论文总字数：50442字

摘 要

我国的初中学生们接受了几年的英语学习，但是英语口语交际的水平普遍仍然达不到新课程标准的要求，口语交际能力低下，这是众所周知的事实。到底是什么原因造成了这一现象？口语课上学生的消极参与很大程度上造成了学生口语交际能力的止步不前。本文通过观察初中英语口语课堂，提出了初中英语口语课上学生消极参与这一问题。此外，作者从教师和学生两个角度来分析学生在口语课上消极参与的原因。在学生方面，产生这一现象的原因有认知因素，负面情绪以及个性差异等。在教师方面，产生这一现象的原因有传统教学模式，教师提问技巧以及教师课堂评价的影响。针对这些原因，作者提出了一系列有效的解决策略。例如，合理选材和设问，建立良性的评价机制等等。通过这些措施，学生能在英语口语课上主动开口，充分发挥学生的主观能动性，达到提高语言交际能力的目的。

关键词:英语口语教学；消极参与；归因; 解决策略

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….1

2. The problems of students’ negative participation in oral English lessons..2

2.1 The analysis of the problems about students’ negative participation …..…..2

2.2 The harmful effects of students’ negative participation……………………..3

3. The investigation and data analysis...............................................................4

3.1 The investigation design..................................................................................5

3.2 The Questionnaire...........................................................................................7

3.3 The analysis of data.........................................................................................8

4. The reasons for students’ negative participation in oral English lesson....9

4.1 The students’ factor……………………………………………………..…10

4.1.1 Cognitive factor…………………………………………………………11

4.1.2 Anxiety…………………………………………………………………..12

4.1.3 Students’ low confidence………………………………………………..12

4.1.4 Personality………………………………………………………………13

4.2 The teachers’ factor……………………………………………………….13

4.2.1 Traditional teaching model……………………………………………...14

4.2.2 Questioning skill………………………………………………………...14

4.2.3 Classroom evaluation…………………………………………………...14

5. Design of case ‘How to make a fruit salad’…….…………………………14

5.1 Research questions…………………………………………………………15

5.2 Research objects………...………….………………………………………16

5.3 Research steps………………...……………………………………………17

6.The application of practical strategies in 8A Unit3 Integrated Skill.........17

6.1Analysis of teaching material—Unit 3 Integrated skill…………………….18

6.2The ways of eliminating students’ negative emotions……………...……….18

6.3The ways of improving students’ self-confidence……………………......…19

6.4 The strategies for selection of materials and questions.................................20

6.5The ways of Establishing a benignant evaluation mechanism.......................21

7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..22

Works cited........................................................................................................23

Appendix ...........................................................................................................24

1.Introduction

Nowadays, a number of teachers become realize the urgency and significance of improve students’ oral English ability, but when we read many relative research papers, we will still have to admit that for most of our traditional English teaching time consuming and inefficient. Although students accepted English learning for a long time, their spoken English ability is generally low. This paper concludes an investigation on 294 students’ English learning for two years, and its consequence showed that very few of them could properly express their views in English in terms of students" oral English communication. Although students in junior high school have learned English for several years, they have difficulty in expressing their opinions in English smoothly. Why can’t they acquire good oral communication skills after several years of English learning? What causes traditional oral English learning to be time-consuming and inefficient?

It is a fact can’t be denied that students’ oral ability is low, although they have learned English for several years. The reasons for this phenomenon come from many aspects. This paper will discuss one of the main reasons for this phenomenon, that is, students’ passive participation in oral English class. In this paper, the phenomenon of students’ passive participation in oral English class will be deeply analyzed, and the causes and harms of this phenomenon will be expounded. Through the observation and analysis, effective actions are proposed to improve students’ negative participation in oral English class. In this way, students can actively participate in oral English class.

