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【摘要】 随着社会的发展，大学英语教学已变得非常重要，尤其是精读，位居所有课程之首。作者一开始对目前精读英语教学的设计以及应用中出现的具体问题加以讨论。如传统的教学方法，教学材料，较少的课时以及多媒体辅助教学工具的有限使用。最后，作者提出了一些可能行之有效的提议。作者认为，老师应该以语言的基本目的，即交流出发去进行大学英语的教授。因此，老师不仅要教授学生语言知识，而且还要培养学生驾驭语言的能力。为了达到这一目的，就应该付出更多的努力去提高大学英语的教学水平。
【关键词】 大学;精读;教学;问题;解决
【中图分类号】G623.31 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1001-4128（2010）10-0006-02
1. Introduction
Since China’s reform and the policy of opening to the outside world was put into effect, English as a tool of communication has been playing a
more significant part in acquiring culture, scientific and technical knowledge. In recent years much progress has been seen in the field of EFL
(English as a Foreign Language) teaching. Great changes have taken place in CET. School authorities attach more importance to CET. Teaching
facilities have been improved in many ways. Students, interested or not interested in English, all realize the importance of English and work
harder than before. They have improved greatly in reading and listening. However, there are some problems in our teaching work. Intensive reading (IR), for example, has played an important role in language teaching
and learning. It takes up much of the teaching time. Yet the teaching of IR is largely unsatisfactory, though teachers work very hard. I made no
claim in this thesis to solve the problem, but I merely attempted to make some proposals that might be of help to college English teaching
2. The concrete problems in the design and application of intensive lesson
I will list the following problems, which are commonly seen in the process of intensive lesson’s design and application.
2.1 Traditional teaching method
The following is the way in which IR has been taught.
The teacher stands in the front, controlling the class all the time, while the students listen passively. The teacher simply empties his knowledge into his students. He is busy reading the text, explaining it in English or Chinese, writing some examples on the blackboard.
Sometimes, the teacher may ask his students some questions or ask them to make a sentence by using a phrase or a pattern. His students usually
just listen and take some notes. Mr. Crook said, “Much talk by teachers and little practice by students is no way to teach a language.” (Crook 1995:116) Most teachers spend too much time analyzing grammar and sentence structures. They do not teach language. They teach about language(李观仪 1995)。
No matter how hard the teacher works, no matter how clear and colorful his lectures are, little or no acquisition will take place. It is student’s job to absorb as much input as they can. Though students listen carefully and take some notes, intake is rather poor in such situation. Moreover, what is learned this way is often difficult to use it in wider contexts.
2.2 Teaching materials
If we consider classroom teaching as a play, the teaching material is in some way a script. Without a decent script, a good play is impossible.
Teaching materials are hence of first importance. We have adopted the textbooks, such as New Horizon College English, New Concept English,
Twenty-First Century College English and so on and so forth. These sets of textbook are well designed in some ways. But we still need to select
them carefully. Because if the textbook contains too many literature lessons and less interesting materials, the non-English major students will
not be able to apply sentences into oral practice and teachers too find it hard to apply the communicative approach into their classroom
teaching. The exercises behind each text are designed for students to get to know the key words and phrases and patterns that appear in the
text. Though students do their homework earnestly after class and teachers check the exercises carefully, it can improve their reading
comprehension, but can hardly improve their ability to communicate in English. According to lots of teachers’ experience, one of many factors
that influence the improvement of CET is the teaching material.
2.3 Too limited classroom hours for four skills
According to the Syllabus of Collage English Teaching, the students are required to improve their four skills (reading, listening, writing and
speaking) to the given standard (CET) within 200 classroom hours in a year. It may be practical to some students with very solid English
foundation when they enter the college. Such students can be found only in those top universities, but not in the ordinary college like my
school. The students of my school on the whole have a very poor English foundation. Most of them in fact do not have a clear idea about the
basic English grammar. And they are not that interested in English either. Though both teachers and students work very hard, only 45 percent of
the students of my school can pass CET 4 before they graduate. Among them few can communicate with English native speakers though they have
passed CET 4.So far, such is quite common in most of the non-English major students.
If they could have more time studying English, the consequence should have been much better. Yet, it is important for them to spend more
classroom hours in English as they have to study their majors and lots of other courses.
