英语教学法复习提纲

1. Language:” Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.” It can be understood in the following six aspects:

Language as system; Language as symbolic; Language as arbitrary; Language as vocal; Language as human;

Language as communication 2. Structural view:

The structural view sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystems: from phonological, morphological, lexical, etc. to sentences.

3. The functional view:

The functional view sees language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing things. Most of our day-to-day language use involves functional activities: greetings; offering, suggesting, advising, apologizing, etc.

4. The interactional view:

The interactional view considers language as a communicative tool, whose main use is to build up and maintain social relations between people. 5. The language learning theory underlying an approach or method usually answers two questions:

1) What are the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes involved in language learning?

2) What are the conditions that need to be met in order for these learning processes to be activated?

6. Although these two questions have never been satisfactorily answered, a vast amount of research has been done from all aspects, which can be broadly divided into process-oriented theories and condition-oriented theories.

1) Process-oriented theories are concerned with how the mind processes new information, such as habit formation, induction, making inference, hypothesis testing and generalization.

2) Condition-oriented theories emphasize the nature of the human and physical context in which language learning takes place, such as the number of students, what kind of input learners receive, and the learning atmosphere. 7. Two theories:

Some researchers attempt to formulate teaching approaches directly from these theories.

1) The behaviorist theory( Skinner)-- a stimulus-response theory of psychology

The key point of the theory of conditioning is that \"you can train an animal to do anything (within reason) if you follow a certain procedure which has three major stages, stimulus, response, and reinforcement\" 2) Cognitive theory( Noam Chomsky):

The term cognitive is to describe loosely methods in which students are asked to think rather than simply repeat.

8. A variety of elements that contribute to the qualities of a good language teacher:

1) ethic devotion,道德素质

2) professional qualities专业技能

3) personal styles个人修养

Adjectives which describe further qualities

Ethic devotion Professional personal styles qualities warm -hearted creative Flexible灵活的 hardworking enthusiastic Caring kind well-prepared准备充分的 disciplined Resourceful知识渊博的 authoritative well-informed见多识广的 accurate speaking clearly Dynamics有动力的 patient Attentive专心的 Intuitive有洞察力的 humorous Personally-trained 经过专业训练的 9. How can one become a good language teacher? Wallace‟s(1991)\"Reflective model\" to demonstrate the development of professional competence(两种测试法：叙述/填表)

Wallace‟s(1991)\"Reflective model\"

Stage 1 Stage 2

Goal

From the above model, we can see the development of professional competence for a language teacher involves Stage 1, Stage 2, and Goal. The first stage is language training. All English teachers are supposed to have a sound command of English. Of course, language is always changing so language training can never come to an end. The second stage seems to be more complicated because it involves three sub-stages: learning, practice, and reflection. The learning stage is actually the specific preparation(that a language teacher should make before they go to practice.)This preparation can be: 1). learn from others' experience (empirical knowledge来自经验的知识)

2). learn received knowledge (such as language theories,

psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, educational psychology, language teaching methodology, etc.) 3). learn from one's own experience

Both experiential knowledge (others' and one's own) and received knowledge are useful when the teachers go to practice. This is the combination of \"craft\" and \"applied science\". The learning stage is followed by practice. The term \"practice\" can be used in two senses. In one sense, it is a short period of time assigned for student teachers to do teaching practice as part of their education, usually under the supervision监督 of their instructors. This practice is also called

pseudo practice. The other sense of \"practice\" is the real work that the teacher undertakes when he finishes his education.

Unit 2 Communicative Principles and Activities

10. The ultimate goal of foreign language teaching is to enable the students to use the foreign language in work or life when necessary. 11. The goal of CLT

The goal of CLT is to develop students' communicative competence, 12. Communicative competence:

Competence simply means knowledge of the language system: grammatical knowledge in other words.

13. Hymes (1979), communicative competence includes four aspects: 1) knowing whether something is formally possible (grammatically acceptable), which is roughly equivalent to Chomsky's linguistic competence交流内容是否规范

2) knowing whether something is understandable to human beings;

3) knowing whether something is in line with与、、、有关 social norms; 4) knowing whether something is in fact done: Do people actually use language this way?

