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论交际法在中学英语教学中的应用(1)

2013-11-03 01:01 [Abstract] Communicative Language Teaching has been introduced into China for middle school English teaching for nearly a decade. But the effect is not so satisfactory as it had been expected.
The writer of this paper investigates and analyzes some problems in the application of CLT in middle school in China, through questionnaire and some interviews with teachers and students in a middle school.
According to some basic CLT theories which are clarified in the paper, the writer puts forward some suggestions for CLT’s application in middle school, such as multiple roles of teacher, interaction between teachers and students, using Grammar and Translation Method to implement the application of CLT, dealing with a large class, stimulating students’ communicative motivation, and making communicative testing, etc.

[Key Words] Communicative Language Teaching; problems; characteristics of the theory; suggestions

 

【摘 要】九十年代初交际法被引进到我国, 之后逐渐广泛地被应用在中学英语教学中, 但其成果并不理想。
本文客观地追溯了交际法的来源和发展, 阐述了交际法的特征, 以及应用中的一些原则和所要避免的误区。采用了问卷调查法和访谈法对交际法在中学英语教学中的实施效果进行调查, 发现并分析了其应用过程中存在的一些问题。根据这些调查结果的分析和基础理论的概括, 笔者针对交际法在中学英语教学中的应用提出了一些建议，包括教师在交际课堂上所扮演的角色, 如何应用交际法教语法, 如何解决大班人数多的问题, 以及如何激发学生交际动机, 在测试中融入交际能力测试等.

【关键词】交际法； 问题；  理论特征； 建议

1.  Introduction
Today English is taught in so many places for so many different purposes.[1] The number of people who are learning English in China also has been increasing quickly. Even English has become a major course in middle school education.

Traditionally, English teaching in middle schools in China has been dominated by teacher-centered mode. In the classroom, the teacher who is considered as the leading factor puts on a one-man show. He seldom asks his students any questions or makes any communication with them. He tries to seize every minute and as many opportunities as possible to impart the students with knowledge. Therefore, this approach, in a certain degree, is called the cramming of forced feeding method of teaching. The teacher teaches actively while the students listen to him passively.[2] As a result, it brings the students poor abilities and skills of listening and speaking. After studying English for several years, students still remain at a loss when they have to express themselves in English. They may remember a great number of words and idioms, but they can not use them appropriately in communication.
In order to change this situation, since early 80s of last century, English teachers in China have been trying to improve their teaching. Distinguishing from the traditional language-teaching approach which focuses on grammar and structure, a new approach called Communicative Language Teaching has been very much in vogue at present. It gives students more opportunities to communicate in English in the classroom. But unfortunately, some phenomena indicate that the effect of CLT is not so satisfactory as people expected. There are some difficulties in applying CLT in middle school in China.
This paper attempts to clarify certain issues from the perspective of applying the Communicative Language Teaching in middle school, analyze the factors which impede the effects. Then according to the theories of CLT, some suggestions are put forward, which are relevant to the application of CLT in the middle school education.