This paper consists of four chapters: the first chapter introduces the main content of the paper and its significance. In the second chapter, the author points out the problem of students’ inactive participation in traditional oral English class, and deeply analyzes the negative impact of students" low participation in oral English classes. In the third chapter, according to the observation, the author analyzes the reasons for students’ negative participation in oral English class from two aspects. In the fourth chapter, according to the causes of this phenomenon, the author proposes a series of effective strategies to improve students" participation in oral English classes.

2. The Problem of Students’ Negative Participation in Oral English Lessons

2.1 The analysis of the problems about students’ negative participation

The process of English teaching itself is a compete process of English language communication. In other words, it is the exchange of any possible information between teachers and students. However, in China, this situation does not often happen in English classes, especially in oral English classes. Chinese teachers often have such complaints, for example, “they always meet a lot of silent students in the oral English class”, “they have a hard time getting students to actively speak in class, and some students even see inviting them to speak as a kind of compulsion”. Junior middle school students in China have mastered more than 1,000 words and hundreds of sentence patterns, but they are still reluctant to take the initiative to express some of their views in English in oral English class. Many foreign teachers have the same experience. Actually, students know how to speak and express themselves! Outside the classroom, in the hallways, and on the playground, you can see many students talking, even sometimes it is hard to stop them from talking! But that"s their mother tongue. In an English class, they can be surprisingly silent and shy about speaking. A number of students can talk about their own different opinions in their mother tongue while they are unwilling to express their opinions in English in the oral English classes.

The majority of Chinese students who learn English are not active enough in oral English classes, which is a fact cannot be denied. A number of students in junior high school are unwilling to open their mouse to talk about their own opinions in oral English class unless they are asked to talk about their opinions by the teacher. What’ worse, there are also a small number of students who are not good at oral English even do not want to speak English in oral English classes. When the teacher invites somebody to speak, they tend to be shy and keep silent. Some students even answer the questions in Chinese. However, many of them have a good command of all kinds of English grammar, and they also have enough vocabulary to support them to express their opinions. However, once they are invited to speak by the teacher or speak in front of many students, they show difficulty in expression or even keep silent, so their participation in the oral class is very low. Generally speaking, college students have received at least nine years of English study, which includes three years of primary school English study and six years of secondary school English study. However, they also have difficulty in using English in oral English class to express their views, or even to answer simple questions raised by foreign teachers.

According to the deeply analysis of the situation about junior high school students’ oral English learning, we can conclude the seriousness of students’ negative participation in oral English class. This problem deserves every teacher’s attention.

2.2 The harmful effects of students’ negative participation

With the strengthening of international communication, we all have to realize the importance of cultivating and improving our oral English. According to Bolinger, who is a famous linguist language, as a method of human communication, language begins in oral form at first and then develops into written form on this basis. In addition, according to Wilkins, if language is considered as a system, changes in pronunciation and intonation will also lead to changes in written language. (Bolinger 56)As we all know, since the reform and opening up, more and more Chinese begin to learn English and China also set off a new wave of English learning all over the country. But the English study concludes many aspects. According to the observation, it is discovered that the Chinese student general spoken language ability is low. Among many reasons, the inactivity in oral English class does great harm to the development of students’ oral ability. It has the following harmful effects:

First of all, students’ passive participation results in some active students becoming the controllers of the class in junior high school. In this case, good students will be better while underachievers will get worse, which will become a vicious circle. Students in the same class cannot get the same development of oral English ability, which is more harmful to the further improvement of students’ oral communication ability in the future.

Secondly, if the problems of students’ passive participation in class cannot be improved, the students who are reluctant to speak up will lose confidence. These students who are not confident will be more reluctant to express themselves actively in future oral classes. Due to the lack of opportunities for oral practice in class, it is difficult for these students to greatly improve their oral communication skills in the future.

Actually, as we all know oral English class itself is a compete process of information transmission and communication between every people. The unwillingness of students to actively participate makes it difficult for teachers to accurately grasp the learning situation of students and improve teaching methods according to specific situations. Meanwhile, it is an undeniable fact that the difficulties in classroom communication between people also hinder the smooth progress of oral English classroom teaching in junior high school.