14. Based on the concept of communicative competence and aiming at developing such competence, communicative language teaching has the following features:

1) It stresses the need to allow students opportunities for authentic and creative use of the language.

2) It focuses on meaning rather than form.

3) It suggests that learning should be relevant to the needs of the students. 4) It advocates提倡 task-based language teaching. Students should be given tasks to perform or problems to solve in the classroom.

5) It emphasizes a functional approach to language learning (i.e. what

people do with language,

such as inviting, apologizing, greeting and introducing, etc.).

15. Richards and Rodgers(1986:72)three principles of Communicative language teaching

1) Communication principle: Activities that involve real communication promote learning.

2) Task principle: Activities in which language is used for carrying out

meaningful task promote learning.

3) Meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports he learning process.

16. Littlewood’s (1981) classification of communicative activities: 1). Functional communicative activities: 2). Social interaction activities:

(1). Functional communicative activities: ~ Identifying pictures

~ Discovering identical pairs

~ Discovering sequences or locations ~ Discovering missing information ~ Discovering missing features ~ Discovering \"secrets\"

~Communicating patterns and pictures ~ Communicative models ~ Discovering differences ~ Following directions

~ Reconstructing story-sequences

~ Pooling information to solve a problem (2). Social interaction activities:

~ Role-playing through cued dialogues

~Role-playing through cues and information ~Role-playing through situation and goals --Role-playing through debate or discussion ~ Large-scale simulation activities ~ Improvisation

17. Ellis (1990) has listed six criteria for evaluating communicative classroom activities:

1). Communicative purpose: 2). Communicative desire: 3). Content, not form: 4). Variety of language: 5). No teacher intervention:

Unit 3 Lesson Planning

18. Lesson planning

Lesson planning means making decisions in advance about what techniques, activities and materials will be used in the class. 19. Why is lesson planning necessary?

Proper lesson planning is essential for both novice/beginner and experienced teachers.

20. Benefit from lesson planning in a number of ways

1). A clear lesson plan makes the teacher aware of the aims and language contents of the lesson.

2). It also helps the teacher to distinguish the various stages of a lesson and to see the relationship between them so that the lesson can move smoothly from one stage to another.

3). The teacher can also think about how the students can be fully engaged in the lesson.

4). when planning the lesson, the teacher also becomes aware of the teaching aids that are needed.

5). Lesson planning helps teachers to think about the relative value of different activities and how much time should be spent on them. 6). The teacher soon learn to judge lesson stages and phases with greater accuracy.

7). Plans are also an aid to continuing improvement.

8). After the lesson, the teacher can add an evaluation to the plan,

identifying those parts which went well and those which were less successful.

21. There are four major principles behind good lesson planning:

1) variety, 2) flexibility,,

3) learnability, 4) linkage.

23. Definitions of variety, flexibility, learnability, and linkage.

Variety means planning a number of different types of activities and

where possible introducing students to a wide selection of materials so that learning is always interesting, motivating and never monotonous for the students.

Flexibility means planning to use a number of different methods and techniques rather than being a slave to one methodology. This will make teaching and learning more effective and more efficient.

Learnability means the contents and tasks planned for the lesson should be within the learning capability of the students. Of course, things should not be too easy either. Doing things that are beyond or below the students' coping ability will diminish their motivation (Schumann, 1999).

Linkage means the stages and the steps within each stage are planned in such a way that they are somehow linked with one another. Language learning needs recycling and reinforcement.

24. Lesson planning should be done at two levels: Macro planning and micro planning:

The former is planning over time, for instance, the planning for a month, a term, or the whole course.

The latter is planning for a specific lesson, which usually lasts 40 or 50 minutes.

25. Macro planning involves: 1) Knowing about the course: 2) Knowing about the institution: 3) Knowing about the learners: 4) Knowing about the syllabus:

26. The advantage of a concrete teaching plan:

Teachers can follow it in the class and check what they have done;

The plan will be the basis of a record of what has been covered in class; It will make it easier to make achievement tests later; It will be good records for the entire course.