2.4 Rarely utilizing multimedia assisted instruction
Due to too limited classroom hours as well as other traits on college English class, students may feel difficult to master English knowledge.
Students can not make the best use of the senses including eyes, ears, brains and mouths. The teaching process is too boring to stimulate
students’ thirst for knowledge, let alone attracting students with using lively, interesting, dynamic and lifelike teaching form. The teachers
often use simple facilities like cassette tape recorder but rarely or never use multimedia method. This phenomenon shows that we do very little
in utilizing modern electrical audiovisual teaching means to develop audiovisual teaching, computer-assisted teaching and other aspects.
3. Proposals for the problems given above
3.1 Improving teaching method
To solve the first problem stated above, first of all, both teachers’ and student’ ideas about IR teaching should be changed. The lesson
should be more a student-centered one where the teacher speaks less while the students are involved and take the main role in class. The
students should not rely too much on the teacher; they should realize that it is their responsibility to learn and to practice using their pre-
knowledge of language and newly-learnt knowledge. It is very important for the teachers to make the IR lesson more meaningful, lively and
interesting to motivate the students and arouse their interest or get them refreshed. This is very demanding for the teachers, because they must
be very creative while doing the preparation to stimulate students’ desire and motivation in learning IR.
The communicative approach has gained its top hold in China for thirty years or so, and been greeted with great enthusiasm. The communicative
approach requires the teacher of English to be a conductor rather than a “walking stick”. Instead of giving them long and dull explanations in
grammar and structure, the teacher could organize a correct teaching process. In order to organize a communicative teaching in class
effectively, there is one prerequisite：
As communicative teaching approach is a behavior of intercourse, it needs a good co-operation as a prerequisite between the teacher and the
student, between the students themselves. Therefore, the teacher should try his best to create a co-operation environment, in which the students
can work in pairs, in groups to express or exchange their ideas. Every activity should be corresponding to the students’ language abilities, so
that they can learn in process of speaking—listening—speaking, speaking—listening—reporting,speaking—listening—writing,speaking—listening
—writing,speaking—listening—acting. And eventually the students will change from passive receivers into active participants through the
effective co-operation.
3.2 Selecting new textbooks and supplementing useful materials
To solve teaching materials’ problems, textbooks should be created to be interesting, practical and communicative. Just the opposite to
traditional textbooks, the newly-designed textbooks should be concerned with the real life experience, stressing students’ ability to use the
language fluently (Grant 1987). In this case, the activities such as pair work and group work which help the students to practice should be
included. The textbooks must take students needs and interests into account, and the balance of integrating the four skills should be regarded.
Teachers, while setting up their short-term teaching plan, could decide to select the most appropriate texts or adapt the texts to make them
suitable for the students; or they can supplement the methods and materials by omitting some unworkable materials, and replacing with some
interesting supplementary materials, flexibly, according to different situations. Sometimes, good selections of course books and supplementary
materials can make intensive lesson more motivating, enjoyable and memorable. With the new idea of the selection of materials, the correct
guidance in selecting useful and meaningful words and expressions are taken into consideration as well.
3.3 One school two systems
Most of the non-English major students are not that interested in English, and their English foundation is not that good. It is impossible for
those students to master four skills in about 200 classroom hours in a year. So it is practical to set two standards for the college students:
the basic standard of reading and writing for the average students; the high standard of reading, writing, listening and speaking for the top
student. An English Club and an English Reading Center should be set up for the top student to make up for the limited classroom hours. It will
be very satisfactory that 10 to 20 percent of the college students can master four skills before they graduate.
3.4 Improving the teaching facilities
We improve the teaching facilities so as to make a good IR lesson. Apart from using blackboard, chalk, cassette tapes, language labs, video
tapes, visuals could be provided. Sometimes, visuals do help greatly. When presenting some difficult and abstract vocabulary items, visuals and
a real object can help the students understand directly and clearly. Therefore, an improvement in the teaching facilities is necessary, because
with the variety they can offer, students will get more interested in lesson.
