The Problems and Countermeasures on Spoken English Teaching in High School1

1、高中英语口语教学的问题与对策the problems and counter-measures on spoken english teaching in high schoolcontentsabstract.1key words.1i. introduction.2ii. literature review3iii. problems and countermeasures on spoken english teaching in high school.41. problems in spoken english teaching.42. countermeasures on spok

2、en english teaching.63. classroom activities.91) discussion.92) speeches.103) dialogues and role-plays.10iv. conclusion.11references.12the problems and counter-measures onspoken english teaching in high schoolabstract: as an important expressing method, speaking embodies the speakers expressing and

3、communicative abilities through language. nowadays in the international communications and competitions, personnel with high ability of spoken english have more and more important position. however, for a long period, many high schools have ignored spoken english in their teachings as fettered by th

4、e idea of education for test. consequently, most students spoken english levels are quite low. as a result, we should take effective measures to enhance the training of spoken english, improving the overall qualities of the students, and then strengthen their ability to adopt and take charge of the

5、society. this paper points out the problems preventing the high school students from improving their spoken english and suggests some countermeasures to solve these problems. key words: spoken english teaching; problems; countermeasures摘 要: 口语作为一种主要的表达方式，体现表达者利用语言表达思想，进行交流的能力。在当今国际交往和竞争中, 具有较高英语口语能力

6、的人才日显重要。然而, 长期以来, 由于受应试教育思想的束缚, 许多高中在英语教学中相当程度上忽视了英语口语教学, 导致学生大多口语水平低, 故应采取切实有效措施, 大力加强对高中生英语口语能力的培养, 促进其全面素质的提高, 增强其适应和驾驭社会的能力。这篇论文指出阻碍高中学生提高英语口语的问题，同时提出一些解决问题的对策。关键词：英语口语教学； 问题； 对策i. introductionenglish teaching in china is usually affected by politics. before 1976 english teaching was put at a se

7、cond position in schools, the priority in english language teaching was given to reading and writing, then listening and speaking. during the great cultural revolution, english teachers were criticized for talking foreign nonsense and asked to work in the countryside and in factories. but now englis

8、h speaking is focused on by more and more people. the syllabus for foreign language (english) teaching made by the chinese education commission has emphasized that priority should be given to english speaking and listening. some english teachers have changed their traditional teaching method to the

9、communicative teaching method. at the same time, many schools have run o lot of short-term and part-time english conversation classes for the people who are eager to improve their speaking skill in order to meet the urgent need of today society.english，as an extensively used international language，h

10、as already become the no.l language in the world. with the development of economy in our country, each field is opening to the outside world widely with quick speed. we need to absorb more advanced technology from the developed world. now, its really hard to imagine what will happen if we dont grasp

11、 the speaking skills of the english language. in the past years, speaking was not thought to be as important as the other language skills in english teaching. reading and writing are always put in the first place. as a result，the schools trained many deaf persons and dumb persons. oral and written a

12、re formed by using the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. listening and speaking forms the oral circulation which is by far the most widely adopted approach by human beings with the characteristics of faster speed, transient existence and convenient application. reading and writi

13、ng forms the written circulation that is more enduring and preserving. to ask someone something, with the development of modern communication system, you only need a few seconds. but to write a letter and get the answer may take you a couple of days. a teachers role in teaching english as a foreign

14、language is to provide the students with comfortable circumstance. he or she should be a director rather than an explainer. quiet classroom produce few attempts at speaking a language. one students speaking to the teacher produces a quiet classroom and progress for one student only. twenty-five stud

15、ents speaking to twenty-five partners produce a fairly loud classroom and progress for all fifty students.the application of communicative principles of teaching english as a foreign language is likely the key to the success of teachers teaching approaches. researchers show that “when their attentio

16、n is off the form of the language and on the process of communicating, students will learn best”. so how to help the students to associate what they are learning with their real life, how to find topics for them to talk about in english, how to guide and encourage them to speak in and out of class b

17、ecome some of the vital questions that should be concerned by the teachers who teach english as a foreign language in high school in china.ii. literature reviewspeaking is the skill that the students will be judged upon most in real-life situation. it is an important part of everyday interaction and

18、 most often the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. so, the teachers 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.speaking is a