27. What does a lesson plan include? Three components:

Teaching aims,

Language contents and skills, Teaching stages and procedures.

28. The aims of a lesson include:

language components to present, communicative skills to practice, activities to conduct materials to be used teaching aids to be used.

29. Language components and skills:

By language contents, we mean structures (grammar), vocabulary,

functions, topics and so on. By language skills, we mean communicative skills involved in listening, speaking, reading and writing. 30. Teaching stages and procedures:

Teaching stages are the major steps that language teachers go through in

the classroom. Procedures are the detailed steps in each teaching stage. 31. Three P's model: presentation, practice and production.

(At the presentation stage, the teacher introduces new vocabulary and grammatical structures with reference to their contextualized use. At the practice stage, the lesson moves from controlled practice to guided practice and further to the exploitation of the texts when necessary.

At the production stage, the students are encouraged to use what they have learned and practiced to perform communicative tasks. At this last stage, the focus is on meaning rather than formal accuracy.)

32. Another 3-stages frequently advised and adopted in reading lessons: Pre-reading, while-reading post-reading stages.

(This model is also often applied in listening lessons, which have pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening stages.)

35. When presenting a new structure (presentation stage), a teacher

needs to consider the following: 1) when to focus on the structure and 2) when to study it in context;

3) whether to present the structure orally or in written form;

4) when to give out information and when to elicit from students; 5) when and how to use visual aids to help with the presentation; 6) what to do if students fail to understand.

36. Sample lesson plans 1

I. AIMS: a). b). c)….(include function) II. CONTENTS

1. PRONUNCIATION

2. NEW LEXIS: a). b). c)….

3. STRUCTURE/GRAMMAR: a). b). c)…. III.TEACHING AIDS: IV. PROCEDURES ( It should be specific ) 1. WARM-UP (3 minutes): a). b).

2. PRESENTATION (approx. 7 mins): a). b). c)…. 3. EXPLOITATION (approx. 10 mins): a). b). c)….

4. PERFORMANCE (approx. 15 mins): a). b). c)…. 5. OTHER ACTIVITIES: Check yesterday's homework (approx. 5 mins).

6. Set homework, page 73, ex. 4.

7. RESERVE ACTIVITY: Substitution, game-like:

V. COMMENTS: (Filled in immediately after the lesson). a). b). c)….

Sample lesson plan 2

I. AIMS: a) b) c) .(include function) II. CONTENTS

1. NEW VOCABULARY: three new lexical items

2. NEW STRUCTURE: How about-ing ...? Function: making suggestion.

3. ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE: Declining: I don't feel like -ing. III. VISUAL AIDS: Set of flashcards with suggestions IV. PROCEDURE

1. WARM-UP: Game (3 minutes), Going on a Picnic: You bring a/the/some ...!

2. PRESENTATION (approx. 10 mins)

a) New vocabulary: (three new lexical items above) b) New structure (flash cards)

c) First model, spoken (BB drawings of speakers) 3. PRACTICE (approx.15 mins)

a) Repetition drill (backward build-ups) b) Cued substitution, chorus work

c) Public pairs: cued acceptance/refusal and counter suggestions (flash cards)

d) Ditto. Books closed e) Public check

3. PRODUCTION (to end of lesson, 17 mins) a) Public pairs, new suggestions.

b) Private pair role play; New suggestion, counter suggestions, agreeing weekend activities.

c) Acting out. Volunteer pairs. d) Write out created dialogues.

4. HOMEWORK: Complete writing of dialogues. (5. RESERVE ACTIVITY: none)

V. COMMENTS: (Filled in immediately after the lesson).

Unit 4 Classroom Management

37. Teachers’ roles:

Before the class---Planner

During the class---1 Controller, 2 Assessor, 3 Organizer

4 Prompter , 5 Participant, 6 Resource-provider

After the class---Evaluator

38. Further comments on the different roles that the teachers play in the

language classroom:

Controller: The teacher controls: 1). the space (activities run smoothly), 2) .the time (do lockstep activities)

3. the whole class (Ss have equal chance) 4. the production ( a degree of accuracy) Assessor: The teacher does two things:

