论文总字数：33978字

摘 要

目前英语是世界上通用的语言。英语作为世界语言，英语教学近年来在全球越来越受到重视。然而,中国的英语教学模式过分注重语法分析，片面追求升学率，忽略学生的英语文化素养的提高，导致大多数学生的口语交际能力缺失。教育工作者应在培养学生英语基础学习能力的同时注重口语训练与教学以培养学生的口头表达能力。本文将以“外研社杯”全国大学生英语竞赛为例，根据辩论赛的特点揭示中国课堂教学模式的现状和不足,探究将辩论引入课堂的可行性并提出相关策略，以期对学生的外国语言应用交际能力的培养发挥指导和借鉴作用。

关键词：外研社杯全国大学生英语辩论赛；辩论；语言运用能力；中国课堂教学模式

Contents

1. Introduction 4

2. Literature Review 5

2.1 Debate in America 5

2.2 Debate in China English teaching 6

3. The Present Situation in English Teaching in China 7

3.1 Paying too much attention to grammar analysis 7

3.2 Memorizing mechanically 8

3.3 Lacking of language environment 8

3.4 Neglecting the improvement of students’ cultural attainments 9

3.5Misunderstanding the mistake 10

4. Application of Debate in Teaching 11

4.1 Feasibility of debate in English teaching 11

4.2 Principles of debate in English teaching 13

5. Advantages of Applying Debate in English Teaching in China 15

5.1 The effects on teaching 15

5.2 The effects on students 16

6.Conclusion 17

Works Cited 17

1. Introduction

FLTRP National English Debate Contest (abbreviated as FLTRP NEDC) is the only national English debate tournament in China. Since it was founded in 1997, due to a grand scale of events, excellent participants, international schedule and score standards, and authoritative judges, FLTRP NEDC, one of the first-level of English debate contests, has represented the highest level of oral English teaching in China indisputably.

English speech and debate are the embodiment of the English language comprehensive ability. As English is popular and frequently used in international exchanges all over the world, people have more chances to use English to make a speech or debate: in formal academic reports, foreign friends’ banquet, all types of speech and debate contests, and so on. English speech and debate are the basic and necessary skills of today’s students, it should be taken seriously in school education. The eighth level of the target language skills in the Ordinary High School English Curriculum (experimental edition) states that: "Be able to prepare for a 3-minute speech about the general topic." The goal of ninth level is: "Be able to prepare for a 5-10 minutes speech on some special subjects and answer questions about it." Moreover, speech and debate as a class, language application have also been listed as one of any high school elective courses. Speech and debate are listed as one of the arbitrary elective courses of high school as a language application class.

Featuring an orderly, efficient and entertaining format, the parliamentary debating style originates from the British Parliamentary debating. Since 2004, FLTRP NEDC has officially adopted the parliamentary debating style，the prevalent debating format across the world. Thereafter，FLTRP NEDC has made positive impacts respectively upon on China"s college debaters, college English teaching and the research of English debate.

At present, Chinese English teaching still adopts the traditional teaching mode. Teachers pass knowledge on to their students according to the teaching material. The purpose of teaching is completing teaching tasks. Teaching is a process of learning, understanding and mastering, which is directly reflected in the teaching material. However, the process of cultivating students’ positive learning attitudes and habits is invisible, it is the teaching content in daily life. Teachers should study and teach in the light of students’ specific conditions. The using of teaching materials which corresponds with the New Curriculum is a significant milestone. With its development in teaching content, the teaching modes have been in rapid change to keep pace with the time. Education should be faced with modernization and future. Therefore, the English teaching modes should keep in change with time.

In a long run, though adopting the parliamentary debating style successfully，FLTRP NEDC is still groping its way towards the demand which adapts to the present status of China so as to cater for the innovation and advancement of Chinese English teaching in the 21st century.

2. Literature Review

A succession of successful host of FLTRP NEDC has been noticed by the English professionals, the event promotes and has far-reaching influence on Chinese English teaching. In the past years, many scholars at home and abroad made unremitting efforts to introduce the debate to English teaching.