3. The investigation and data analysis

3.1 The investigation design

For different students, there may be different reasons why they are not actively involved in the oral English class. In order to deeply study the real and common reasons for this phenomenon, the author has designed a questionnaire, which is mainly aimed at middle school students. The survey was conducted on 120 students from class 10 and class 11, grade two of huai "an foreign language school. Through the questionnaire survey carried out in two different classes, the findings of the survey revealed the seriousness of the problem and the urgency of solving the problem.

Survey objective: to find out the real reasons for students" passive participation in oral English class through the survey, and explore the corresponding effective countermeasures. To this end, the author designed a questionnaire to investigate the real and detailed reasons for the negative participation of Chinese middle school students in oral English class.

Survey object selection: the survey location is huai "an foreign language school. The subjects of this survey are 120 students who have studied oral English in school for two years. Among these 120 students, there are 68 boys and 52 girls.

3.2 The questionnaire

This questionnaire is composed of two parts. The first part of the questionnaire is consist of nine different questions. From the questionnaire, the first four questions are aimed to investigate students’ basic situation of oral English learning, and the remaining five questions are to understand their views and opinions on oral English learning. If students choose the negative option in these five questions, the data obtained from this questionnaire will not be used as a reference, because the premise of this survey is that students recognize the importance of oral learning and are willing to learn oral English well. In the second part of the questionnaire, the author list 13 different possible reasons for students" negative participation.These different reasons are proposed from the three aspects of teachers, students and teaching environment.

3.3 The results and finding

The majority of the students surveyed agree on the importance of learning spoken English, and they are willing to make efforts to improve their spoken English.In the opinion of many students, nothing is more important than having a good command of spoken English. With this ability, they can get praise from teachers when they answer questions in class. However, in the actual learning process, as oral learning is not the focus of large-scale examination, so few teachers pay attention to oral teaching in the actual teaching. Although the majority of students(86%) learn English from the third grade, most of their time is spent on reading and writing. As a result, they actually spend little time on oral English learning.Survey data show that most students (65%) consider themselves as inactive learners in oral English class, which indicates that the problem of students" passive participation is very serious and cannot be ignored. Different students attributed their negative participation to different factors.Based on the results of the questionnaire survey, the author will analyze in detail the different attributions given by different students in the next chapter.

4. The reasons for students’ negative participation in oral English lesson

4.1 The students’ factor

Through the observation, the majority of the students attribute their negative participation to lack of the confidence or the ability to express their feelings in English. In the period of the author’s internship, through the observation of different oral English classes, the author finds that many students are too nervous in class. They care others’ opinions too much. Therefore, they are unwilling to think about the topics in the oral English classes and these students do not take part in the discussion with other students. When the students are questioned by the teacher, they are blushed and flustered and sometimes they forget what they want to say because they are too nervous. Students’ fear of expressing themselves is fundamentally derived from their nervousness and anxiety in oral expression. Under the influence of these negative emotions such as anxiety and fear, many students have difficult in expressing themselves. In a word, the anxiety and fear of students in oral English class seriously affect their enthusiasm to speak English and hinder the development of oral English communication ability. In the following chapter, the author concludes several factors that lead to students’ inactive participation in oral English classes from the students’ aspect. Through the communication with several middle school students and the observation, the author finds that the main reasons for students" nervousness and anxiety are as follows:

4.1.1 Cognitive factor

As we all know, according to the perspective of cognitive theory, speaking is a type of language output. According to Anderson, language output is divided into three phases: construction, transformation and execution. And these three phases are cyclic. In other words, when students decide to express themselves in English, the first step is the construction. At this stage, students need to decide what to say and how to say. However, according to observing some junior high school students, the author finds that the majority of students do not know what to say and how to say in oral English class. In their opinion, this is one of the main reasons for their passive participation in oral English classes(Bialystok 201). The main reason for this phenomenon is that students do not obtain enough relative language input to talk about their opinions. According to the view of cognitive theory, only through listening and reading can students input language to a certain extent, so that they can better output language. Obviously, many junior high school students in China do not have enough language knowledge and skills to support themselves to express opinions in oral English classes. A number of students’ English level is low, for example, the vocabulary is too limited, grammatical knowledge is not strong, which results in English expression difficulties.