1). Correcting mistakes (not making a big fuss大惊小怪but gentle by Harmer)

2). Organizing feedback (discouraging for the teacher to be critical不提

倡吹毛疵, focusing on Ss‟ success progress)

Organizer: The teacher should be important and difficult as it: 1). Using creative/unlimited way 2). Envisaging设想activities, 3). Anticipating the problems

4). Giving clear and concise instructions 5). Demonstrating

6 .Using native language to clarify if necessary 7. Walking around and monitoring 8. Rectifying订正

9. Taking mental notes轮流惦记 Prompter: The teacher should do:

1). Giving hints (just like time, place…)

2). Eliciting more (by saying” and…?”“Anything else?” Yes, but why…? (Ss. read the example)

Participant:

The teacher shouldn‟t dominate or appear to be authoritative. Resource-provider:

We have criticized the jug-and-mug method, but the teacher should withhold his/her readiness to provide resources.

39. What are the most common types of Ss grouping? And their definitions?

Lockstep, Pair work,

Group work, Individual study:

40. Further suggestions about S grouping Lockstep

Teacher speaking little, Trying to elicit replies/answers Pair work:

Teacher giving clearest instructions, Demonstrating, Keeping eyes on,

Rearranging the seating, Explaining the problem, Encouraging Ss Group work:

Grouping Ss according to seating arrangement, Ss selecting their own group members, Mixing strong and weak Ss,

Giving different tasks to strong and weak Ss separately, Grouping Ss by drawing lots，

All these methods have advantages and disadvantages.

Individual study: It has some conditions: 1. Self-access centers, 2. Materials aimed at self-instruction,

3. Flexible time arrangement 41. Harmer’s suggestions on measures for undisciplined acts and badly behaving Ss:

1). Act immediately 2). Stop the class

3).Rearrange the seats 4).Change the activity 5).Talk to Ss after class

6).Use the institution制度

42. In order not to hurt the Ss, Ur’s advice on problems in class: 1).Deal with it quietly

2).Don‟t take things personally 对事不对人 3).Do not use threats

Unit 5 Teaching Pronunciation

43. The goals of teaching pronunciation:目的

Consistency 连贯性: To be smooth natural

Intelligibility可理解性:To be understandable to the listeners

Communicative efficiency: To help convey the speakers‟ meaning 44. Three aspects of pronunciation to teach? Stress, intonation, rhythm 45. One common problem in learning English of Ss: (Neglect stress and intonation)

46. Ways of practicing sounds and their definitions:

Focusing on a sound 单音练习:(sounds difficult to learn)

Perception practice 知觉/领会性练习:( identify /distinguish different sounds)

Production practice 生成性练习: (develop Ss‟ ability to produce sounds)

47. Six types of production practice activities:

(1). Listen and repeat (2). Filling the blanks (3). Make up sentences (4). Use meaningful context (5). Use pictures

(6). Use tongue twister 48. Practicing stress:

1).Two kinds of stress: word-level stress ; phrase-level stress

2).Three ways to show stress pattern of words: Use gestures, use the voice, use the blackboard 49. Practicing intonation:

1). There are many subtle ways: surprise, complaint, „sarcasm讥讽，friendliness, threats etc.

2). Two ways to make intonation: rising/falling arrows; draw lines

Unit 6. Teaching Grammar

50. What are grammar presentation methods? 演示法

Deductive method演义/推论法 ; Inductive method归纳/诱导法 51. Deductive method

1). Definition: It relies on reasoning, analyzing and comparing. 2). Steps: giving rules/definition------giving examples For example: (plural) “-s” s, x, ch. “-es” …y. –ies

a book a bus a body

books buses bodies

3). Advantages: To be successful with selected and motivated主动的 students;

To save time;

To help to increase students‟ confidence in some exam.

4). Disadvantages: To teach grammar in the isolated way; To pay little attention to meaning; To be often mechanical practice. 52. Inductive method

1). Definition: It relies on inducing诱导 2). Steps: give examples-----induce rules

3). For example: (plural) “-s” s, x, ch. “-es” …y. –ies

a book a bus a body

books buses bodies

4). Advantages: Inductive method is more effective in that students

discover the grammar rules themselves while engaged in language use, 53. Ur’s definition of grammar practice:

\"Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with结合/保证 the language on the part of the learner, usually under the teacher supervision, whose primary objective(aim/task) is to consolidate learning \"(Ur, 1988:11).