Teaching IR will use multimedia assisted method, so does fostering listening ability .For example, we can use video films to improve listening
ability. We know listening ability is one of the widely used communicative skills. In listening class, in addition to using tapes, the teacher
can make use of video films. Now video films in English are easily available. They provide the students with both language and culture. The
students can learn real English by hearing and seeing how the language is actually used in real situation. Video film is motivating. Students
all have a strong idea to understand films in English. The use of video films in the classroom not only improves the students hearing, but also
arouses their interest, thereby facilitating English language learning and making the process an enjoyable experience.
4. Conclusion
A good teaching approach has the advantage to encourage an active style of English learning, with students participating as fully as possible.
When preparing for lesson, teachers should pay great attention to organization of class activities. Teachers should also be aware of their roles
in class, i.e. they are directors or organizers, rather than dominant speakers.
Of course, the dissemination and acceptance of the new ideas may not be an easy thing, because most of the Chinese teachers and students have
already been used to the traditional teaching methods which they have used for many years. This hinders the improvement of the teaching methods.
However, efforts should be exerted to perfect the teaching approach for improving students’ ability of using language.
Bibliography
Crook,S.1995.Understanding Communicative Language Classrooms [M].Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grant, N.1987. Making the Most of Your Textbook [M].London: Longman.
胡春洞，1991，英语教学法[M]。北京：高等教育出版社。
姬建国，1992，外语教学法新论[M]。兰州：兰州大学出版社。
教育部高教司，2004，大学英语课程教学要求（试行）[M]。上海外语教育出版社。
李宝鸿，2002，计算机辅导语言教育现状与前瞻。西安外国语学报[J]（1）：66—68。
李观仪，1995，具有中国特色的英语教学法，[M]。上海：上海外语教育出版社。
郑树棠，卫乃兴，陈永捷，1997，关于大学英语课中学习策略的研究——大学英语教写现状研究之三。外语界[J] (2):96—108。
A Brief Analysis of the Design and Application of College English intensive reading
【Abstract】With the development of society, college English has been attached great importance. Intensive reading (IR) is given official priority
among other English courses. At the beginning of this thesis, the concrete problems in the design and application of IR have been discussed,
such as traditional teaching method, teaching materials, too limited classroom hours for four skills and rarely utilizing multimedia assisted
instruction. At last, the author comes up with some proposals which might be of some help to college English teaching. And these proposals
stress the purpose of a language that the teacher should have is to communicate. So he should not only teach the students linguistic knowledge
but also cultivate their competence to use the language. In order to do so more efforts should be exerted to improve intensive lesson.
【Key words】college, Intensive reading (IR)，teaching，problem，solve
【关键词】 大学;精读;教学;问题;解决
【中图分类号】G623.31 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1001-4128（2010）10-0006-02
1. Introduction
Since China’s reform and the policy of opening to the outside world was put into effect, English as a tool of communication has been playing a
more significant part in acquiring culture, scientific and technical knowledge. In recent years much progress has been seen in the field of EFL
(English as a Foreign Language) teaching. Great changes have taken place in CET. School authorities attach more importance to CET. Teaching
facilities have been improved in many ways. Students, interested or not interested in English, all realize the importance of English and work
harder than before. They have improved greatly in reading and listening. However, there are some problems in our teaching work. Intensive reading (IR), for example, has played an important role in language teaching
and learning. It takes up much of the teaching time. Yet the teaching of IR is largely unsatisfactory, though teachers work very hard. I made no
claim in this thesis to solve the problem, but I merely attempted to make some proposals that might be of help to college English teaching
2. The concrete problems in the design and application of intensive lesson
I will list the following problems, which are commonly seen in the process of intensive lesson’s design and application.
2.1 Traditional teaching method
The following is the way in which IR has been taught.
The teacher stands in the front, controlling the class all the time, while the students listen passively. The teacher simply empties his knowledge into his students. He is busy reading the text, explaining it in English or Chinese, writing some examples on the blackboard.
Sometimes, the teacher may ask his students some questions or ask them to make a sentence by using a phrase or a pattern. His students usually
just listen and take some notes. Mr. Crook said, “Much talk by teachers and little practice by students is no way to teach a language.” (Crook 1995:116) Most teachers spend too much time analyzing grammar and sentence structures. They do not teach language. They teach about language(李观仪 1995)。
No matter how hard the teacher works, no matter how clear and colorful his lectures are, little or no acquisition will take place. It is student’s job to absorb as much input as they can. Though students listen carefully and take some notes, intake is rather poor in such situation. Moreover, what is learned this way is often difficult to use it in wider contexts.