2.1 Debate in America

There are lots of researches on debating skills and debating tournaments in foreign countries, many universities have special associations for debate, and hold regular events. In America, for example, a nationwide intervarsity debate contest began as early as 1920 and held every year since then. Moreover, a nationwide debate contest was recorded prior to 1927.(Mus-grave, 1946:140-142) America has a lot of debating organizations such as Speech Association of America, American Forensic Association, The National Forensic League, National Catholic Forensic League, and American Parliamentary Debate Association, some of which already have a history of more than 80 years. In addition, there are various writings related to debating research, ranging from debating skill tutorials to relevant linguistic rhetoric studies, and issued magazines and journals on a regular basis such as Debater"s Magazine, Forensic, Gavel, Persuader, Rostrum, Speaker, Quarterly Journal of Speech, etc.

2.2 Debate in China English teaching

However, there are not many nationwide debates in our country except FLTRP NEDC, which is the only regular large-scale event in China. Although there are occasional writings about studies of English debate, debate competitions and competition system(not only the research of debating skills), the vast majority are just chapters in treatises of English debating, while special researches of debating competitions is so rare as the phoenix. Practical Debating, a handbook compiled by Sue Kay, elucidates the actual skills of English debating, which has a certain guiding significance on practise, but it does not focus on the format, debating theories and the study of history. For and Against written by L.G.Alexander collects and analyzes some essays on hot topics, the articles have deliberated ideas and made a careful and detailed analysis of them, which are very beneficial to learning English. But the book seems more than an instruction on English writing, notably pointing out the language skills and the changing and concluding of argumentative texts. English Speech and Debate complied by Sun Limin is a tutorial based on the English debate teaching, it will be very helpful to cultivate the students’ English critical thinking ability systematically. It is a pity that the book lacks of content about debating competition and format. In recent years, FLTRP NEDC has been held successfully in a row and the influence of the contest has been expanding constantly, some Chinese scholars(Qian Jiyang, 2004; Yin Songtao, 2006; Zhou Feng,2007; Ren Liang’e 2008; Hao Liyin, 2010) began to recognize the English debate plays an important role in English teaching and do academic researches in different levels from different sides. This paper is based on the essence and rule of English debating competition, and it will analyze its application and far-reaching influence on English teaching modes in China.

3. The Present Situation in English Teaching in China

Teaching mode is an abstract teaching theory, a general system of teaching practise, which is multiple and operational. Therefore, there is a certain requirement for teachers to choose and apply the teaching mode, which must correspond to the teaching aims. It is necessary to choose the teaching mode for different courses considering the practical teaching condition. Following are some disadvantages in today’s English teaching mode in China.

3.1 Paying too much attention to grammar analysis

Grammar teaching is an important part of English teaching and has great influence on it. However, some teachers think that mastering grammar rules is the main content of language teaching, and they pay too much attention to the interpretation of grammar knowledge. They are willing to spend a lot of time instilling the minds of students with grammar knowledge, making the English class filled with "cramming education". These teachers are mainly affected by traditional grammar-translation school. The traditional grammar-translation school argues that English learners should understand and use the language by learning the language grammar rules(Chen Shiqing, 2006:338). Under the pressure of the senior high school and college entrance examination, some schools in China still adopt this teaching mode actually.

Therefore, Hu Wenzhong(2009:13) has pointed out: “Chinese middle school English teaching has spent too much time on grammar learning for many years. It seems that English learning achievements depend on the mastery degree of grammar knowledge, grammar also accounts for a large proportion in texts. This kind of phenomenon causes students to spend too much time on grammar learning and too little attention on the language itself, leading to poor English practical application ability... After the new curriculum standard was published, middle school English teaching has been in improvement, the teaching material updated constantly. Therefore, the teaching situation presents great changes. However, some schools still focus on teaching grammar rules.” This proves although the new curriculum reform has brought the innovation of education concept and teaching methods, the phenomenon of excessive emphasis on grammar knowledge is still there.

3.2 Memorizing mechanically

The typical teaching mode in ancient society is that students passively accept knowledge from the teacher mechanically. Then comes the direct teaching method proposed by Comenius, the five-step teaching method, Dewey"s pragmatism education mode, etc. However, influenced by the typical traditional teaching mode, many teachers in China ask students to memorize the words mechanically, mainly because the knowledge in the learning material is centered on basic vocabulary and grammar. In this case, the composition is in a monotonous form, students have no interest in learning, thus they memorize the learning content mechanically.