. Ur’s six factors contribute to successful grammar practice: 1) Pre-learning.

2) Volume and repetition(容量/重复). 3) Success-orientation成功性联系. 4) Heterogeneity多样性. 5) Teacher assistance. 6) Interest.

55. Two categories of grammar practice: Mechanical practice

Meaningful practice.

1).Mechanical practice involves activities that are aimed at form accuracy. Two drills in mechanical practice:

(1) Substitution drills in mechanical practice: the students substitute a part in a structure so that they get to know how that part functions in a sentence. Sometimes certain prompts are given. For example (p):

(2) Transformation drills in mechanical practice::the students change

a given structure in a way so that they are exposed to another similar structure. The type of exercise also helps the students to have a deeper understanding of how the structures are formed and how they are used. For example (p65): 2). Meaningful practice.

In meaningful practice the focus is on the production, comprehension

or exchange meaning though the students \"keep an eye on\" the way newly learned structures are used in the process. Meaningful practice usually comes after mechanical practice.

56. Using prompts for meaningful practice: (提示/刺激物，题词). This kind of practice is usually meaningful practice

1). Using picture prompts. Ss produce sentences based on the pictures provided

2). Using mime or gestures as prompts. 3).Using information sheet as prompts. E.g.: Names Favorite Favorite Favorite Hobbies subjects sports food Li Li Susan David Math Chinese English basketball football pork Ice-cream music reading Collecting stamps Ping-Pong eggs 4). Using key phrases or key words as prompts. The students are asked to produce language based on pictures and key phrases (words) provided by the teacher. For example(p69).

5). Using chained phrases for story telling. Here is an example. 7 o'clock -- got up -- had breakfast -- hurried to school -- school closed-- surprised --?

6). Using created situations.

Unit 7 Teaching Vocabulary

57. The role of vocabulary uncertainty still remains regarding(about)

What constitutes（组/构成）a vocabulary item,

Which vocabulary items should be taught and learned, and How vocabulary can be taught and learned most effectively. 58. Seven suggestions helping teachers to present new words: 1). Prepare examples to show meaning. 2). Ask students to tell the meaning first.

3). Think about how to show the meaning of a word with related words

such as synonyms, antonyms etc.

4). Think about how to check students' understanding.

5). Think about the context in real life where the word might be used. 6). Think about possible misunderstanding or confusion that student may have.

59. How do you present and explain vocabulary if you are a teacher?(Ways to present and explain vocabulary):

l) Draw pictures, diagrams and maps to show meanings or connection of meanings;2) Use real objects (realia) to show meanings;3) Mime or act to show meanings, e.g. brushing teeth, playing Ping-Pong;4) Use synonyms or antonyms to explain meanings;5) Use lexical sets, e.g. cook: fry, boil, bake, and grill;6) Translate and exemplify, especially with technical words or words with abstract meaning;7) Use word formation rules and common affixes.

60. When does vocabulary learning become more fun and effective? (When students study vocabulary together, say in groups, through various activities, under the teacher's supervision, when students understand the meaning of the new vocabulary)

61. Some vocabulary consolidation activities that can be done in class. (12

1) Labeling标注词汇: 2) Spotting the differences: 3) Describing and drawing: 4) Playing a game: 5) Using word thermometers: 6) Using word series 7) World bingo: 9) Odd man out:

10) Synonyms and antonyms:11) Using word categories word: 12) Using word net-work

62. Developing vocabulary building strategies.

1). Review regularly: 2). Guess meaning from context:

3). Organize vocabulary effectively: 4). Use learned vocabulary:

Which clues can contribute to the discovery (revealing) of meaning.

（1) The topic; （2) The grammatical structure;

（3) The possible meaning connection between the given word and other words; 4） The linguistic pattern where the word appears.