2. Discoveries and analysis of some problems in applying CLT in Chinese middle school
Jack. C, Richard and Theodore. S, Rodgers have said of some difficulties in applying CLT:
Questions that have been raised include whether a communicative approach can be applied at all levels in a language program, whether it is equally suited to ESL and EFL situations, whether it requires existing grammar-based syllabuses to be abandoned or merely revised, how such an approach can be evaluated, how suitable it is for non-native teachers, and how it can be adopted in situations where students must continue to take grammar-based tests. [3] （科教作文网 zw.nseac.com整理）
Their remark exactly reflects the problems in applying CLT in the Chinese education context too. Besides, in order to approach the problems of CLT in middle school teaching practice, the writer of this paper has made a questionnaire. Fifty senior students of Grade 1 were chosen casually to complete the questionnaire in Putian No.5 Middle school (the questionnaire and the results could be seen clearly in the appendix).
According to Richard and Rodgers’ words and the practical results from the writer’s questionnaire, following is the analysis of some problems in details.
2.1 Students’ low level of oral English proficiency
The first problem which lowers the effect of CLT is learner’s low level of oral English.
We can see from the Question 1 and Q2 in the questionnaire that most of students are interested in English oral communication. But when the teacher ask some questions only quite a few students will coordinate actively. Others are neither autonomous, nor competitive or nor self-confident in class. This is a phenomenon on surface. For the reasons, in current China, in the middle school stage, especially in junior schools, students often grasp quite a few English words and limited structures of sentences. Besides their attentions are put on the word and grammar, which tends them to low oral level. From Q3 in writer’s questionnaire, we can see so many students feel themselves lacking of vocabulary, being not familiar with the structure of sentences. They are afraid to make mistakes in grammar or show poor pronunciation. All of these show that their oral English proficiency is low.
If students do not have a certain oral proficiency in English, it is hard to do some oral communication or some relevant activities. In other words, CLT which needs doing communication between learners can not be carried out when students have low level of oral English proficiency.
2.2 Large class sizes
Most students prefer to speak in English among fewer people rather than facing a lot of people. In Q4 of the questionnaire, 77.08% of the fifty students support this statement. Chinese students were perceived to tend to be more socialized, tend to derive their self-identity from persons around them, and were usually more empathic and perceptive of the feeling and thoughts of others.[4]They are afraid of losing face for they are not adequately encouraged. Influenced by the collectivism, they are not willing to show themselves in public. So a large number of people will give them more pressure to speak in English. But now classes in schools in many parts of China may contain over 50 students and sometimes even more. Large class sizes impedes against improving classroom interaction. The student who is asked to talk in such a large class, finds that so many people are staring at him. Then he will be shamed to open his mouth. This is the subjective difficulty from students in a large-size class. （科教范文网http://fw.ΝsΕΑc.com编辑）
In the objective aspect, Adam Bennett, an OTP teacher from Britain, complained in his article The Future of OTP in China “many of the students in my school have very poor English skills. …when you are teaching large classes (50-60) students who fall behind  (especially like in this case when they are so far behind ) find it relatively impossible to catch up” [5]Teachers find the large class size is the biggest problem that affects the classroom management and learning activities, such as correction of large numbers of essays virtually impossible; It is difficult for teacher to attend to all students during class time.
According to above, communication between students, or between students and teachers are hindered.
2.3 Lacking communicative motivation
Through Q6 in the writer’s questionnaire, we can find out that majorities of students communicate in English for teacher’s demand, only a small number of them communicate for their own interests. In current China, a lot of students lack communication motivation. In other words, they seldom speaking English actively with others. Majority of them study English just
●Because English is a compulsory subject
●In order to pass national or university exams
●Because they know that being able to use English can lead to a better job and a better future.
A major reason for this phenomenon is that English is only a foreign language not a second language for students in China. In an EFT context and L2 learning situation, the learners are motivated by different purpose.[6] Lambert summed up that under a L2 learning situation, the learner is held to be learning the language in order to become more likely, or more acceptable as a member of the L2 speech community, such as in India or Hong kong, where language has communicative functions inside the community. But in a foreign language-learning situation,, learners are more interested in how the foreign language can be a useful instrument towards furthering other goals, such as getting a good job, getting a place at university. For this, the language has no established functions inside the learner’s community but will be used mainly for communicating with outsiders. When the language is being used for external rather than internal, people are less likely to be sharply or constantly aware of a communicative need for it. [7]So it is in China . （转载自中国科教评价网www.nseac.com ）
2.4 National educational system and pressure for taking examination
The 7th question in the questionnaire is made up of three options. It also asks for the reasons why students choose each option. 47.92% of students choose A ( They prefer more activities in the class.) The reasons they have given include activities that are interesting and presents that sometimes they can get from the teacher. Others choose B (prefer teacher’s systematically explanation of language points or grammar) or C (equivocal in both A and B) ( 52.08% in all) . Besides, in Q8, 54.16% of students prefer to do their homework on exercises for grammar or language points. This kind of students realized that the best use of time in the class is to listen to the language points and grammar, for the examinations never include or seldom relate to the contents on communicative competence. For example :
    There is no doubt that the National College Entrance Exam is the most important thing for senior school students in Chinese teachers’, students’ and their parents’ minds. Both teacher and student concentrate their attention on the proportion of a higher grade and passing the examinations, because only the students who pass the NCEE can have the chance to go to college and have good future. It seems the teachers are forced to have to work towards exams. The NCEE doesn’t test oral ability, so for most of the students in the middle school, multiple choices of grammar, vocabularies of reading, sentence structures of writing make up the whole content in their English learning. Although the listening has been tested during the past ten years, there are still no measures for oral testing in the middle school. However, there is no doubt that oral English plays the most important role in the communication.
2.5 Non-native teachers with a lack of English proficiency
The fifth problem is on the teacher’s side. Chinese teachers are non-native speakers of English. Most of them have never been to the English-speaking countries. They are not so familiar with the social and cultural context of the target language.

