The,advantage,of,a,real-world,classroom,activity,in,Promoting,Students’,Application,of,Spoken,Englis:The advantage of

　　【Abstract】Learning strategy is a way for students to train their four skills.So in order to improve students’ speaking skills,teachers should notice how to explore their competence in applying ‘strategies in developing English speaking skills’ (SDESS).Through the analysis of data reflected the situation of students’ application of SDESS,collected from the observed classroom activities in a middle school,I found that whether a classroom activity is of authenticity influences the training for students’ competence in applying SDESS.The result shows‘classroom activity with a real-world situation’ (CARS) is conducive to students’ promotion of competence in applying SEDSS. This research aims to provide a direction for teachers to design classroom activities, which will help students improve their ability in using SDESS, then further to improve their spoken English in the future.
　　【Key words】Classroom activity;Real-world situation;Oral English strategies;Spoken English;Speaking skills
　　
　　0.INTRODUCTION
　　The new curriculum specifies that language skills are a must for students to master and promote. However, owing to many problems, a lot of students in middle schools are lower in competence in speaking. Among those problems, I consider students’ low competence in applying SDESS as a major reason,and the formation and application is probably influenced by teachers, whose teaching experience,methods and steps exert a subtle influence on students’ application of strategies.And the teacher’s teaching experience, methods and steps are all presented in classroom activity.So a classroom activity is a very important process for students to explore their competence in applying learning strategies.As to speaking skills training, classroom activity involving students in oral interaction is considered as a key process for students to promote their competence in applying SDESS. Which classroom activities are good for the promotion? In this paper, I start from the side whether classroom activity is with real-world situation or not, then analyze the observed thirteen cases and divide them into two groups,CARS & Non-CARS. Finally analyze the situation of students’ application of SDESS by data collected from those cases. When studying, I take two aspects as competence measurement,SDESS & SDESS. Besides, the definition of CARS and the basis differences between CARS and Non-CARS are based on the integration of some relevant rational. The last thing I should make it clear is that my research is discussed in a small area rather than an open one.
　　1.Rationale
　　1.1 Since SDESS directly influences students’ achievement to spoken English learning, it is necessary to know what students’ SDESS is and its types summarized from nowadays research on Chinese students.
　　1.1.1 Brief definition of SDESS
　　The process of English learning is regarded as the one of using English learning strategies (ELS).
　　1.1.2 Types of SDESS in detail: Wubenhu’s book (2002) and other related ELS books are taken as reference for the reason that it’s based on the research on Chinese students. I reduce those strategies picked up from these reference books to four aspects:
　　a)To combine speaking with listening practice includes Selecting and imitating strategy & Using practice strategy
　　b)To have various forms of oral practice includes Reciting strategy,Retelling strategy,Describing strategy, & Giving a speech strategy
　　c)To adopt some methods to strengthen a speaker’s faculty of memory so as to improve spoken English, includes Memorizing words or phrases in longer patterns strategy,Memorizing words by classifying the same phonetics, & Memorizing language information by matching objects
　　d)To use communicative strategies effectively includes Using formula strategy,English and Chinese inter-translating strategy,Transferring strategy,Circumlocution strategy,Simplifying strategy,Synonym substitution strategy,Coining words strategy,Using gesture strategy,Seeking for help strategy,Narrating interspersed with Chinese strategy,Selecting the topic strategy,Avoiding difficult problems strategy,Responding to counterpart actively strategy,& Using hesitation filler strategy
　　1.2 Definition of CARS
　　1.2.1 Purpose of CARS:In real intercourse,participants aim to exchange information, to express ideas, opinions, attitudes,and feelings and to get things done, not to obtain language knowledge.So CARS possesses natures of information-gap and information transference.
　　a)Nature of Information-gap:It involves principles of using information-gap,making information-gap and sharing information-gap..
　　b)Nature of information transference:An information-gap activity is mainly a process of putting language in decode while an information transference activity is mainly a process of putting language signs in code or restructuring information.
　　c)Content of CARS: Since activities should be taken from real-life, CARS is relative to individual. It means that activities should relative to students’ real life.So teacher can apply individual relative strategy to organize the activities.
　　1.2.2 Participants of CARS:Activities not only happens between a teacher and students, but also among students themselves.So CARS possesses multi-interactive nature.
　　a)As to a teacher, he or she can apply Teacher-and-student communicative strategy.It involves a changing role of a teacher. If a teacher changes his or her role from a commanding position into a fair negotiator or organizer, students would easily and freely take part in activities.
　　b)As to students,they would show understanding for and help each other, removing their fears of making mistakes and strengthening their confidence and willingness in spoken language because of the lower anxiety in classrooms.
　　1.3 Basis differences between CARS and Non-CARS
　　1.3.1 Content of communication
　　CARS:Students express their own ideas, wishes, opinions, attitudes, information, etc. They are fully aware of the meaning they wish to convey. The exact content of any student’s message is unpredictable.
　　Non-CARS:Content or a topic is decided by a teacher, textbook, tape, etc. the meaning of what a teacher say may not always be clear to students. The content is highly predicable.
