How to Improve the Students’ Spoken English.doc

How to Improve the Students Spoken EnglishAbstract: Convention is difficult for many learners because it take place in “real time and involves various skills .public speaking inhabits people .while learning to speak our L1or foreign language, they inevitably make mistakes, though many students are good at listening and writing they are not good at speaking, they feel very shy when they communicated with other people, For all these reasons you should create a relaxed atmosphere, make the learners listen and speak in natural interaction, organize pairs and group work, and avoid any obsession with accuracy .Encourage incidental classroom speaking, pointed out the teachers requiring their students to do more forward thinking and planning than native speaker in real life .1,giving learners opportunity to express themselves, some fluency practice activities presented can be repeated and developed without any specific language focus, Many other speaking activities have essentially communicative, not linguistic objectives, These include unscripted role-play or simulation, problem-solving/decision-taking activities, discussion and debates, and group projects.Key words: practice, communication, activities, projects摘 要：交际对于许多英语学习者来说是很难的，因为它运用在真实的生活当中。需要反映快，这就需要涉及许多技巧。但人们用外语与别人说话时，他们感到很害羞，正因如此。我们应该建立好悠闲的氛围，使得学习者在很自然的环境中交谈，组织一组或者几组的人练习对话，避免不正确的词语出现，虽然有些学生擅长于听力跟写作。但他们不擅长于口语，在口语课堂上要多加鼓励，教师要求学生在现实生活当中比本国语言者应想得更远，更有计划。给学习者的机会展示他们的才华，许多流利的练习活动反复地出现没有任何特殊的语言因素，但有些口语活动需要对话练习，不是语言学的因素，包含角色表演或者模仿，解决问题或者谈论话题的活动，讨论或者辩论和组织团体活动。关键词：练习；交往；活动；计划 ContentsAbstractiContentsiiiIntroduction11. How to improve the studentsability of communication?21.1 communicative activities21.2 Classroom speaking51.3 Speaking activities62. How to improve the studentsspeaking motivation123. How to make students pronounce standard14Conclusion 17Bibliography18Acknowledgement19IntroductionSpeaking is the skill that the students will be judged upon most in real-life situations, It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his /her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly, So, as teachers, we have a responsibility to prepare the students as much as possible to be able to speak in English in the real world outside the classroom and the testing room.The purpose of middle school English teaching is to improve the studentsfour skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, with the base of necessary phonetic, large vocabulary and good grammar, but this is not the final purpose, The final purpose is to let the students communicate with others and make themselves understood.Why do we study English? Because the world is an open . If a man is only good at listening and speaking, can we say he /she is good at language? No, If a students is only good at reading and writing, Can we say that he /she is good at the language? No, If a student is good at English. First, he /she should be able to communicate with others. Why most students are not good at speaking? Because they lack language context, they have not courage to train themselves, and also because of the examination system and partially of the teaching method .We are not able to change the exam system, but we can improve our teaching method.Most teachers like to provide the students with a lot of knowledge-words, phrases, grammar, usage and so on, Of course, they are very important for the students, but many teachers forget to teach them how to use the language freely. .We hope the students could speak much more English, The teacher must teach the students in accordance with their aptitudes.(因材施教)1. How to improve the studentsability of communication?1.1 communicative activitiesThe communicative activity, it is the only one that involves a real exchange of information, repetition, drills, speeches, etc. .Communication activities are not simply grammar practice activities, for although the teacher could offer likely grammar or vocabulary before the activity, the main aim for the students is achieving successful communication rather than accurate use of particular items of language.Speaking can not be taught separately, It is often connected with listening, so we often speak of listening and speaking, The traditional way of listening and speaking is aural-oral method, Now the new method of two-way communication is very popular, “There are functional communication activities and social interaction activities 2”.As you know that any teaching method has its psychological base, The aural-oral method began in the 1940s .It is based on behaviourism, one of its psychological theories, is that learning a language is forming a set of new language habit, This is its usual process, Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement. The aural-oral method is fit for the teaching of beginning stage, It focuses on the practice of oral English drills .But too many drills are practiced without any context or given condition, so what is learned is isolated clauses and it has few communicative function.The two-way communication makes up for the defect in communicative ability in the traditional teaching . Two-way means the relationship of communication between the teachers and the students. This relationship is connected with the communicative activities . between two people, This method is different from the traditional aural-oral method, But it also bases on the process of S-R-R, so we call it a new type of aural-oral method which has some peculiarities. Because it can create a fresh environment for speaking English, It needs some necessary explanations of grammar, Hints are the major way of practice.Teacher can control the practice wholly or partly, The practice can also be controlled by students freely, The internal force of study, is not due to the interest in phonetic structure but the content of