So-called mechanical memory, mainly relies on repeating again and again to achieve the purpose of memory. In the actual teaching, teachers often adopt this method when it is not easy to find out the rules and contact between words. However, accustomed to mechanical memory, students also mechanically memorize the contents which can be dealt with great flexibility.

Mechanical memory method can only develop the students’ reading and writing ability, but students can hardly speak out in an appropriate language environment. It betrays the aim of learning English language. English teachers must break the single teaching mode and establish student-oriented humanism in English teaching. Teachers should correctly choose various teaching methods suited for the students’ characteristics, inspire and care for students" learning enthusiasm in a created language environment. Only in this way can teachers make English teaching develop soundly.

3.3 Lacking of language environment

There is a mistake in English teaching in China for a long time. That is because of the lack of corresponding English language environment, qualified teachers as well as the necessary technical means. English teaching can not combine the language competence with pragmatic competence and cultural background. An appropriate environment is an indispensable factor for students in language learning, especially in foreign language learning. It helps students to learn and use English effectively.

Most English learners will be inevitably affected by the restriction and influence of language environment, but most of today"s English class is controlled by the teacher with the traditional teaching mode, students learn step-by-step and practise mechanically. The process of learning English is much restricted to the accumulation of words and grammar knowledge. In other words, English learning is restricted to the category of grammar and semantics. Whether the writing of the teaching material or the setting of the type of examination questions inflects the emphasis, requirements and inspection on these two aspects, while educators ignore the research and learning on pragmatics. Such cultivated students only master "pure language competence" but lack "actual communicative competence". Although some students want to practise oral English, they can not find a suitable partner or occasion to practise. The lack of language environment and limited-time practises is not conducive to improving the students" oral English competence. In addition, most high schools lack the guidance of the foreign teachers for many reasons, the lack of language environment leads to the lack of English communication habits. As a result, though college students have mastered thousands of English words after more than ten years English learning, they can pass the CET 4 and 6, even get good marks in this kind of tests. However, most students have poor communication ability, especially oral communication ability. Error expression, misuse and misapplication of sentences lead to communication failure. This is the root of the phenomenon “high scores but poor competence” and “time consuming with low efficiency”.

3.4 Neglecting the improvement of students’ cultural attainments

The communicative function of English is becoming more and more important today, so teachers pay more attention to developing students’ communication ability. However, mastering the necessary language knowledge is not enough, cultural attainment is another important factor to successful communication.

Current primary and secondary school teaching materials cover a little content of culture. It brings a lot of difficulties and challenges for teachers to carry out the culture teaching under this language environment.

In colleges, such problems also exist. "Nowadays many English major graduates have not even read the most basic English classics, A Tale of Two Cities, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and so on." In the first East China English teaching seminar host by Shanghai Foreign Language Institute and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, He Zhaoxiong, the honorary president of English College of Shanghai International Studies University, the PhD supervisor, argued College English professional development must return to "nature". Many experts attending the meeting all felt the same way. He points out that at present, English learners use English only as a language tool, have language skills training, while neglecting the English culture learning. For example, courses such as English literature, according to the requirements of the English Curriculum, students must learn for one year, but many schools compress the course into a single semester, some schools even compress all the professional courses.

Both primary and secondary school teachers and university teachers should pay attention to cultivating Students’ Cultural Attainments.

3.5Misunderstanding the mistake

Oral English is different from reading and writing, it is used to communicate with others directly and effectively. In the process of communication, time for thinking, words choice and sentence-making is very limited. So it is hard to avoid some mistakes in the process of communication. But for most students, making a mistake means no face or a shameful thing. Some born bashful students are shy to speak in public. It is well known that the formation of language skills is a long-time process. However, some students’ basic skills are not solid, featuring inaccurate pronunciation and intonation, poor grasp of grammar and so on. These make students fear of difficulty easily, and then a psychological barrier is formed, students being afraid of making mistakes, being laughed at or criticized. As a result, students do not want to speak out any more. Misunderstanding of students’ spoken English mistakes invisibly leads to the related problems in oral English teaching.

4. Application of Debate in Teaching

Application of debate in oral English teaching is an effective way to improve students’ oral English competence, adopting relevant application strategy will be conductive to ensuring its successful implementation.

