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【Abstract】This paper describes the condition of ELT (English Language Teaching) in China, analyzes the problems in middle schools' English teaching methods then introduces F.A. (Functional Approach) and its applications. It presents the advantages and significance of F.A. by comparing F.A. with common approaches. The disadvantages and possible improvements are also discussed in the paper.
【Key Words】F.AMiddle SchoolELT
【中圖分类号】C41 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)09(b)-0033-02
1 Status of ELT in Chinese Middle School
ELT is receiving more and more attentions. It is estimated that around 5,000,000 children are studying English at primary schools. Senior schools also give special attentions to English teaching.
The Grammar Translation method and Direct Method were adopted for many years in ELT in China’s middle schools. Both of them have many defects. For example, the former ignores pronunciation and intonation and excessively emphasizes grammatical function in ELT, which makes it fails to catch the intrinsic aspect of language.
New ideas are taking shapes during the last decade, along with the development of social Linguistics and Psycho-linguistics. Language is not only knowledge and skill, but also kinds of social stipulation of agreement. Learning and using language is treated as a psychological process. English learners are required to develop the ability to know not only when, where and how to use language, but also to what kind of people they might talk and when they should and when they should not say certain things. However, the use of language is often omitted in traditional methods.
2 Functional & Communicative Approach
To address the use of language, a F.A. is adopted, which is also named Functional or Communicative approach. It is from social Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and transform generative grammar.
F.A. claims that English knowledge must be transformed into language skills by means of excessive practices. A new English course is developed according to it, which presents the language in meaningful contexts. And learners can use learn the function of language - communication. The teaching content is no longer arranged only according to the grammatical structures. The new course combines function and communications together with topics, phonetic, lexical and grammatical items.
ELT quality improves when the functions and communications have been taken into account.
3 Importance of F.A. for ELT quality
F.A. combines the merits of social linguistics, psycholinguistics and transform generative grammar. It catches the intrinsic aspect of the language, function, and has incomparable superiority.
How to use English and its function is China government’s English educational policy in 2004. Series of reforms have been made to improve ELT quality, including the introduction of new syllabus and F.A.
The Syllabus is emphasizing the use of English and the test papers are also designed for the same purpose. Oral and listening tests become mandatory given the new syllabus. ELT is moving to aim at using language to express oneself and do communications.
4 Advantages of F.A. (to improve ELT quality)
F.A. has many advantages:
It pays attention to the language's social ability and stipulates the consciousness of practicing;
It helps to excite the students in learning and develop the sense of self-study;
It emphasizes the students' initiative and interaction;
It saves time and energy as far as mastering the whole language system is concerned;
It imparts the proper skills for applying language.
One of the biggest challenges in ELT is to raise students’ interests. F.A. can help on it. Studies show that students usually feel happy and will to express themselves when they were asked to practice with each other. F.A. follows this concept, emphasizes the use of language and helps to raise the interests by practicing and communicating more. It also helps to build up more intimate relations between teachers and students.
F.A. provides language materials in situations that are closely related to students' lives, which makes it even easier to practice the use in the class. It introduces role playing, games, surveys and problem solving etc., to help turn the lessons into language functions which students can use in everyday life.
F.A. is an organic combination of functions, notions, topic areas, phonetic, lexical and grammatical items, which is aligned with the changes in the new syllabus.
Theorists used to believe that forming the language habit relied on correct imitation and great emphasis was put on accuracy. Whenever students made a mistake, the teacher will stop them and correct it. However, it turns out that the students will soon lose their interests and confidences. Nothing else could be done once students refused to open mouths.
F.A. argues that learning English is a process from unfamiliar to familiar, from imperfection to perfection. It is suggest that teacher tolerate minor mistakes that do not affect verbal communication. A relaxed atmosphere, in which students can dispel fears and nervousness and use the language more confidently, is more important. Though it doesn't mean we can take a laissez-faire attitude towards students' mistakes. Error analysis and practices should be done in parallel.
5 Conclusion & Prospect
China's ELT is undertaking an overall reform in curriculum/syllabus design, textbook development, methodology research, training and exam systems. The purpose is to improve ELT quality to a satisfied level.
It is generally accepted that the development of ELT is in a positive direction, though it cannot be an easy-journey, giving the difficulties ahead.
F.A. plays an important role in helping improve ELT quality. It addresses the ELT quality matrix in critical dimensions, including study interest, efficiency and motivation to practice.
Reference
[1] Chinese Middle School and English: Some Basic Facts Don Snow Amity Foundation Teachers Project Summer English Program 2003 Handbook.
[2] English Language Teaching In Schools In China Professor, Liu Daoyi, December 1995,Amity Foundation Teachers Ⅴ.
[3] 英語辅导报.2003-2004学年第15期.汪云,周大军.
[4] 课程改革与课程评价.叶澜主编.教育科学出版社2001年6月第一版.
[5] 一流城市,一流教育.胡瑞文.蒋鸣和主编.上海教育出版社.2002年1月第1版.
[6] 英语教学法教程.王蔷主编,高等教育出版社,2000年7月第一版.
[7] 跨文化交际教学研究大观.转.中小学英语教学与研究.2000年第4期.
[8] 教学论文:英语课堂教学中的创新教育.徐明多.浙江平阳新纪元学校.
[9] 外语学习效率低下的一个重要客观原因.
[10]中国外语教育网.英语教学资源库.教学科研.教研动态.
[11]以课程改革为契机切实提高英语教学质量.