4.1.2 Anxiety

According to the observation different oral English in junior high school, many students are afraid of speaking English to their teachers and classmates on the stage. Their fear is derived from classmates" ridicule and teachers’ criticism. In their view, if they make mistakes in pronunciation or grammar when expressing their opinions in English, they will be ridiculed by classmates and criticized by teachers. Afraid of these criticisms and ridicule, they are not brave to make mistakes. Due to being afraid of making mistakes, many students do not want to express themselves actively in oral English class and their do not take part in the discussion with their partners. They care too much about what their classmates and teachers think. In this case, they are too afraid to speak. This phenomenon makes it difficult for those students who do not want take part in the discussion actively to get out of the vicious circle.(Wang 156) For being afraid to speak English in public, they dare not express themselves voluntarily in oral class, which will lead to their lack of proper oral training opportunities in oral class. In a word, this type of fear and anxiety has seriously affected their development of spoken English.

4.1.3 Students’ low self-esteem

After interviewing several junior high school students, the author finds that most of them think their oral English is very poor, which indicates that they have negative self-evaluation and lower self-efficacy. Many students do not evaluate themselves correctly.

In addition, many students are lacked in adventurous spirit. Sometimes they even use Chinese to communicate. They are reluctant to participate. As a result, when these students are asked to answer questions in impromptu English, they often feel anxious and flustered, even unable to speak English.

4.2 The teachers’ factor

The reasons for students’ passive participation come not only from students, but also from teachers. Through the classroom observation, the author finds that the following reasons affect the active participation of students in the aspect of teachers.

4.2.1 Traditional teaching model

First of all, as we all know, the traditional teaching mode in China is teacher-centered. In this teaching mode, teachers teach on the platform while students only need to listen. This type of teaching mode has some advantages but also many shortcomings. Under this type of teaching mode, the lesson is entirely controlled by the teacher and students can hardly exert their subjective initiative in oral English class. These drawbacks are especially obvious in oral English class. According to the observation, many students do not have enough opportunities to express their opinions in the oral English class. Thus it can be seen that the traditional “teacher-centered” classroom model enables many teachers to teach words or examples in class step by step. Under the influence of this traditional teaching mode, people do not have enough opportunities to express themselves and lose direct experience in classroom practice. In the long term, students will lose initiative and enthusiasm in oral English class. Students do not have enough opportunities for oral English practice. It is difficult for students to actively participate in class.

4.2.2 Questioning skills

Secondly, teachers’ questioning skills in oral English class are also important factors that affect students’ active participation in the classroom to a large extent. Sometimes students have nothing to say about the topic or question rose by the teacher in the oral English class. The emergence of this phenomenon is largely due to teachers’ thoughtlessness in designing questions. In many cases, the problems designed by teachers do not gradually guide students to express themselves. Some problems are beyond the knowledge level of students. The problem is beyond the students’ knowledge level, which also leads to the students want to speak but can"t. Therefore, if teachers cannot properly extend the topic and the questions are too simple and not challenging, it will also make many students unwilling to actively answer questions.

4.2.3 Classroom evaluation

Finally, teachers" classroom evaluation also has a certain impact on students’ active participation. Many teachers attach too much importance to correct students’ grammar mistakes during the process of their expression in oral English class. Once students make mistakes in the process of speaking, many teachers tend to immediately interrupt them in public and correct their mistakes in time. However, this type of practice can easily make students feel depressed and produce negative emotions. With the passage of time, students will not be willing to take the initiative to speak in oral class for fear of making any mistakes in public. Many studies show that people are born with an interest in learning. At the age of three or four, children are curious about everything around them. However, as they grow older, many students begin to lose interest in their studies. Among the reasons for this phenomenon, teachers" classroom behavior and language cannot be ignored.

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