Unit 8 Teaching Listening

63. Reasons for poor listening:

1) Lack of teaching materials (audio and video tapes);

2) Lack of equipment (tape players, VCRs, VCDs, computers); 3) Lack of training in how to use the equipment; 4) Listening is not included on many important tests;

5) Lack of real-life situations where language learners need to understand spoken English;

6) Lessons tend to test rather than to train students' listening skills. . Why listening can be more difficult than reading:

1) Different speakers produce the same sounds in different ways, 2) The listener has little or no control over the speed of the input of spoken material; 3) Spoken material is often heard only once. In most cases, we cannot go back and listen again 4) The listener cannot pause to work out the meaning 5) Speech is more likely to be distorted by background noise or the media that transmit sounds.6) The listener sometimes has to deal simultaneously with another task while listening, such as formal note-taking, writing down directions or messages from telephone calls, or operating equipment while listening to instructions.

65. One reason for students' unsatisfactory listening abilities:

There is not enough variety in the materials that they listen to in class. In most cases, the listening materials are daily conversations or stories. But in reality we listen to far more things, regardless of which language is used.

67. The following are situations where Chinese people need to listen to English. Choose eight situations that you think are the most frequent:

[] telephone conversations about business *[] radio news in English *[] lessons or lectures given in English *[] conversations with foreigners

*[] instructions in English *[] watching television in English

*[] watching movies in English [] shop assistants who sell goods to foreigners

[] deal with tourists [] international trade

fairs

[] interviews with foreign-enterprises 企业 [] negotiations with foreign businesses

*[] socialize with foreigners *[] hotel and restaurant services

*[] listening to English songs

68. If you look back at the list of listening situations, you may judge the situations according to the following criteria:

1). Formal or informal?2). Rehearsed（背诵/排练/练习）or non-rehearsed?3). Can the listener interact with the speaker or not? 69. The characteristics of listening in real life (adapted from Ur, 1996:106-7):

1) Spontaneity2) Context3) Visual clues

4) Listener‟s response5) Speaker‟s adjustment调节 70. Two major purposes in listening.

*The first is for social reasons;

(Like when we have a casual conversation with friends or acquaintances to maintain or build social relationships). *The second is for exchanging information.

(The second kind is more difficult, according to Anderson and Lynch

(1988), and needs more emphasis in the language classroom, especially at intermediate中级 and advanced levels). 71. Principles of teaching listening:

1). Focus on process: How to process the information: * They have to hear what is being said, * They have to pay attention,

* They have to construct a meaningful message in their mind by relating what they hear to what they already know. 2). Combine listening and speaking: Why is it so important?

Most of the time in real life, these two skills are needed at the same time. ( There are two problems with this approach手段.

* It does not give students chance to practice listening and speaking skills together.

* The listening comprehension questions do not train the students how to listen or how to develop effective listening strategies，and only test the students,

3). Focus on comprehending meaning:

4). Grade (分。。。类/级 ) difficulty level appropriately:

Anderson and Lynch three main categories (1988:46) affect the

difficulty level of listening tasks: (l) Type of language used; (2) Task or purpose in listening; (3) Context in which the listening occurs. 72. Pre-listening activities: 1) Predicting

2). Setting the scene3). Listening for the gist 4). Listening for specific information 73. While-listening activities 1). No specific responses

2). Listen and tick 3). Listen and sequence 4). Listen and act 5). Listen and draw 6). Listen and fill 7). Listen and guess

74. Post-listening activities

1). Multiple choice questions 2). Answering questions

3). Note-taking and gap-tilling 4). Dictoloss 75. Dictogloss:

Dictogloss is a recently discovered listening activity which requires the use of comprehensive listening skills. Dictogloss has four stages:

(1) Preparation. (2) Dictation. (3) Reconstruction. (4) Analysis and correction.

76. Definitions of four stages:

(1) Preparation. The teacher prepares the students by briefly talking about the topic and key words or asking general questions.

(2) Dictation. The teacher dictates the text twice. For the first time,

students just listen and focus on the meaning. For the second time, the students take extensive notes.

(3) Reconstruction. Based on their notes, the students work in pairs or groups and reconstruct the text they have heard.

