionally teachers teach students in a boring way and the class is the teachers stage rather than the students Thus after a whole class of hardworking what the teacher wants the students to master is not absorbed Interest is the key point to this problem Under the circumstance of new curriculum reform teachers take pains to emphasize a creative lead in in order to arouse students interest But the activeness is restrained at the very beginning of a lesson 陈立琼 44 Actually teachers should activate the class during the whole lesson though it is a bit difficult Winding up an English class creatively can work It can work much better even Usually at the last few minutes of a lesson most students feel tired and can not concentrate on the lesson because of the stability of attention As Fan Anpin and Chen Wei depict in their book when a person pay attention to something his attention can not last for a long time It just stabilizes at a limited range The stability of teenagers voluntary attention is about forty minutes at average 125 So it is an appropriate time to activate the students to concentrate on it by winding up the class with an interesting approach A creative and catchy ending can create an active atmosphere of class It also revokes the students interest and frees the class To sum up good beginning is half done and good ending is whole done Whether a teacher can wind up an English class well determines the success or failure of the class It is also a substantial standard to the level of teachers teaching Planning the end of lesson summary or winding up an English class in a right way can not only take the learning further and deeper but also leave a attractive suspense for next lesson and stimulate interest It makes the lesson enjoyable even though the lesson is 5 over The Existing Problems of Winding up an English Class Nowadays the teachers usually ignore the importance of winding up an English class Though every teacher plans the part of conclusion when he or she writes the lesson planning he or she does not practices it well in real teaching During the internship the writer observed several open lessons displayed by the excellent teachers in that middle school The writer really appreciated their charm but there came a common problem conclusion The stage of winding up an English class was not emphasized This is not a typical problem but a coexisted one The writer refers to some surveys and draws a conclusion on the existing problems of winding up an English class Firstly the end of lesson summary is absolutely omitted In daily teaching many teachers do not plan the portion of conclusion They teach the students all the contents of the lesson then assign homework to the students There seems a model ok that is what we learned this lesson your homework listen carefully firstly memorize the new words and finish the paper of this lesson There is also another case The teachers do not finish their jobs until the class is over So they skip the stage of winding up the lesson because time is limited No matter whatever the case is winding up an English class is completely ignored in daily teaching Secondly under the circumstance of new curriculum reform the teachers place emphasis on lead in but wind up an English class simply They usually start the lesson with different tactics but wind up the lesson just by retelling the contents of the lesson themselves only Taking the unit 7 How much are these pants in Students Book Go For It for example most teachers begin the class with a scene of shopping or with some pictures of clothes But they end the lesson lastly as follow This lesson we mainly learned two structures How much is this sweater It is two dollars How much are these pants They are three dollars Finally in daily teaching or in an open class the end of lesson summary catches teachers eyes and is arranged and implemented However the 6 methods of winding up an English class are inflexible The teachers generally summarize by themselves It means repeating what are presented on the blackboard At present the teachers change their teaching theory The theory of students centered class has engraved on their minds So they wind up an English class by asking the students to summarize the contents of the lesson For instance the teachers do like this That is what learned today Is there any volunteer recalling and generalizing it Or what is do you think the important Jenney In fact there is no substantial change It is another repeat ion of the presentation on blackboard So the style of winding up an English class is tedious and inflexible In short the art of winding up an English class is ignored and it does not come into effect as it should do According to lots of teachers experience most students distract at the last few minutes of the class Therefore it is pertinent to solve this problem and to wind up an English class with interesting and flexible ways Only in this way can the efficiency of the class be enhanced The Principles of Winding up an English Class The world is a circle with rules There is no exception to the art of winding up an English class No matter how the teachers wind up the lesson there are several principles they should follow First of all winding up an English class should aim at reinforcing what was taught in the class deliberately There usually is a big capacity of knowledge in an English class It is difficult for the students to master them all Moreover the teachers try their best to explain During the whole class they say on and on until class is over Some even occupy the students ten minute break after class As a result most of the students can not absorb What learned in last class can not be absorbed Thus what will be taught next lesson can not be understood As time pass by this situation gets worse and worse So what should the teachers do correctly is to wind up the lesson by recalling generalizing and transforming promptly to reinforce the learning materials Because every lesson gets its contents and aims and every class has their own 7 characteristics the teachers should also know what shall be highlighted and reinforced when they wind up the class It means the teachers should wind up an English class following the objectives of the lesson the characteristics and needs of the students Secondly winding up an English class should be on the principle of enhancing and developing the students capacities Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time How the teachers wind up an English class has a huge impact on the accumulation of the students knowledge and the formation of their abilities During the process of imparting knowledge to the students the teachers teach them skills of learning and show them how to take learning further and deeper on the basis of what they have already mastered At the end of lesson summary the teachers should see a further picture When they wind up an English class they should deepen the contents of the course book and broaden the horizon of the students so that their knowledge can reach a new higher level The teachers should also induce the students tactically to solve some problems with the knowledge they have broaden their minds and develop their ability of transforming 陈欣 68 Last but not the least the ways of winding up an English class should be funny and various Generally speaking the teenagers attention lasts about thirty minutes The efficiency of teaching comes to the worst during the last four or five minutes in the class 杨勇军 33 So the teachers should utilize eye catching approaches to arouse the students interest This kind of approaches can be both extrinsic motivation such as matches for prize and intrinsic motivation like a discussion on a controversial topic However a effective way may work for a while but not for a long time If the teachers adopt the same way all the time to wind up an English class the students feel boring even repellent So the methods should be varied There is no fixed method of teaching The key is creativity The teachers should change the methods of winding up an English class on the basis of teaching materials and setting in order to create new and curious stimulus to motivate the students interest A stimulus as I am using here is anything that has the capacity to hold students interest Woodward 56 On a whole all these are for a better end of lesson summary If the teachers 8 plan the end of lesson summary strictly abiding by the three principles they can wind up an English class successfully The Methods of Minding up an English Class As a fundamental stage of lesson teaching winding up a class is as weighty as the lead in it attracts many experts attention All the findings they come up with have been utilized to some degree in real teaching However the teachers should take the types of lessons and the subjects into consideration when they wind up a class As a tool language is one of the important and difficult subjects In China the significance of teaching English outweighs any other subjects especially on the stage of elementary education Moreover English teaching is a big task for the teachers and English learning is a tough one for the students in school Here in this paper the writer takes junior middle school English for example illustrates the useful methods of winding up an English class on the basis of different types of lessons in order to improve the efficiency of English teaching and learning A Summary Style Summary style of winding up an English class is a traditional but helpful way It is a popular way used by most teachers It is to analyze the knowledge make a summary and find the rules of the materials and easy ways to master them during the last five to ten minutes of the class It is also outline the contents of the lesson and highlight the important and the difficult by using different measures In this way the students can make the learning materials clear and impressing The students can also develop the ability of generalizing and a logic mind as well Traditionally the teachers use the logic presentation on the blackboard to do that In fact summary style of winding up an English class can exist in many proper forms Nowadays most teachers use them well Here are two beneficial forms of summary style They can be used creatively in different types of lessons 1 Tables Charts A table refers to a list of facts or numbers arranged in a special order usually in 9 rows and columns And a chart is a page or a sheet of information in the form of diagrams lists of figures etc both of them are charac