4.1 Feasibility of debate in English teaching

1. Catering the students’ psychological characteristics

High school students, in a special period of life, are eager to win. The use of the debate effectively caters to the characteristics of the teenagers. First of all, as young people, high school students are always trying to persuade others recognizing or even following their points of view. In other words, they always want to be the winner of the debate rather than a loser. As a stage for war of words, the debate involves students’ sense of honor, greatly mobilizing the students" participation. At the same time, contemporary young people are a pioneering generation, daring to think and show off their talent, having the courage to set up their image among peers, while debate gives students a stage to show themselves. More importantly, adolescence is a period when teenagers can absorb and master new things quickly, they can imitate others in a short time consciously or unconsciously and reflect the shortcomings.

The process of the debate is also a process of weighing the pros and cons of rivals. In this process, they can also imitate others’ pronunciation and organization of phrases effectively. At the same time they also will compare with others to find their shortcomings and correct in time. In addition, the high school students think actively, they can feedback information in a very short period of time. It makes the debate more intense and interesting virtually.

Besides, the time students concentrating on something is relatively limited. At present, they have heavy schoolwork and need some activities to relax. Debate is different from the classroom teaching activities, it has a relatively free communication environment, improving the students’ English study and helping them to relax at the same time, so as to achieve Edutainment.

2. Easy to operate

Different from other activities, the operation of the debate is relatively convenient. What is needed are two groups of four debaters, a referee and timekeepers, the whole process lasts about 40 minutes. At the same time, the requirement of place is easy to satisfy, the debate can be held in the unit of class or group. Small staff requirements and relatively short process make it easy to implement. In addition, the motion is easy to obtain, students can grab motion from newspaper, news and their own life. Since most motions are derived from real life, it is easy to find some information or corpora supporting the debate argument.

High school students as “big kids” are different from other age groups of students. They have mastered some basic knowledge, and have their own value judgment standard. They can also state their opinions reasonably. Having mastered the basic knowledge of English makes it possible to choose appropriate words and integrate the sentences correctly. In this way can they express their own opinions. At the same time their basic knowledge of other subjects or fields helps to choose a proper motion and strong arguments, making the debate on rational process. Easy to operate is the guarantee to carry out debates in high school oral English teaching.

3. The significance of debate on students

Except the features of debate, the significance of debate also should be paid attention to. Beautiful language, rich vocabulary, flexible patterns and accurate logical reasons are all basic skills in debate. The debate, in return, improves the students" ability of oral communication. It requires that the students choose the appropriate words and phrases to express their ideas in the limited time, prompting students to study English vocabulary, phrases, sentence patterns and daily expressions as actual oral expression ability. At the same time, with the increasing number of debate practise , students can improve oral English effectively, which can truly reflect the teaching principle “studying in order to apply” written in English Curriculum. Compared with other forms of oral practise, the debate is usually held in public places. It is a good way to reflect its application in oral English teaching, which help students speak in public bravely. More importantly, the debate, a kind of group activities, is very important for the growth of teenagers. It requires that the students must have team spirit, communicate and cooperate with teammates actively and effectively.

4.2 Principles of debate in English teaching

1. Before the debate

Perfect preparation is the indispensable premise of debate in oral English teaching in high school. As the leader of teaching activities, the teacher should perfect relevant preparations to ensure the orderly conduct of the debate.

First, teachers can help students choose some interesting motions. Because of the limitation of High school students" professional knowledge, teachers can give relevant guidance in this process. For example, recommending relevant books, helping them make an outline, being responsible for answering questions, etc.

At the same time, before the debate the teacher should encourage all the students, including the debaters and the audience, asking them to concentrate.  Students should conduct effective negotiation and communication with their teammates, with the integration of thinking, to express the idea of team with more fluent and logical words.

In addition, the teachers also need to do some extra work to ensure the normal operation of the debate, including preparing the necessary materials, decorating the classroom such as the microphone, timer, and the students" seating arrangements. As the supervisor of teaching activities, the teacher should also urge and examine students to prepare for the debate.

2. During the debate

(1) Encouragement and guidance

Debate is usually held in public, it is nearly impossible for those students who are shy to speak English to argue with others. This kind of students is the main object to carry out oral English teaching. Usually these students are more willing to be the audience, rather than a debater. They have their own opinion on the problems and phenomena in the process of the debate, but they don"t have enough courage to speak in English to express their ideas. Students should be given enough encouragement.