(4) Analysis and correction. The students compare their version of the text with the original, sentence by sentence.

Unit 9 Teaching Speaking

77. The nature of spoken language:/ (characteristics of spoken language) 1). What is speaking?

Speaking is a skill that the students will be judged upon most in real-life situations..

2). Spontaneous speech: Spontaneous speech means that it is full of false starts, repetitions, incomplete sentences, and short phrases. 3). Another aspect of producing spoken language is the time-constraint.

The students must be able to produce unplanned utterances in real time, otherwise people will not have the patience to listen to them. 4). What are the speaking activities?

Considering the aspects of the nature of spoken language discussed above, which of the following activities do you think would help to

prepare students for real life speech in English?

1). reading aloud

(2)* 2). giving a prepared talk

3). learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart (1)* 4).interviewing someone, or being interviewed

5). doing a drill

78. Two factors should be considered in designing speaking tasks 1) When we design speaking tasks, one important consideration is the language proficiency level of the students. If we ask them to do tasks that are above their level, they will simply

2) become frustrated and demotivated无刺激的. On the other hand, it is good to give the students tasks at times that challenge them, because if speaking tasks are all was too easy, they can also become demotivated.

79. There are several other successful factors to consider when designing speaking activities: 1). Maximum foreign talk:

The students talk a lot in the foreign language. One common problem in speaking activities is that students often produce one or two simple utterances in the foreign language and spend the rest of the time

chatting in their native language. Another common problem is that the teacher talks too much of the time, thus taking away valuable practice time from the students. 2). Even participation

A successful task should encourage speaking from as many different students as possible. 3). High motivation

Teachers can do a lot to increase and maintain the motivation of

students by the types of tasks that they organize in class. Students are eager to speak, when the topic is interesting or there is a clear objective

that must be reached. Again great care should be taken to make sure the task is in line with the students' ability to deal with the task. 4). Right language level

In a successful speaking task, the language is at the right level. The task must be designed so that students can complete the task successfully with the language that they have. 80. Using group work in speaking tasks 1). Reasons

The first characteristic of a successful speaking task is that students talk a lot in the foreign language. A second reason for designing speaking tasks to be completed in small groups is that often students are afraid of

criticism or losing face or they simply feel shy about speak person or to a few other people.

2). The advantages of using group in speaking tasks

Small group work helps students learn to work cooperatively and it helps them develop interpersonal skills.

They learn how to work with a wider variety of people

Development of tolerance宽容, mutual 相互 respect and harmony (1992:34).

81. Purpose of speaking:

Since speaking is the reciprocal/mutual of listening, the same is true of speaking. So, it makes sense to design tasks to help the students practice both listening and speaking.

82. Littlewood (1981:20) divides communicative speaking activities into two types:

1). Functional communication activities 2). Social interaction activities.

83. Few types of speaking activities/tasks. 1). Information-gap activities:

students have different information and they need to obtain information from each other in order to finish the task. 2). Dialogues and role-plays (1) Dialogue:

A dialogue is always between at least two people, so we can never predict what the other person will say next. (2) A role-play

A role-play means the students can pretend they are acting as someone else.

(3) The natural speech of native speakers:

The natural speech of native speakers is often phrases or sentence fragments full of pauses, false starts, and repetitions as we pointed out in a previous section.

(4) Disadvantages of most dialogues presented in textbooks: Not authentic or natural.

Only to teach students the grammar of the language Most dialogues are taught.

Students memorize dialogues by heart.

(5) What can teachers do to make dialogues more communicative?

To turn the dialogues into role plays

To make dialogues more similar to real-life

3). Activities using pictures Appropriate pictures provide cues, prompts,

situations and non-verbal aid for communication 4). Problem-solving activities 84. Other speaking activities: 5). Find someone who… 6). Bingo Activities

Bingo is an easy game to set up and can be used to practise many language areas. Give the students a game card with 16 boxes on it (or have them make their own). Decide what category of words you want to work on – a common one is numbers.

