论文总字数：33123字

摘 要

随着经济的快速发展，英语作为第二语言越来越受到中国人的欢迎。虽然在中国男女老少都在学习英语，但是只有一小部分的人可以流利地用英语与别人交流。即使是在雅思或托福考试中获得高分的人，或许也只是个“哑巴”。因为中国人重写轻说。众所周知，口语是英语学习的重要部分，交流也就避免不了运用口语。因此，在本文中，作者将会对英语口语教学中的主要问题进行分析并且尝试提出解决这些问题的策略。

关键词：英语口语教学；现状；问题；策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Significance and Complexity of Oral English Teaching 4

3.1 Significance of oral English teaching 4

3.2 Complexity of oral English teaching 4

4. Problems in Oral English Teaching 6

4.1 The examination–oriented education 6

4.2 Lack of speaking circumstance 6

4.3 Traditional teaching method 7

4.4 Big class activities 8

4.5 Psychological barriers 8

5. Solutions to Change the Current Situation 9

5.1 Quality-oriented education 9

5.2 Creation of an English environment 10

5.3 Adoption of modern teaching methods 10

5.4 Development of interest 12

5.5 Cultivation of self-confidence 13

6. Conclusion 14

Works Cited 16

1、Introduction

People, all over the world, are learning English because they have acknowledged the significance of mastering the worldwide language, which is beneficial for us to acquire information. People of all ages and both sexes are taking time to learn English however tired or busy they are.

As we know, learning a language is for the purpose of communication and speaking is the most basic means of human communication. Just think of all the different conversations we have in a day and compare that with how much written communication we do in a day. It is obvious that speaking plays an important role to contribute to human basic communication. If we want to communicate effectively, we must have strong speaking ability. According to Savage amp; Bailey, the most demanding of the four skills is to speaking in a second language. Clear and fluent speaking ability is beneficial for students to achieve success both in their life and at school. Hence, it is essential for students and teachers to pay much attention to oral English.

However, the situation of middle school oral English teaching and learning is far from optimistic. Many students who can get good marks in examinations are unable to use English to communicate clearly and fluently because of examination-oriented education, lack of an English speaking environment and traditional teaching methods and so on. Therefore, doing some research on oral English teaching is very necessary. In the following context, the author will analyze the problems and try to put forward some solutions to oral English teaching. She hopes that her research can contribute to the improvement of middle school students’ oral English.

2. Literature Review

Under Chinese present situation, more and more graduates with higher proficiency are required. However, a lot of middle school students are unable to communicate fluently due to their poor oral English. Thus, it is an urgent task for middle school teachers to help students improve their oral English to the required level. In this part, the author will review the literature of oral English teaching, so as to lead more English teachers to put forward new and effective ways of oral English teaching.

Listening-based method

For a long time, listening has always been considered as a process of decoding speech. Logically, second language learners can not learn a language if they never hear it. It is regarded as code breaking process. Language learns work out the language code from the message by listening.

James Asher’s total physical response method (TPR) was one of the first to view listening as code breaking. It claimed that listening to commands and carrying them out was an effective way of learning a second language. TPR stresses learning by means of physical actions.

Communicative methods

The communicative methods are the methods that have stressed the learner’s dual roles as both listeners and speakers. They believe that it is helpful to listen to authentic language consisting of judiciously chosen samples of unexpurgated native speech. Authentic speech evidently needs to be made comprehensible by one method or anther if it is to be useful to the learner. (Cook, 2000: 67)

According to listening-based teaching method TPR stresses learning by means of physical actions. English teachers have tried to use listening in oral English class. However, students just listen and imitate the speakers mechanically with little alteration of the context. Because of students’ unauthentic oral English, their speaking English can not lead to satisfactory outcome or even brings about communication failure even though they can interact with each other. Thus, the present listening-based methods can hardly meet the need of intermediate level. (Jeremy 35)

Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis

According to Krashen and Long, the availability of comprehensive input is the foundation of the Second Language Acquisition before the learners’ internal processing mechanism can work.

What Krashen strongly holds is that exemplars of language forms must be contained in input, which the learners need for SLA to take place.

Long introduces his view in details on how to make input comprehensible. He comes up with three possible ways. One is by the use of structures and vocabulary. Another way is by a ‘here and now’ orientation. A third way is through the modification of the interactional structure of conversation.

Krashen also proposes that for the sake of oral English learning and teaching, teachers should combine listening-based methods together according to the comprehensible input hypothesis. SLA can occur only on the condition that students are able to understand messages in the target language. (krashen and Terrell, 1983:34) H e claims that all teaching methods that work utilize the fundamental pedagogical principle of providing comprehensible input: if X is shown to be good for acquiring a second language, X helps to provide comprehensible input, either directly or indirectly. (Krashen,2000: 19)

Present oral English teaching situations in middle schools

In order to cater to the need of improving students’ oral English, textbooks have been designed since people have put more and more emphasis on students’ communicative competence.

Most of English teachers practice the instructions according to the syllabus of the textbooks being used. Oral practices mainly focus on the materials offered in the textbook. Little contextual alteration has been made because the teachers rely too much on the textbooks.

On the contrary, textbook materials are not necessarily suitable for students at various levels. Furthermore, some tasks seem too outdated to keep pace with the fast developing society. Also, teachers are the only model-source, but nobody can ensure the qualification of their oral English because they are not native English speakers.

3. Significance and Complexity of Oral English Teaching

To master a language is a demand of the 21^st century, because the century is knowledge–economy time in which technology and science are the most important elements. English is a tool to train students’ capability to use it, and the capability can be reflected in oral English. Thus, oral English teaching is universally viewed as the most significant part in English teaching. However, it is not easy for Chinese middle school teachers to teach oral English because the complexity of language itself.

