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中国中学生英语口语焦虑问题的教学策略(1)(2)

2013-10-28 01:25 10. been suffering from frostbite/sunstroke.
The procedure went like this:
1. He prepared handout before class.
2. He grouped the students.
3. He asked each group to move around the classroom and find one person who had done each of these things. Students could only mention one persons’ name once so they would have to find different people to answer the question.
4. Students moved around and asked questions using “Have you been/done …?”
5. group members got together to collect information they get.
6. He got group leader to report their findings. They would use “So and so has/have done …
This approach advocates teaching speaking through interactive tasks. It was different from other group activities Mr. Su organized and the students who were excited by the novel activities finished the tasks more actively and effectively than ever before.
Mini-drama, like the language game, was promoted by Mr. Su. It consists of scenes of everyday life problem situations. The scene is viewed on a video. Actions are interrupted and discussed by the teacher and the students. Mr. Su said that Mini-dramas were designed not only to present a problem situation but also to involve students emotionally by discussing one or another character in the episode. The following is a scene viewed on the video by Mr. Su together with his students:
In a street market in Cannes, two young Americans, Cindy and Debbie, decide to buy peaches from a street vendor, and start picking out the peaches they want to buy.thus In the street market the vendor picks out the fruit and she does not like to be interfered and thus the two young Americans have offended the convention of the people in Cannes.
Vendor: (sarcastically) Eh, you’re planning to buy the whole tableful?
Debbie: (whispers to Cindy) Is she ever rude! I wonder what her problem is! Probably had a fight with her husband this morning.
At this point the scene is interrupted for a group discussion.
Climate in Mr. Su’s classroom is always full of joy and excitement. The secret is that he keeps it in mind to adjust the many ways of cooperative learning to different situation and different educational purposes.
3.3 Using formative assessment
3.3.1 Analysis and strategies
The form of assessment and evaluation has great backwash effects on foreign language teaching and learning. Whether to use summative assessment or formative assessment or a combination of both, will has great bearings on teachers and students.[15]
Formative assessment is an assessment causing less  anxiety and it is preferred by students.
Nearly half of the students answering the questionnaire wish that their teacher could correct the mistakes they make with encouragement and smile and they wish to be assessed in various ways. They in fact prefer formative assessment.
The main feature of formative assessment is that it implies evaluation based on a collection of information about what students know and can do. This involves many ways and methods of information gathering, formal and informal, at different times and in different contexts.[16]
Another kind of assessment is summative assessment. Its main feature is that it uses tests and final examinations to make assessments. Summative assessment is a traditional assessment and it is always associated with testing, so speaking of assessment methods, many teachers immediately think of tests.
Formative assessment is promoted in the course standards to make an important difference between assessment and testing. Formative assessment is usually based on information collected about the learner’ current situation. Testing is only one of the different ways to collect information.[17] Formative assessment is to find out what the students already know and can do rather than what they do not know and cannot do, while summative assessment is to find out students’ weakness.
Crashen and Terrell who believe that anxiety has great influences on speaking, said that summative assessment is not a proper assessment and it will undoubtly increase anxiety in English study.[18] [19] Gardner, the famous psychologist, said that assessment with only tests or examinations was often conducted to find out the students’ weaknesses and it damaged the students’ motivation and confidence in language learning. Theory of Multiple Intelligence advanced by Gardner believes that assessment must be done in many ways. [20] Varying assessment methods according to assessment purposes and contexts helps to make assessment fairer and more reliable.[21] [22]