material .To make the correct response, For example :T: Ask me if I am a student .S: Are you a student?T: Tell-me-, No, you are a teacher.S: No, I am a teacher.In this example, Ask me means that the students must say a sentence “while” “Tell me” show that the students must say a decarative sentence, But before doing this, the teacher must explain something about the exchange of interrogative sentence and declarative sentence.The two-way communication can lengthen the dialogue limitlessly, This is its advantage, At the same time, if the students want to give the correct response, he or she has to think it is hard .The sentence is not easily forgotten which is created by themselves though thinking, Sometimes, with the teacherhint, you can talk freely, also you can express yourself as well as you can .For example:T: Ask me how many people there are in our classroom?S: How many people are there in our family ?T: Tell me there are forty- nine .S: There are forty-nine .T: Ask me what my parents do?S: What do your parents do ?T: Tell me your father is a teacher, and your mother is a doctor.S: My father is a teacher, and my mother is a doctor .T: Ask me if my father likes his job .S: Does your father likes his job?T: Tell me if he likes teaching very muchS: Sure, he likes teaching very much.About these questions, If you want to ask more about “father” or other family members, the dialogue can go on as far as possible, So, in a word, the aural-oral method is not a out-of-date one, but a useful one .Especially, it is fit for the beginning stages It attaches the importance to the oral drills, It is only used to phonetic base, After all, the aim of the language learning is to communicate, So the two-way communication is more effective and direct, but it is also fit for the beginning stages .While the teacher provides some feedback and correction, this plays a much less central part in his or her classroom duties, The teacher has the co-figurative role of equal and helper rather than the wise person of the academic style or the martinet of the audio-lingual .This is a jump in cultural terms from the traditional teacher-lead class and hence disconcerts or indeed alienates, those from cultures who see education differently, A communicative style with its emphasis on spontaneous production by the learners is unlikely to go down well with cultures that value silence and respect.1.2 Classroom speaking Like listening ability, speaking ability should partly be the natural result of using English as the main means of communication in the classroom, But speaking, will probably develop more slowly than listening, It can help learners understand what you say in English by simplifying your speech and use gesture or mime, You cannot so easily get them to express themselves in English, but, when they do, always show you are pleased even if what they say is far from perfect, ” Try to take every opportunity in class to get the learners to use language that has been introduced previously 3 ”,Ask them questions, or ask them to tell you about something, The convention use of English can also be achieved with learners working in pairs or groups .“If you want the learners to be convenes in English, you need to make the classroom a conversation place, If the learners do not talk naturally during the course of each lesson, it is hardly surprising when they can still hardly speak at all after hundreds of hour and several years of English classes4”.1.3 Speaking activities “The teacher would help to prepare students for real life speech in English according to these: reading aloud, giving a prepares talk, learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart, interviewing someone, or being interviewed, doing a drill5”. Most of the activities are very common in tradition language teaching, The only activities that would help students prepare for spontaneous speech would be the fourth one :interviewing someone or being interviewed, This is not to say that the other activities have no value ;but they do not help prepare the learner for the type of speaking that is most common in daily life .The only other activity that is realistic is the second one :giving a prepared talk, but this would usually not be required of any of the students until they were at an advanced level of English, Prepared by the intermediate level, this kind of activities could be used, but it should not be emphasized . The other three activities, reading aloud, memorizing a dialogue by heart, and doing a drill are merely language practice activities that have very little basis in real life (although reading aloud helps the development of literacy in first language learning ) and therefore need to be supplemented with more realistic activities especially as the level of the learner increase . We have already considered a range of oral practice activities, from controlled accuracy work to fairly free fluently work, In oral fluent practice, the main objective is to get them to use the items in conversation and other common communication without hesitation, even if they make mistake .Their attention should be more on the information, they are communicating than on the language, Oral fluent work should continue if possible into free conversations, but we will restrict our attention here to fluent practice intended to consolidate the learning of specific language items, fluency practice on the other hand, usually combines them with other language, Because of this emphasis on communication and on the more natural use of language, the choice of topics, activities, and type of interaction are even more important in fluency practice than in accuracy practice, All the activities in this progression from accuracy to fluency can contribute to the development of speaking skills, Even non-communicative oral practice can help develop