（科教论文网 lw.NsEac.com编辑整理）

For example, if a foreigner asks, “How are you?”, “How’s your family?”, the first reaction of almost every Chinese teacher will be, “Fine , thank you . (And you? )” . In fact, in the USA or England where English is the mother tongue, the people’s may make other answers, such as “I’m/They’re ok.”, “Pretty good.”, “I’ve/They’ve been all right.”, “Couldn’t be better.” For the teachers seldom use these sentences themselves, they may pay less attention to other answers while teaching, so that many students may take them as unsuitable answers. (seen from Q9 in the questionnaire)    
The teacher has to possess a very high level of language competence, because she is the main source of input, at least in the beginning stage and, especially, in the foreign language context.[8]In Q10, 79.17% of the fifty students point out they get the communicative sentence from their teachers.
 So only having the linguistic knowledge is not enough for a teacher to teach his students or evaluate the students’ utterances.

3. Understanding of CLT
To solve the above mentioned problems of CLT in middle schools we need to have a better understanding of CLT so as to implement it efficiently.    
3.1 Development of CLT
CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) which is also termed as CA (Communicative Approach) was brought to us in 1970s. It is an approach to foreign language teaching or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence. [9]
In the 50s and 60s of last century, a book of the prominent American linguist Noam Chomsky called Syntactic Structures was published, which brought about a movement in language learning. Chomsky’s generative transformational theory claimed that everyone has ingenuity to understand and create sentences, so learning must be based on understanding and analysis of authentic meaning of the surface structure. [10]His language theory broke the structural linguistic theory, and expand the domain of linguistic study. （科教论文网 lw.nSeAc.com编辑发布）
In 1972s, when Chomsky’s view was so popular, the sociolinguist Hymes and his colleagues held that Chomsky’s theory of language competence neglected social cultural appropriateness of speaker’s specific language context. They believed that language could not exist without social context. Hence Hymes proposed a theory of communicative competence, which included four respects in terms of both knowledge and ability to use language:
(a) whether to be able (and to what degree) to know the agreement of language form and grammatical rules; (b) whether to be able (and to what degree) to know how to use and respond to different types of speech acts; (c) whether to be able (and to what degree) an acceptable language form is appropriate in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated; and (d) whether to be able (and to what degree) to know the frequent use of language forms. [11]
At the same time, the social backgrounds in 70s’ Europe provided a vast space to practice those theories. Because of the establishment of European Community, the communications among countries have become more expanded. Therefore the obstacle of language became a big problem. Which is more important in teaching adults the foreign language, the language rules or the practical communicative competence? This has become the first consideration for teachers and researchers of EFT.
British linguist D.A.Wilkins is the founder of CLT. He was instrumental in setting out the fundamental considerations for a “functional-notional” approach to syllabus design based on communicative criteria. His book Notional syllabuses published in 1976 had a significant impact on the development of CLT. Courses for different languages were then developed based on his semantic/communicative analysis. [12] The Functional-Notional Syllabus is not a method, but a syllabus. It is the embryonic form of CLT.
“Doing things through language ”is just the latest proposition about the CLT. However, the exact connotation of the CLT has a strong version and a weak one. The strong version claims that in order to learn a language we have to communicate in it. By contrast, the weak version claims that we learn and teach language in order to be able to communicate. For the former the acquisition of the second or foreign language is the product of communicative activities, not the purpose for them. For the latter, learning is to facilitate communication. Students are supposed not only to learn a foreign language, but also to learn how to use it. [13] 本文来自中国科教评价网
3.2 The characteristics of CLT
CLT realizes that the language is a tool for people’s communication. Its core is developing the communicative competence. Its final goal is to help students to gain the competence of communication. Therefore, the CLT has the characteristics as follows:
3.2.1 Meaning-focused
In the communication, what we are concerned about is whether we can understand each other, rather than the mistakes in grammar. Language is a communicative tool, learning language is to communicate with others. When students have grasped certain linguistic knowledge, they have to learn how to express themselves appropriately in a specific situation. Thus teacher should make students not only grasp the linguistic knowledge, but also develop their communicative competence.
3.2.2 Learner-centered
In the CLT, the students are the center of class. They should be encouraged to participate in activities in the classroom, through which they can use and think about English. From the stage of preview to free practice, and to the stage of consolidation, in each stage, teacher should make students try to discover, think, and solve problems by themselves. 
3.2.3 Task-based
    For given some specific task, students will show more enthusiasm, and achieve the learning goal more effectively. Students will promote their language competence during the process of completing the tasks. Task-based is not only used in classroom, but also can be carried out after class for the learning goal. Because middle school students in China can just learn English in a formal classroom teaching situation, teachers should often design some extracurricular tasks for them, such as a lecture, a debate, a performance, or writing news, etc.
3.2.4 Situation-Organized
In the CLT classroom, teacher or student gives the instructions or completes the tasks by using real and significant language learning situation, which will bring students the desire to communicate. The situation is close to reality, and students might give creative and unpredictable responses.