19、skill, just like swimming, driving a car, or playing ping-pong. too often, in the traditional classroom, the learning of english has been relegated to linguistic knowledge only, e.g. knowledge of vocabulary and grammar rules, with little or no attention paid to practicing language skills. how can we

20、 tell the difference between knowledge and skill? bygate points out one “fundamental difference is that both can be understood and memorized, but only a skill can be imitated and practiced.” one of the characteristics of speech in everyday life is that speech is spontaneous. that is, in most situati

21、ons; people do not plan ahead of time what they are going to say. only in more formal situations, such as when a person has been asked to give a speech, do people plan and organize their speech. the fact that speech is spontaneous means that it is full of false starts, repetitions, incomplete senten

22、ces, and short phrases. so, should we expect the students to produce complete sentences in the language classroom? bygate points out those teachers may be requiring their students to do more forward-thinking and planning than native speakers do in real life!an oral communication is the joint of two

23、aspects, speaking and learning. so, a potential good speaker must have a lot of practice in listening. only when he is good at understanding others english can he possibly become a good speaker (rubin1975). poor students are those who depend on the teacher and are least able to speak out in class. t

24、he teacher must encourage his/her students to develop independence inside and outside the classroom. the students must be trained to direct their own learning, to make responsibility for their own learning. they choose their goals; they control their teaching and materials; they assess how well they

25、 are doing themselves (cook1991). communication supplies chances for learner to improve their listening ability. listening is not just a separate skill from speaking, but forms the foundation for speaking. learning how to speak helps the person with other skills as well as listening. knowledge is ac

26、quired by listening converts into knowledge of speaking (cook1991). communication creates realistic situation under which learners are encouraged to practice speaking naturally, flexibly and effectively. in real situations, learners are forced to find and sometimes even invent the language necessary

27、 for the completion of the communication. they may make mistakes when doing it, but finally they “learn how to mean” from a more active situation (xu1996).in fact, from a long-term point of view, speaking is more useful than listening, reading and writing in communication. speaking，as one of the mai

28、n language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), plays a very important role in language, especially in oral communication. the modern view of education strongly processes that learners must always be involved in the teaching-learning process. involving the learners gives them the much

29、needed boost and propels them to take responsibility for their learning. it is also the case, maybe even more important in the english class, what the author will advocate here is that instead of being teacher-centered, where teachers decide what they should teach and how they should teach, teachers

30、 must think of ways to stimulate their students to be actively involved in the teaching and learning process.iii. problems and countermeasures on spoken english teaching in high school1. problems in spoken english teachingcommunicative activities are the basic and usual social activities in our dail

31、y life in nowadays. the human beings just use communication to open themselves, and get a large amount of communication, enhance their emotion, receive the social culture and the social rules, it make the human beings develop very well. improving spoken english is for the need of developing of moder

32、n times. but there are many problems in spoken english teaching in high school. one common problem in english learning is that many students take great pains to improve the english sounds they produce while neglecting stress and intonation. this type of learning is not affective because sometimes st

33、ress and intonation matter more than the individual sounds do. experiments have demonstrated that often when a native speaker mishears something; it is because the foreigner has put the stress on the wrong place, not because he/she has mispronounced the sounds of the word, e.g. “written” is pronounc

34、ed as ritein. many students cannot read vowels and consonants correctly. they cannot control the stress of double syllabus and several syllabuses well. there are several problems in their reading sentences. 1) they cannot control the stress of the sentences well. 2) it is not clear in long sentences

35、 and stop. 3) intonation is not correct.many students can speak english fluently and they have no problem in their pronunciation, stress and intonation, and also they have high desire to communication, but sometimes they do not know what to say. even though some of them can say something, they hold

36、back by their mistakes. they hesitate to speak english because they are afraid of making mistakes, they simply will never achieve big progress. that is the problem that how the teachers help the students to overcome it. even though they want to say in class, there are about 60 students in every clas

37、sroom, it is difficult for every student to have he chance to practice spoken english in class. and can the teacher be heard by the students who sit in the back of the classroom? everyone talks about working in pairs and groups. and chinese students behave very well when they work in pairs and group

38、s. can the teacher give all the groups chances to perform? how do the teachers monitor them and what are the results?traditionally, when many teachers applied the cramming method of teaching, they like to give direct explanations of the language phenomena to the students rather than encourage them t