　　1.3.2 Reason for communication
　　CARS:Students have social or personal reasons to speak.There is an information gap to be filled,or an area of uncertainty to be made clear. What is said is potentially interesting or useful to participants.
　　Non-CARS:Students speak in order to practice speaking; because teacher tells them to;in order to get good marks,etc.
　　1.3.3 Result of communication
　　CARS:Students achieve their aims;they get what they wanted, an information gap is filled,a problem is solved,a decision is reached or a social contact is made, etc.The result is of intrinsic interest or value to the participants.
　　Non-CARS:Teacher accepts or corrects what is said;a mark is given, etc.(extrinsic motivation)
　　1.3.4 Emphasis on communication
　　CARS:Teachers or students pay attention and respond to what is said, rather than to how correctly it is said.Errors not affecting communication are largely ignored.
　　Non-CARS:Teacher pays less attention to what students say than to how correctly they say it.Students are corrected if their speech deviates from standard forms,whether or not their meanings are clear.
　　2.Study
　　In this part,I try to show the frequence of using different strategies through a classroom activity with real or unreal situation in eight English courses in a middle school, which contain thirteen activities, involving students in oral interaction.Students’competence in using SDESS achievement will be measured and compared when participating in CARS and Non-CARS.In my study,I try to analyze in the following steps;1)To classify activities into two groups,CARS & Non-CARS;2)To collect data (types of SDESS and number of using SDESS)from each cases;3)To sum up the total number of SDESS types and that of using SDESS;4)To analyze reasons for the above phenomenon by reducing common findings of each group.
　　A. Subjects:Junior students from eight different classes in a middle school, aged from 14 to 17, with basis English knowledge background.
　　B. Methods:note-taking, tape-recording.
　　C. Observation of 13 cases:The order of the list is subject to time
　　Case 1:Teacher A gives an explanation of how to form an object clause in Chinese, then ask students to make some object clauses orally. (Individual work)
　　Case 2:Teacher B wants to tell that she is ‘looking forward to doing sth. / sth.’, however, she doesn’t tell the sentence structure to the class, but to speak out several sentences which are cohesive and coherent in meaning, expressing that she is looking forward to a lot of things. After catching the information of the teacher, students become to notice the sentence structure of ‘look forward to doing sth./sth. Then the teacher asks: “what are you looking forward to?” Then many students raise their hands to tell their expectations by making some sentences or even a short discourse used the new structure. (Individual work).
　　Case 3:Teacher C speak out two sentences which are the same in structure but irrelevant in meaning to show the difference between them so as to let students obtain the regulation of object clause. Then asks students to make some sentences used this regulation. (Individual work)
　　Case 4:Teacher D asks students to listen to a tape for the first time and try to understand the content of it. For the second time, she plays it by stopping every sentence, and asks students to imitate the speaker. (Individual work)
　　Case 5:Students are asked to listen to a weather forecast and discuss in small groups (four members each group) whether they should bring umbrellas with them in the coming day. (Small group work)
　　Case 6:Teacher E asks students to read different passage of the same text, and then communicate in pairs, trying to understand the general ideas by working together. (Pair work)
　　Case 7:Teacher F asks students to finish the T/F questions after reading the whole text, then picks up a student to give the answers and to tell reasons how he gets. (Individual work)
　　Case 8:Teacher F asks students to substitute some certain words in a fixed-set model, and then have an conversation practice according to this model. (Pair work)
　　Case 9:Teacher B asks students what’s the most effective revision plan for the coming junior general examination in English. She allows students to discuss in small groups and then discuss with her. English is required to use during this plan making process. (Small-group 4 members)
　　Case 10:Teacher G asks students to retell the story taken from the teaching materials after learning it. She mentions that the narrator should use the first pronoun, seeming that he is experiencing the same. (Individual work)
　　Case 11:Teacher C writes some sentences on the blackboard and requires students to change the sentence patterns in another way orally. (Individual work)
　　Case 12:Teacher H plays a sequence that includes species extinction. Then students are required to discuss in groups and try to find out some measures that stop this phenomenon. Finally, the represent of each group should come out to report their discussion. (Small group work)
　　Case 13:Teacher H shows out a set of pictures of animals, and write some new words on the blackboard (names of species, organs),then asks students to explain these new words in English. (Individual work)
　　D. Classification---CARS: Case 2/4/5/6/9/10/12/13; Non-CARS: 1/3/7/8/11
　　E. Data collection: frequence of using SDESS according to each strategy type
　　Total number of SDESS types used in CARS is 17 compared to 4 in Non-CARS; The times of using SDESS in CARS is 76 compared to 6 in the other.
　　F.Results and Discussion:I try to list some common findings separately for cases belonging to the two groups. These findings are taken as the reasons why the above-mentioned phenomenon is caused.