3.1 Significance of oral English teaching

During the process of English learning and teaching, developing each of the four skills, which include listening, speaking, reading and writing, can reinforce the others. As one of the most significant skills, speaking should be developed. Therefore, the development of speaking benefits that of students’ reading and writing skills. What’s more, speaking is a kind of active and productive language skill

English is not only a kind of important and popular language but also a kind of useful tool for communication, which is widely used in the international economics, politics, science, military affairs, etc. However, traditional English teaching pays much attention to students’ examination-oriented ability, but pays little attention to students’ communicative ability. As a matter of fact, it is to communicate with others in English that the ultimate purpose of English learning is. We had better pay attention to oral English teaching, which contributes to fluent communication. It is widely accepted that nobody can live without any communication with others because people need to acquire and exchange information through it.

3.2 Complexity of oral English teaching

According to Brown, some idiosyncrasies of spoken language make speaking skills somewhat difficult to obtain. (Brown, 2001: 27)

Stress

In speech, stress is referred to the degree of intensity or loudness placed on a sound. In order to give words or syllables importance, people are likely to put much emphasis on them. Stress can affect both the vowels’ quality and the words’ rhythmic flow. If you put correct stress on words and sentences, your communication maybe go on in a good way；if not, there may not have communication at all. Thus, when you speak English, you had better pay special attention to the stress.

Rhythm

Every language in the world has its own rhythmic patterns. The rhythm of English is due to the combination of words or syllables with strong stress with those with weaker or reduced stress and this kind of combination is typical in English. Therefore, English speakers always make some parts of words stronger and clearer, join some words together, arrange words into groups and join them together. Following the rules, speakers are more likely to convey their message and communicate successfully. On the contrary, if they neglect these rules and say every English word and syllable in a weak or strong way, listeners may misunderstand their meanings or intentions. Hence, students must master the rhythm of English so that they can communicate effectively.

Intonation

Intonation is defined as the melody of language. Intonation is the total pattern of pitch changes, such as the rising and falling of the voice when a person is speaking, within an utterance. (Wang Guizhen, 2010:57) Intonation is an important element of spoken English, which makes English sound authentic. Speakers can use the same utterances to express their different feelings and convey their true intentions by different pitches. Intonation patterns, which are not agree with the content of the utterance, may indicate doubt or confusion. The intonation patterns of spoken English pay a crucial role in conveying messages.

4. Problems in Oral English Teaching

Analyze the present situation in current oral English teaching by analyzing the problems. The present situation of oral English teaching is that English teachers pay much attention to students’ input, so a lot of students have poor oral English. Of course, their poor oral English accounts for various kinds of reasons that are not good for raising their communicative ability. Thus, to know the present problem’s of oral English teaching is of great importance.

4.1 The Examination–oriented education

In China, examinations are the only means to check students’ studies and evaluate teachers’ teaching which result in the phenomenon that both teachers and students put much emphasis on examinations. However, there is no speaking examination at all. On the teachers’ part, the standard of their working effect is students’ marks. Thus, they would like to teach grammar, vocabulary, listening and writing instead of teaching oral English so that their students are more likely to get higher marks in examinations. On the students’ part, under present examination–oriented situation, they can not recognize the importance of speaking. What they care about is to be admitted by key universities, so they must do their best to get high marks in examinations. In addition, they don’t know how to practice their oral English without the correct guiding of teachers, What’s more, some students are not interested in speaking English at all.

4.2 Lack of speaking circumstance

There is an old saying, “Boxing can not leave hand such as singing can not leave mouth.” It is the good language environment that is needed to improve students’ oral English. The environment can train students’ judgment skill, language sense and comprehension skill. However, our middle school students do not have such speaking environment.

This phenomenon is easily understood if you connect it with the first language acquisition, which is a natural process to move on for Chinese students because they are in good Chinese environment. As mother tongue, Chinese students can practice it everywhere from schools to families because people all around them all use Chinese to communicate. Thus, for Chinese students, the proficiency of Chinese is much higher than English. It is obvious that the language environment is quite important for students to acquire the language.

Nevertheless, the current situation for middle students who want to raise their oral English competence is serious. First, teachers do not notice the importance of oral English environment and do not create a good environment for students since they only focus on students’ writing and reading. Besides, in order to let students learn language points well, teachers always use Chinese in classes unless other teachers come to watch their lessons. Second, students dare not speak English in their daily lives for lacking in confidence or motivation. Students are surrounded by people, who speak Chinese in their daily life, such their family members, relatives, classmates and teachers, so it is a little bit strange for a student to speak English. Perhaps, students are worried about their pronunciation. Motivated by the marks, students would rather spend more time on their homework rather than on speaking. So there comes with the problem how students can improve their oral English in such a language environment.

4.3 Traditional teaching method

In traditional teaching, English teachers are the centre of class and they are highly influenced by the old teaching pattern---the Grammar Translation Method. They use Chinese to explain new words or experiences and teach a new text by translating each word into Chinese so that students can learn more and understand more. Thus, students can never become independent. They are just good listener and need not speak English in English classes at all.

The traditional teaching method greatly affects students’ oral English. Students taught by that method are unable to use simple English to communicate in their daily life, such as going shopping or booking tickets in English. On the contrary, they maybe just know how to write down their ideas on papers, yet they can not express their own ideas directly in oral English.

Although some new teaching methods have come forward, the traditional teaching method is still widely used in English classes.

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