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3.2.5 Integration-Oriented
CLT claims that the learner has only a goal for his learning that is to gain the language communicative competence, including the capacities of perception and production. Therefore, listening, speaking, reading, and writing those four language skills should be integrated.
3.3 Principles of CLT
According to the five characteristics above, we should comply with some principles in applying CLT:

3.3.1 All the activities should be designed for communication
The ultimate objective of language teaching is to develop language communicative competence. Therefore, all the activities organized by teachers in the classroom should be centered on the communicative purpose, and serve the purpose. There are two categories of activities in the classroom: one is the direct communicative activities, such as process of completing tasks; the other is indirect activities which provide services to the communicative activities, such as pre-activities before tasks, and reports, analysis, and explanation after tasks.
Ellis (1990) has criteria for evaluating communicative classroom activities: [14]
(1) The activity must involve the students in performing a real communicative purpose rather than just practising language for its own sake; (2) The activity must create a desire to communicate in the students; (3) When the students are doing the activity, they must be concentrating on what they are saying, not how they say it; (4) The activity must involve the students in using a variety of language, not just one specific language form; (5) The activity must be designed to be done by the students working by themselves rather than with the teacher; (6) The activity should not be designed to control what language the students should use.                         
3.3.2 Try one’s best to focus on the process of communication
The principle of CLT distinguished from other methods is that teachers should try their best to focus on process of communication. Activities that are truly communicative have three features (Morrow,1979): information gap, choice and feedback. [15]

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 “An information gap” is something that is known only by one side in the communication. The purpose is to fill the gap. For example, if both A and B know it’s 9 o’clock. And A asks B “What time is it now?”, and B answers “Nine o’clock.”, there is no information gap between them. Their exchange is not really communicative.
“Choice” means both communicative sides can choose what to say and how to say. The exercise should not be tightly controlled to avoid that students can only say something in one way. If students have no choice of form and content, and real communication does not occur.
“Feedback” refers to both sides in the communication adjust themselves according to the information from each other. Students should promote their abilities of judging what others say and their attitudes, reflecting suitably to reach the communicative goals.

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