　　2.1 Purpose of activities
　　CARS: Students aim to transfer information, express their thoughts and feelings (case 9, the teacher and students work together in order to make a better plan for the coming junior general examination by transferring their opinions. In doing so, students are willing to join in the conversation in English, even though some of them are poor in spoken English, they will try to listen to others, because the plan they made are of reality, which will largely arouse students’ activeness.), narrate stories and their experiences (case 10, the task prepared for the students is to let them feel about the experience in the story they have read, setting a real-life situation. That the student uses the first pronounce to retell the story, seeming it occurs to himself in reality, will large stimulate the interest of rest of the students.), describe objects and situations, or to solve actual problems probably happened outside world, rather than to acquire language knowledge. With actual purposes, students are freely to use more kinds of strategies with larger frequency in using them.
　　Non-CARS: Students aim to acquire language knowledge, including sentence structure, nature of words, grammatical points (case 3, teacher doesn’t teach sentence structure through a comprehensive and meaningful information of something interesting for students, but tell the difference between two sentences which aren’t coherent in meaning. Under the activity without real situation, students are forced to memorize mechanically.), or to answer questions after doing listening or reading exercises on whether given statements are true or false. (case 7, students aim to find the answers to the T/F questions, the information they can get from the reading material is so limited. What they are required to express is meaningless in real life to some extend.). With pedagogic purposes, students have fewer chances in choosing strategies with much lower frequency in using them.
　　2.2 Participants of activities
　　CARS:Conversations often happen among students (case 5/6/12/13) or between the teacher and students(case 2&9).Students are allowed to talk what they want to,organizing sentences by themselves,which results in large number of strategy types used as well as their using times.
　　Non-CARS:Conversations always happen between the teacher and students.The teacher always emphasize on students’ grammatical errors,making students feel there is no need for them to organize language, which results in small number of strategy types used as well as their using times.
　　2.3 Content of activities
　　CARS:Students’ response can not be predicable for all are made up in their mind at that very moment when they read the text,listen to the tape or receive questions the teacher raises for the first time.There are not exactly right answers for those topics.(case 12,students are required to discuss and find out some ways to prevent species from being extinct,there are a lot of different answers.For one group,they believe to build fewer new roads, plant more new tress and allow people to adopt animals. For another group, they believe to clone species.),so students would like to try every mean, frequently using more strategies in order to express their new ideas when thinking some up, and give full play to their imagination.
　　Non-CARS:Students’ answers are highly predicable for all are made beforehand by the teacher. Students’ expressions are largely subject to the teacher’s attitudes rather than students’ interest.(case 8,though students are asked to do a speaking exercise, however the fixed-set conversation with afore-set vocabulary just can train their ability in using words in a correct way).
　　2.4 Roles of teacher and student
　　CARS:Activities are student-centered. Students are interactors and negotiators who are capable of giving as well as taking.They are also listener and performer who have a lot of control over the content of learning.They must take responsibility for their own learning, eveloping autonomy and skills in learning-how-to-learn by frequently using a lot of strategies.Teacher acts as a consultant and negotiator,having little control over the classroom.Moreover,they have close relationship with students.The communicative tasks such as role-plays,problem-solving tasks and simulations give much more freedom to students.(case 4, the teacher is a cooperator,students are allowed to imitate the intonation and pronunciation according to tape speakers. They are actor-like, giving full play to their imitating ability.)
　　Non-CARS:Activities are teacher-centered. Students are passive recipient of outside stimuli, which focus students on language and learning rather than on meaning.The teacher is the ‘manager of materials’.Drills, repetition,substitution and the like vest great power in the teacher.(case 1, students can do nothing but receiving the explanation of the object clause passively. The teacher inculcates students with grammar rules,which will prevent them from using more learning strategies.)
　　2.5 Forms of activities
　　CARS:Activities are mostly organized in pair work and small group work. Individual work is also effective with the help of teacher.All these forms allow students to interact with each other under exchanging tasks.Thus more chances can be obtained to use strategies frequently.
　　Non-CARS:Activities are mostly organized in individual work, making single form for students to practice spoken English,which may finally lead to fewer interactive opportunities for them to transfer information.Thus small number of strategy types and using times become.
　　2.6 Means of activities
　　CARS:In the classroom,multimedia, including tape-recorder,video-recorder,TV,computer,picture, objects and language is used to create a real-life situation for students to appreciate.Teacher is likely to make exaggerated additions to the real- life situation by playing music,to describe the situation by using language,to present the situation by taking objects, to reappear the situation by showing pictures, to appreciate the situation by having a performance, to reveal the situation by the real life itself. So CRAS posses a nature of reappearance, which will finally encourage students to use more strategies and use them more frequently.
　　Non-CARS:In the classroom,traditional teaching means are used,including blackboard, projectors, tape-recorder.These limited means cannot help create a real-life situation for students but a classroom with four white walls instead. So students are less encouraged to use strategies under this kind of environment.
　　3.CONCLUSION
　　From the above Analysis and comparison,we can see whether a classroom activity is of authenticity influence the training for students’ competence in applying SDESS. Therefore,when designing a classroom activity,teacher should attach importance to its authenticity, creating real-world situation in order to provide more chances for students to practice spoken English and guiding them establish a set of SDESS suitable for themselves,which will help them understand‘how to learn’ spoken English.Furthermore, to understand and summarize all kinds of SDESS used during the process of students’ spoken English learning is necessary.Only on this basis, can teachers create much more effective classroom activities.■
　　
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