2.2 Teaching materials
If we consider classroom teaching as a play, the teaching material is in some way a script. Without a decent script, a good play is impossible.
Teaching materials are hence of first importance. We have adopted the textbooks, such as New Horizon College English, New Concept English,
Twenty-First Century College English and so on and so forth. These sets of textbook are well designed in some ways. But we still need to select
them carefully. Because if the textbook contains too many literature lessons and less interesting materials, the non-English major students will
not be able to apply sentences into oral practice and teachers too find it hard to apply the communicative approach into their classroom
teaching. The exercises behind each text are designed for students to get to know the key words and phrases and patterns that appear in the
text. Though students do their homework earnestly after class and teachers check the exercises carefully, it can improve their reading
comprehension, but can hardly improve their ability to communicate in English. According to lots of teachers’ experience, one of many factors
that influence the improvement of CET is the teaching material.
2.3 Too limited classroom hours for four skills
According to the Syllabus of Collage English Teaching, the students are required to improve their four skills (reading, listening, writing and
speaking) to the given standard (CET) within 200 classroom hours in a year. It may be practical to some students with very solid English
foundation when they enter the college. Such students can be found only in those top universities, but not in the ordinary college like my
school. The students of my school on the whole have a very poor English foundation. Most of them in fact do not have a clear idea about the
basic English grammar. And they are not that interested in English either. Though both teachers and students work very hard, only 45 percent of
the students of my school can pass CET 4 before they graduate. Among them few can communicate with English native speakers though they have
passed CET 4.So far, such is quite common in most of the non-English major students.
If they could have more time studying English, the consequence should have been much better. Yet, it is important for them to spend more
classroom hours in English as they have to study their majors and lots of other courses.
2.4 Rarely utilizing multimedia assisted instruction
Due to too limited classroom hours as well as other traits on college English class, students may feel difficult to master English knowledge.
Students can not make the best use of the senses including eyes, ears, brains and mouths. The teaching process is too boring to stimulate
students’ thirst for knowledge, let alone attracting students with using lively, interesting, dynamic and lifelike teaching form. The teachers
often use simple facilities like cassette tape recorder but rarely or never use multimedia method. This phenomenon shows that we do very little
in utilizing modern electrical audiovisual teaching means to develop audiovisual teaching, computer-assisted teaching and other aspects.
3. Proposals for the problems given above
3.1 Improving teaching method
To solve the first problem stated above, first of all, both teachers’ and student’ ideas about IR teaching should be changed. The lesson
should be more a student-centered one where the teacher speaks less while the students are involved and take the main role in class. The
students should not rely too much on the teacher; they should realize that it is their responsibility to learn and to practice using their pre-
knowledge of language and newly-learnt knowledge. It is very important for the teachers to make the IR lesson more meaningful, lively and
interesting to motivate the students and arouse their interest or get them refreshed. This is very demanding for the teachers, because they must
be very creative while doing the preparation to stimulate students’ desire and motivation in learning IR.
The communicative approach has gained its top hold in China for thirty years or so, and been greeted with great enthusiasm. The communicative
approach requires the teacher of English to be a conductor rather than a “walking stick”. Instead of giving them long and dull explanations in
grammar and structure, the teacher could organize a correct teaching process. In order to organize a communicative teaching in class
effectively, there is one prerequisite：
As communicative teaching approach is a behavior of intercourse, it needs a good co-operation as a prerequisite between the teacher and the
student, between the students themselves. Therefore, the teacher should try his best to create a co-operation environment, in which the students
can work in pairs, in groups to express or exchange their ideas. Every activity should be corresponding to the students’ language abilities, so
that they can learn in process of speaking—listening—speaking, speaking—listening—reporting,speaking—listening—writing,speaking—listening
—writing,speaking—listening—acting. And eventually the students will change from passive receivers into active participants through the
effective co-operation.
3.2 Selecting new textbooks and supplementing useful materials
To solve teaching materials’ problems, textbooks should be created to be interesting, practical and communicative. Just the opposite to
traditional textbooks, the newly-designed textbooks should be concerned with the real life experience, stressing students’ ability to use the
language fluently (Grant 1987). In this case, the activities such as pair work and group work which help the students to practice should be
included. The textbooks must take students needs and interests into account, and the balance of integrating the four skills should be regarded.