The teacher can also take some measures to help those students to debate. For example, the teacher can ask students to use some simple phrases to express their ideas, or take the rotating, letting every student have the opportunity to speak English. Teachers can use a wink or smile to give students affirmation and encouragement. Teachers provide a relaxed environment as much as possible, so as to gradually cultivate students" self-confidence and make the students speak English smoothly. It is an improvement to the former phenomenon that the teachers say too much while students say too little in English teaching.

(2) Dealing with the mistake reasonably

As a way to practise oral English, mistakes on pronunciation and grammar are inevitable in the process of debate. Teachers should correct the mistakes artistically.

First of all, teachers should let students realize that it is very common to make mistakes in the process of oral practise, which helps students have a correct understanding psychologically. Students should also be aware of their abilities, and then make reasonable measures. They should not enlarge their mistakes.

Secondly, in the process of debate, the teacher should not interrupt to point out the mistake, it may cause a certain psychological burden to the student. The teacher should learn to be a listener when mistake appears, the teacher should remember it and encourage students to go on. Teachers should also have a choice when correcting. The teacher doesn"t have to correct some small fault, especially caused by a slip of the tongue. For some typical errors, the teacher can give suggestions to the students after the debate.

In the process of correction, the teacher should be friendly to help students gradually develop the confidence to speak English as far as possible.

3. After the debate

In essence, a debate is a competition, the result of the competition is winning or losing. High school students are a group of teenagers who are much sensitive about winning or losing. It is very important to evaluate the debate as fairly as possible. A big disadvantage of the current spoken English teaching is that the teacher pays much attention to students" oral communication processes, but ignores the domination of evaluation. The teacher should not only review the winner, but proper affirmation and evaluation should also be given to the failure. Especially in the aspect of improving oral English teaching, teachers are more professional and have more experience than general students. Teachers can also put forward more reasonable suggestions. They should give some advice directly rather than criticize or even satirize. Young people should accept the suggestions from their classmates and teachers humbly when they make mistakes. Reasonable use of these recommendations is a great way to improve students’ oral English competence.

5. Advantages of Applying Debate in English Teaching in China

There is no doubt that FLTRP NEDC has become an important engine to promote Chinese college English teaching to a new level, it makes various influence, especially on English teaching and the students.

5.1 The effects on teaching

1. Introduce English debate into English teaching

FLTRP NEDC promotes the debate into the field of vision of College English Teaching, which starts a kind of new teaching mode that competes to promote the teaching. Whether English major or non-English major, many schools attempt to introduce the mode of debate into the oral English teaching and some schools have successfully offered “English debate class”, the experience is worth referencing and studying.

2. Promote education workers self-development

In addition to providing a platform for the players to learn and communicate mutually, the debate contest provides mutual learning opportunities for all participating educators as well. It is the methodology of "Foreign stones may serve to polish domestic jade." Through discussing the debate training and teaching and watching the game, educators will be inspired, rethink problems existing in the process of teaching, continuously improve until the English training and English teaching have been perfected, and provide ideas on English teaching.

5.2 The effects on students

1. Help students concerned about domestic and international situation

Huang Chengchang, the 11th FLTRP NEDC grand champion, often says that “Preparing a motion surpasses taking a crash professional course.” For example, to prepare for the project “Inclination of News Entertainment”, they not only need to read journalism literature, but also search all kinds of relevant information and hot topics. Only on this basis may they establish argument structure from both pros and cons. Students can grasp a lot of knowledge in the process of preparing the topic. The debater can apply freely with a good habit of learning and accumulation. The coverage of the motion of “FLTRP Cup” debate contest is more and more widely in recent years, the requirements to debaters’ store of knowledge continues improving. Therefore, students need to develop the habit of focusing on current affairs.

2. Students learn to think problem in multiple perspectives

It is very awkward for beginners of debate to support the idea they dislike. However, a trained debater will know that either side of view has its truth, understanding each other may be better to persuade the opposite side. The long-term debate training can church students observe their own views and arguments calmly and objectively exteriorly. In the long term，students tend to consider the issue in multiple perspectives habitually, thus they are more adept at understanding of different points of view.

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