39、o think, to summarize and grasp the usage of the language points independently by asking them questions. in that case, students are lack of motivation to think actively about the teaching content, they were just passive learners. as a result, teachers may dwell a lot on something while it is very ea

40、sy for students to forget. in addition, too often we find that students who have studied english for six years (junior and senior middle school) cannot communicate in english. this phenomenon results from the system of examination attaches greater importance to the accumulation of facts and written

41、english. teachers and students, too much obsessed with the attempt to pass the examinations, while listening and speaking are ignored in teaching.many chinese teachers who teach english as a foreign language put too much stress on reading which is one of the four skills. a good class is usually desc

42、ribed as “so quiet that even the sound of dropping a needle can be heard” and the traditional way of teaching is to follow this formula “pronunciation + vocabulary + grammar + translation. ” in a typical english class, the teacher reads the words and the students repeat them. then the teacher reads

43、the text, explain some grammar points and translate the text into chinese. the teacher keeps speaking for most of the class time and forces the students to offer their ears only. they have little chance to speak or talk in english unless the teacher asks them. what the students are supposed to do is

44、 simply sitting through the class hour and taking some notes, or dreaming about the heavy burden of learning english and passing examination. many students have the desire to speak, but there are some problems in their saying, for example, “our class has twenty boys and ten girls”. according to engl

45、ish, it should be “there are twenty boys and ten girls in our class.” this is inter-lingual interference. “he opened the door.” it is the result of the speaker add suffix after original shape of the past times of the word. this is intra-lingual interference. “mary told his mother a lie” it is made b

46、y psychological factor and objective environment. this may be the speaker say “her” instead of “his” because of psychological nerves. this is non-linguistic interference. 2. countermeasures on spoken english teachingteachers should help and instruct students to take good use of conditions, arouse th

47、e interesting of students to study spoken english. teachers should help students to use effective ways to study. the students can improve their spoken english according to much practice.the teachers should make the students notice that, language is the tool of communication; the need of communicatio

48、n is the basic motivation of english learning. cultivating ability of english learning is cultivating integrative ability, spoken english is as important as listening, reading and writing. on the basic of having good attitude of study, the teachers should give topic, which is related to real life; m

49、ake the students have something to say. they should have acceptable pronunciation that the others can understand when they are speaking. so, pronunciation is very important in speaking. for sounds, it is important to combine drilling pronunciation exercises with more meaningful exercises whatever as

50、pect of pronunciation is the focus for the lesson. the teachers can ask students to distinguish minimal pairs of words. e.g. will and well, till and tell, fill and fell. the teacher reads pairs of words and asks the students to tell if the pairs of words are the same or different. e.g. met and meet,

51、 well and will. the teacher can ask the students to repeat what the teacher says. this activity can practice individual sounds, individual words, groups of words and sentences. for stress, the teacher can use gestures. the teacher can indicate the stress by clapping hands or using arm movements as i

52、f conducting music. the teacher can use the voice. the teacher can raise the voice to indicate stress. this can be done with some exaggeration sometimes. the teacher also can use the blackboard. they can highlight the stress by underling them or writing them with colored chalks or in different size.

53、 for intonation, the teacher can use rising or falling arrows. when having the class, the teacher should speak loudly to make sure all the students can hear clearly and give them more chances to practice and encourage them to speak. so the teacher can check whether the students are following.for tea

54、ching, leading in class is the main method that teachers apply to make students get into classes. good leading in will easily fire up these boys and girls studying interest and enthusiasm so as to attract their attention to the teaching buildup and arrangement and in this way teachers naturally will

55、 have a good beginning of the courses. teachers can adopt many kinds of leading in. in a specific occasion teachers had better choose the best one. and they should make a change when condition changes. teachers should change their leading in if students dislike invariable programs. as long as teache

56、rs choose different leading in for different courses the students will have fresh and new feelings so as to achieve teachers aim that is to fire up the studying interest and enthusiasm of students. there is an old saying goes: “interest is the best teacher.” when a student is interested in a certain

57、 subject, he/ she has the motivation to make persistent effort to obtain the knowledge relates to that object in spite of difficulties, in other words, he/she becomes an active, quick and efficient learner. many high school students like to show off themselves. if the teachers can satisfy this psychological need of students in classroom teaching, their interest in learning english can be greatly aroused. in order to achieve this goal, various english activities, such a