Teachers, while setting up their short-term teaching plan, could decide to select the most appropriate texts or adapt the texts to make them
suitable for the students; or they can supplement the methods and materials by omitting some unworkable materials, and replacing with some
interesting supplementary materials, flexibly, according to different situations. Sometimes, good selections of course books and supplementary
materials can make intensive lesson more motivating, enjoyable and memorable. With the new idea of the selection of materials, the correct
guidance in selecting useful and meaningful words and expressions are taken into consideration as well.
3.3 One school two systems
Most of the non-English major students are not that interested in English, and their English foundation is not that good. It is impossible for
those students to master four skills in about 200 classroom hours in a year. So it is practical to set two standards for the college students:
the basic standard of reading and writing for the average students; the high standard of reading, writing, listening and speaking for the top
student. An English Club and an English Reading Center should be set up for the top student to make up for the limited classroom hours. It will
be very satisfactory that 10 to 20 percent of the college students can master four skills before they graduate.
3.4 Improving the teaching facilities
We improve the teaching facilities so as to make a good IR lesson. Apart from using blackboard, chalk, cassette tapes, language labs, video
tapes, visuals could be provided. Sometimes, visuals do help greatly. When presenting some difficult and abstract vocabulary items, visuals and
a real object can help the students understand directly and clearly. Therefore, an improvement in the teaching facilities is necessary, because
with the variety they can offer, students will get more interested in lesson.
Teaching IR will use multimedia assisted method, so does fostering listening ability .For example, we can use video films to improve listening
ability. We know listening ability is one of the widely used communicative skills. In listening class, in addition to using tapes, the teacher
can make use of video films. Now video films in English are easily available. They provide the students with both language and culture. The
students can learn real English by hearing and seeing how the language is actually used in real situation. Video film is motivating. Students
all have a strong idea to understand films in English. The use of video films in the classroom not only improves the students hearing, but also
arouses their interest, thereby facilitating English language learning and making the process an enjoyable experience.
4. Conclusion
A good teaching approach has the advantage to encourage an active style of English learning, with students participating as fully as possible.
When preparing for lesson, teachers should pay great attention to organization of class activities. Teachers should also be aware of their roles
in class, i.e. they are directors or organizers, rather than dominant speakers.
Of course, the dissemination and acceptance of the new ideas may not be an easy thing, because most of the Chinese teachers and students have
already been used to the traditional teaching methods which they have used for many years. This hinders the improvement of the teaching methods.
However, efforts should be exerted to perfect the teaching approach for improving students’ ability of using language.
Bibliography
Crook,S.1995.Understanding Communicative Language Classrooms [M].Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grant, N.1987. Making the Most of Your Textbook [M].London: Longman.
胡春洞，1991，英语教学法[M]。北京：高等教育出版社。
姬建国，1992，外语教学法新论[M]。兰州：兰州大学出版社。
教育部高教司，2004，大学英语课程教学要求（试行）[M]。上海外语教育出版社。
李宝鸿，2002，计算机辅导语言教育现状与前瞻。西安外国语学报[J]（1）：66—68。
李观仪，1995，具有中国特色的英语教学法，[M]。上海：上海外语教育出版社。
郑树棠，卫乃兴，陈永捷，1997，关于大学英语课中学习策略的研究——大学英语教写现状研究之三。外语界[J] (2):96—108。
A Brief Analysis of the Design and Application of College English intensive reading
【Abstract】With the development of society, college English has been attached great importance. Intensive reading (IR) is given official priority
among other English courses. At the beginning of this thesis, the concrete problems in the design and application of IR have been discussed,
such as traditional teaching method, teaching materials, too limited classroom hours for four skills and rarely utilizing multimedia assisted
instruction. At last, the author comes up with some proposals which might be of some help to college English teaching. And these proposals
stress the purpose of a language that the teacher should have is to communicate. So he should not only teach the students linguistic knowledge
but also cultivate their competence to use the language. In order to do so more efforts should be exerted to improve intensive lesson.
【Key words】college, Intensive reading (IR)，teaching，problem，solve