On the Reciting Teaching of Grade 3in Rural Senior High School
2015-05-19王梅
王梅
In recent years,many students enrolled by rural senior high schools cannot do well in their studies because of the limitation of the geographical environment and poor teaching conditions.The writer has being worked many years in rural senior high school and made constant efforts to research on how to improve the English teaching and learning in rural senior high school.In the past dozens of years,the situational,communicative and task-based approaches are widely used in English teaching in China.Reciting teaching as the Chinese traditional learning strategy is desalinated.Reciting teaching has a long history and it is a traditional and effective way of language teaching.Throughout history,so many famous learned people benefited from recitation.English teaching is just like Chinese teaching.If students want to learn English well,they must recite enough passages.
Factors affecting students recitation
1.Motivation
The importance of motivation in second language learning is well reflected in the remark of Alan Cunningsworth.He states: “Motivation is the most important factor in success or failure in learning.A well-motivated student badly taught will probably do better than a poorly-motivated student well taught.Motivation determines the students level of attention during class,Motivation certainly has a deep influence on the effectiveness of learning.”
Research studies have shown that language acquisition is the result of interplay between cognitive mechanism and environmental conditions (Spolsky,1985; Sivert & Egbert,1995).Understanding and creating optimal language learning environments thus becomes a primary concern of the language teacher.Teachers can observe circumstances under which learners acquire language and can make adjustments toward creating optimal learning conditions.In designing learning activities,the language teacher should remember that because language learning focuses on both the accuracy and appropriateness of applicants who are given opportunities to participate as language users in multiple contexts.These opportunities will result in learners heightened motivation and awareness of the intricacies of language use.
2.The basic knowledge
As the influence of Communicate and Task-based teacher methods,basic pronunciations,words and grammar knowledge are desalinated in English class.Because lack of paying more attention to teaching contents,many students have difficulty in remembering new words,writing more difficult sentences.
With the large amount of reading,comprehending,and recitation,the learners can achieve grammatical sensitivity.They can easily find that every verb,for example,has an “argument structure”: a specification of what kinds of phrases it can appear with (Pinker,1989).A familiar example is the distinction between transitive verbs like devour,which requires a direct object.(It is right to say “He devoured the steak” but not just “He devoured”) and intransitive verbs like dine,which does not (it is right to say “He dined” but not “He dined the steak”).This is always one of the most difficult points existing in the learning of English for Chinese students.If they can read and recite consciously,then they can accumulate a lot of active words that they know well about the usage besides the meaning.
3.Learning strategies
Learning strategies are the specific procedures learners with individual learning tasks.When confronted with a classroom learning task,such as reading a chapter of a book or preparing a written summary of a passage,the learner can choose several different ways of completing the task.Each of these choices or strategies offers particular advantages or disadvantages,and the use of an appropriate learning strategy can enhance success with the learning task.An important aspect of teaching is to promote learners awareness and control of effective learning strategies and discourages the use of ineffective ones.
4.Language anxiety and student-teacher relationships
The relationship between a teacher and a student can be either good or bad,helpful or harmful.Either way,the relationship can affect the student for the rest of his life.A good teacher-student relationship will make learning enjoyable and well mutually understandable.A bad relationship can discourage the student from learning and make teaching an unpleasant task.
Looking through all the language learning strategies and teaching methods,we cannot design any strategy for the acquisition of any foreign language which is completely effective for all the learners.But through reciting teaching,students can gradually do some reading,write some correct sentences and listen to the teacher so that they can build up their confidence to study English well.Above all,many students can get higher scores in the test and many of them become interested in English.And after reading various articles,they get much more information about the target language and their reading speed is greatly improved.Only in this way,can the students be likely to become successful English learners.