pronunciation and the fairy automatic production of grammatical sequences of words, But it is the types of activity that develop the ability to participate effectively in interactions outside the classroom .Among the speaking activities were script-bases, role-plays, or simulations, script-based conversations, and form-bases interviews or surveys, These activities were included there because the examples given were designed to elicit repetition of specific grammatical functional items, Although they are examples of activities designed to encourage learners to communicate as naturally as possible, teachers and learners would be aware that recently presented language wad being practiced .Attention would almost inevitably be focused to a considerable extent on the new language forms .In natural communication, attention is not usually focused on the language used, but on the messages it conveys, These messages are only partially predictable .for the topic may change quite suddenly, The language is also partially predictable, In natural listening, speaking situation the listeners must be able to handle such shifts of topic and unpredictable language in listening, and then they must be able to improvise their responses.The feasibility of providing opportunities for learners to speak naturally in class will depend to a large extent on the type of learners and course you are teaching, with beginners and with very large groups, the possibilities may be quite limited, In such circumstances, you may have to be satisfied with incidental classroom speaking and some carefully planned and organized fluency practice activities like those mentioned above, However, you can repeat some of these same activities later in a course without such extensive preparation, The learners will then have to work partly from their memory of the original activity, and partly improvise, They will no longer be using language that has just been presented, In fact, they will have to function almost as if they were using English in communication outside the classroom Here is an example:T: Do you remember the consultation with a doctor, we did it last month .S1:YesS2:More or less T: More or less, right, visitor ! what were some of the patients problem ?S3:headache, stomach-ache, backache, earache .T: Right, lot of aches ! what else?S4: Insomnia, nausea .T: Right, now, in pairs, image you are in doctors surgery, one of you is the doctor and the other is the patient.It is important in this kind of activity to monitor as many pairs as possible, nothing how well they might manage in a real consultation, You should also note language problem that will need attention later .The pairwork can be followed by a few pairs, You can tell the learners to extent the conversation if they can, and talk about things such as likes and dislikes, and places they have visited, In fact, you could have a “party”, a “wedding” or a “cruise” “one a month” and encourage all the learners to go beyond the original script, These kinds of activity can be used even with beginners, especially highly motivated, But they will probably work best in upper elementary intermediate, or advanced groups, and in smaller groups of learners, Below there are some other activities you cabn use with this kind of group:Teaching ideas:1.3.1 Unscripted role-plays These differ from scripted role-play or simulations because the learners have only a description of a situation and no model script .For example:The living room of a house at one oclock in the morning, The patents have been waiting up, The 14-year-old son or daughter has just arrived home .They may also have a card for each role, For example:Mother: you are furious, you phoned your son or daughters best friends, Adam and Alice, your son and daughter was not with either .Father: you are a bit angry, but you are tired and would prefer to go to bed and tomorrow.Son or daughter : start by lying that you were studying at Adams house .then that you were at a party at Alices house, finally, tell the truth you went to a disco .Get the learner to improvise the discussion in groups of three mother, father and son / daughter, If they have role cards, they should not look at one anotherscards, when the groups have finished their improvisations get one or more of them to act out their role-play in front of the class .1.3.2 Problem solving/decision-talking activities Describe a problem to the learners, or given them a written description .For example:You see a fellow worker in your office steal a portable computer, you know he /she is the single parent of two young children and has financial problems, get the learner in group of three to five, to decide what the best course of action .1.3.3 Discussion and debatesOrganize an informal discussion or a formal debate on a topic of interest to the learners, get them to propose or select the topic ;It is often best to decide on the topic the lesson before the actual discussion or debate.1.3.4 Group projects Speaking in small groups is more natural, because in real life, The students spend most of time talking to one other person or to a few other people .If the students speak to a large group of people, it is usually a more formal situation where spent time preparing what the students are going to say, ”Different small groups can work at different levels, if the teacher groups them according to language proficiency level6”.For the cause of their choice, for example .save the rainforest, support a street childrens home, or support AIDS research If you hear anyone, Speaking in their first language as they work on the project the group loses a point, There is an exhibition of the posters, and all the learners note for the best one (15 points ), the second best (10 points ), and the third best (5 points ),Deduct any points for speaking the first language during the project