[12]中国教育教研论坛 http://www.jchit.net/yingyu/default.asp?page=2.
[13]论中学英语教学改革(2002-11-24 17:01:02)延安中学.高志富.
【Key Words】F.AMiddle SchoolELT
【中圖分类号】C41 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)09(b)-0033-02
1 Status of ELT in Chinese Middle School
ELT is receiving more and more attentions. It is estimated that around 5,000,000 children are studying English at primary schools. Senior schools also give special attentions to English teaching.
The Grammar Translation method and Direct Method were adopted for many years in ELT in China’s middle schools. Both of them have many defects. For example, the former ignores pronunciation and intonation and excessively emphasizes grammatical function in ELT, which makes it fails to catch the intrinsic aspect of language.
New ideas are taking shapes during the last decade, along with the development of social Linguistics and Psycho-linguistics. Language is not only knowledge and skill, but also kinds of social stipulation of agreement. Learning and using language is treated as a psychological process. English learners are required to develop the ability to know not only when, where and how to use language, but also to what kind of people they might talk and when they should and when they should not say certain things. However, the use of language is often omitted in traditional methods.
2 Functional & Communicative Approach
To address the use of language, a F.A. is adopted, which is also named Functional or Communicative approach. It is from social Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and transform generative grammar.
F.A. claims that English knowledge must be transformed into language skills by means of excessive practices. A new English course is developed according to it, which presents the language in meaningful contexts. And learners can use learn the function of language - communication. The teaching content is no longer arranged only according to the grammatical structures. The new course combines function and communications together with topics, phonetic, lexical and grammatical items.
ELT quality improves when the functions and communications have been taken into account.
3 Importance of F.A. for ELT quality
F.A. combines the merits of social linguistics, psycholinguistics and transform generative grammar. It catches the intrinsic aspect of the language, function, and has incomparable superiority.
How to use English and its function is China government’s English educational policy in 2004. Series of reforms have been made to improve ELT quality, including the introduction of new syllabus and F.A.
The Syllabus is emphasizing the use of English and the test papers are also designed for the same purpose. Oral and listening tests become mandatory given the new syllabus. ELT is moving to aim at using language to express oneself and do communications.
4 Advantages of F.A. (to improve ELT quality)
F.A. has many advantages:
It pays attention to the language's social ability and stipulates the consciousness of practicing;
It helps to excite the students in learning and develop the sense of self-study;
It emphasizes the students' initiative and interaction;
It saves time and energy as far as mastering the whole language system is concerned;
It imparts the proper skills for applying language.
One of the biggest challenges in ELT is to raise students’ interests. F.A. can help on it. Studies show that students usually feel happy and will to express themselves when they were asked to practice with each other. F.A. follows this concept, emphasizes the use of language and helps to raise the interests by practicing and communicating more. It also helps to build up more intimate relations between teachers and students.
F.A. provides language materials in situations that are closely related to students' lives, which makes it even easier to practice the use in the class. It introduces role playing, games, surveys and problem solving etc., to help turn the lessons into language functions which students can use in everyday life.
F.A. is an organic combination of functions, notions, topic areas, phonetic, lexical and grammatical items, which is aligned with the changes in the new syllabus.
Theorists used to believe that forming the language habit relied on correct imitation and great emphasis was put on accuracy. Whenever students made a mistake, the teacher will stop them and correct it. However, it turns out that the students will soon lose their interests and confidences. Nothing else could be done once students refused to open mouths.
F.A. argues that learning English is a process from unfamiliar to familiar, from imperfection to perfection. It is suggest that teacher tolerate minor mistakes that do not affect verbal communication. A relaxed atmosphere, in which students can dispel fears and nervousness and use the language more confidently, is more important. Though it doesn't mean we can take a laissez-faire attitude towards students' mistakes. Error analysis and practices should be done in parallel.
5 Conclusion & Prospect
China's ELT is undertaking an overall reform in curriculum/syllabus design, textbook development, methodology research, training and exam systems. The purpose is to improve ELT quality to a satisfied level.
It is generally accepted that the development of ELT is in a positive direction, though it cannot be an easy-journey, giving the difficulties ahead.
F.A. plays an important role in helping improve ELT quality. It addresses the ELT quality matrix in critical dimensions, including study interest, efficiency and motivation to practice.
Reference
[1] Chinese Middle School and English: Some Basic Facts Don Snow Amity Foundation Teachers Project Summer English Program 2003 Handbook.
[2] English Language Teaching In Schools In China Professor, Liu Daoyi, December 1995,Amity Foundation Teachers Ⅴ.
[3] 英語辅导报.2003-2004学年第15期.汪云,周大军.
[4] 课程改革与课程评价.叶澜主编.教育科学出版社2001年6月第一版.
[5] 一流城市,一流教育.胡瑞文.蒋鸣和主编.上海教育出版社.2002年1月第1版.
[6] 英语教学法教程.王蔷主编,高等教育出版社,2000年7月第一版.
[7] 跨文化交际教学研究大观.转.中小学英语教学与研究.2000年第4期.
[8] 教学论文:英语课堂教学中的创新教育.徐明多.浙江平阳新纪元学校.
[9] 外语学习效率低下的一个重要客观原因.
[10]中国外语教育网.英语教学资源库.教学科研.教研动态.
[11]以课程改革为契机切实提高英语教学质量.
[12]中国教育教研论坛 http://www.jchit.net/yingyu/default.asp?page=2.
[13]论中学英语教学改革(2002-11-24 17:01:02)延安中学.高志富.