（转载自中国科教评价网www.nseac.com ）

So, compared to summative assessment, formative assessment makes students feel more comfortable and motivated. Formative assessment is an assessment causing less anxiety.
Formative assessment implies many ways and methods to evaluate students. The most practical ways of formative assessment in oral English teaching are teacher’s assessment, peer assessment and self-assessment.
3.3.2 Operation and practices
(i) Teacher’s assessment
Research shows that the teacher’s knowledge of children and their strengths and weaknesses is more accurate and sound than testing. Very often the teacher’s subjective estimate of the learner’s overall performance or achievement can be quite accurate and fair [siv]. [23]
To help students speak accurately, it's important for the teacher to correct students' errors. However, it is not acceptable to make corrections when they are speaking. It's suggested that the teacher take notes of errors students make in class. If they are common problems, he/she can present them as language points and ask the students to do some practice; if they are mistakes committed by individual student, just point them out at the completion of the individual performance or give the student a note with the corrections.[24]
Another thing a teacher should deal with carefully is the comments teachers make. They should be more positive and less negative. Students need more suggestions and encouragement, less blame and experiences of failure. Teachers may write the comments and suggestions like this:
Lin Feng:
You could make your talk closely related to the topic, and tried to use what you had learnt to talk about the picture. You could also act in an appropriate manner while talking. That means you could understand the requirement of the task and be good at interacting with your audience.
Unluckily, you made some mistakes that influenced your accuracy and fluency. So you need more speaking practice, including pronunciation and intonation. I am sure you can do the work much better next time. 内容来自www.nseac.com
A teacher, who is an experienced teacher modeled a good example of teacher assessment. Students in her class had just learnt some of the body words. In order to check whether students could understand them by listening, she asked them to response what they heard with physical performances. That is, when she said “Touch your nose”, the students gave the response by touching his/her nose. In this way, she observed who could or could not do it. She said that if all of the children could follow, it gave her a signal that she could move on her teaching. Otherwise, she should do something to improve that.
Students in her class were assessed by using physical performance responses and visual tools before they can speak confidently. This type of response can reduce children's anxiety normally linked to assessment and may help children see it as a daily learning activities.
(ii) Peer assessment
Peer Assessment as well as self-assessment is popular nowadays because they can help students to develop their ownership and responsibility for their learning and thus lessen anxiety in learning. Moreover, they can enhance interaction and collaboration among students and enable them to understand each other.
Peer assessment is always used to assess role play. Role play is an informal assessment technique combining oral performance and physical activities. It makes students feel comfortable and motivated easily, especially when the activity needs group work, i.e. cooperative learning. It seems to be a funny way of learning. Role-play can be an enjoyable way of informal assessment that could be used effectively in oral English learning. In practice, students need to know the criteria beforehand and they also need to observe their partners' performance while assessing. This may easily increase, in fact, students’ involvement and promote them to do it better than others so that they will not fall behind their partners.
We can design the checking lists like this:
Performance Task:
Students use role play cards to play the roles of shop assistant and customer. （科教范文网 fw.nseac.com编辑发布）
Assessment task:
Students assess their partners or their classmates on how well they can carry out the role play
by putting a tick in a column.
Table1 Role play with peer assessment
Name:                Role:
Criteria Able to Partly able to Not yet able to
1.Understand task instructions given in English     
2.Speak with fluency and confidence     
3.Use appropriate intonation, rhythm and stress     
4.Use an appropriate group of vocabulary and phrases     
5.Interact in a polite and friendly manner     
 
For peer assessment, teachers can also design anecdotal records and students themselves fill assessments in the records. Students can be grouped according to their language proficiency level and personal characters. The group leaders are supposed to make a record of the speaking activities. Checking lists may be designed as follows:
Table2 Anecdotal Records
Name Duty Report(10points) Acting ofDialogues  (10points) Questions answering/rising questions(10points) Sense of Cooperati-on(10points) Process in communication(10points)

(iii) Self-assessment
The students themselves are given the chance to evaluate their own performance, using clear criteria and weighting systems agreed on beforehand.
Imitating and recall are among the most effective approaches of oral English training. When doing the pronunciation and intonation, teachers can ask students to read after the tape and record their own voice. And the students are required to hand in their record and their self-assessment on their record. By adopting this method, students are likely to form the ability of self-study and build within themselves confidence. [25]
Writing Journals is a form of self-assessment causing less anxiety, an opportunity for students to think about their knowledge of the subject and to strengthen their confidence. The journals are not graded; they offered an opportunity for dialogue between each student and the teacher. （科教范文网http://fw.ΝsΕΑc.com编辑）
Mr. Su asks his students to keep journals about their encounters with English in or out of class. These include insights or puzzlements. Students in his class are encouraged to express themselves in writing. Although he does not grade the students' journals, he does correct grammar and spelling, and comments on the contents with questions, references and appropriate praise. So, the exercise of writing encourages further discussion among students and between students and him. Students express themselves freely via journal and they feel that they are having a conversation with Mr. Su. Mr. Su said that students who keep journals in his class speak with more confidence and ideas than those who do not keep journals.
4. Conclusion
From this article, it is obvious that appropriate oral English teaching strategies can be considered as an effective approach to accelerate the development of students’ speaking competence, to increase their learning motivation and ease their anxieties. Language teachers are supposed to evaluate whether effective oral English teaching strategies are being overlooked or not. Moreover, these teaching strategies should be fully integrated into classroom contexts and everyday learning. Only when language teachers know how to make good use of teaching strategies in both the ESL classroom environment and everyday life can they improve their students’ speaking competence and motivation.
Apart from the strategies concerning students’ anxieties discussed in this paper, language teachers should also have patience, confidence, imagination, enthusiasm, humor and creativity. They should be friendly, sympathetic, on good terms with the students, and have an affirmative attitude towards the students and occasionally encourage them if necessary.

References
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[2] 陈坚林.现代外语教学研究[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2004, p10
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[25] 同[16] P123

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