For example, tell the students to write down one number in each box in random order from 1 to 30. This way each student will have different numbers and in different boxes, so they cannot simply look at their neighbor for the answers. The teacher calls out the numbers in random order and writes down the numbers as she/he says them. The students draw an X through the numbers as they hear them. Once a student gets four Xs in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, he/she can call out BINGO! The student reads out the numbers in that line so that the teacher can check if she/he actually called out those four numbers. 7). Change the story 8). No specific responses

Unit 3

1. The overall language ability required in the 2001 National English Curriculum includes the following aspects language knowledge, language skills, learning strategies, affects and cultural understanding. 2. What is a syllabus?

A syllabus is a specification of what takes place in the classroom, which usually contains the aims and contents of teaching and sometimes contains suggestions of methodology. 3. What is curriculum?

A curriculum, however, provides (1) general statements about the rationale about

language, language learning and language teaching, (2) detailed specification of aims, objectives and targets learning purpose, and (3) implementations of a program. In some sense, a syllabus is part of a curriculum.

Syllabus is often used to refer to something similar to a language teaching approach, whereas curriculum refers to a specific document of a language program developed for a particular country or region.

4. Designing principles for the National English Curriculum

1) Aim for educating all students, and emphasize quality-oriented education.

The English curriculum aims education for all students and stresses quality-oriented education. The new standards particularly show concerns over students‟ affective needs as well as other learning needs in order to stimulate their interests in learning, help them experience the sense of success, and gain self-confidence in learning. Its overall objective is to develop students’ comprehensive abilities in using the language and to improve their cultural quality, to develop their practical skills, as well as to cultivate their creative spirit.

2) Promote learner-centeredness, and respect individual differences.

Students‟ overall development is the motivation and goal of the English curriculum. Therefore, its objective, the teaching process, the assessment procedures as well as the development of teaching resources should all reflect the principle of learner-centered approach. Classroom teaching should become a process during which students are guided by the teachers in constructing knowledge, developing skills, being active in thinking, demonstrating personal characters, developing intelligence and broadening their views and visions. Teaching should take full consideration of students‟ individual differences in learning process and their learning styles and teaching should be flexible in using teaching methods, resources and ways of assessment so as to make teaching beneficial to all kinds of students.

3. Develop competence-based objectives, and allow flexibility and adaptability.

The overall aim of the curriculum or nine-year compulsory education is to develop students‟ comprehensive abilities in language use. Such abilities are grounded in the development of language skills, language knowledge, affects, cultural awareness and learning strategies. The English curriculum for nine-year compulsory education together with the related senior high school English curriculum divide the English teaching objectives into nine levels. Each level is described in terms of what students can do with the language. It is thus designed to reflect the progressive nature of students‟ language development during the process of school education so as to ensure the integrity, flexibility and openness of the curriculum.

4) Pay close attention to the learning process, and advocate experiential learning and participation.

Modern foreign language teaching emphasizes the learning process and advocates the use of different teaching approaches and methods for the purpose of facilitating students‟ language development.

During the process of learning English in nine-year compulsory education, students should be encouraged to discover rules of the language, master gradually language knowledge and skills, constantly monitor the affective demands, develop effective learning strategies and autonomous learning abilities by means of experiencing, practicing, participating, exploring and cooperating under the teacher‟s guidance.

5. Attach particular importance to formative assessment, and give special attention to the development of competence.

The assessment for the nine-year compulsory education should be geared to stimulating students‟ interests and cultivating their autonomy in learning. The system should include both formative and summative assessment with formative assessment playing a primary role, paying special attention to students‟ language performance and achievements during the learning process.

Assessment should be made facilitative to developing students‟ interests and self-confidence in learning. Summative assessment should focus on assessing students‟ overall language ability and the ability to use the language. Assessment should function positively for students to develop language abilities and healthy personalities; for teachers to improve their teaching qualities and for the development and improvement of the English curriculum.

6. Optimize learning resources, and maximize opportunities for learning and using the language.

English curriculum requires that teachers should properly utilize and develop teaching resources so as to provide rich and healthy resources that are practical, lively, updated for students‟ learning.

Teachers should make full use of various resources such as videos, television programs, books, magazines and the Internet so as to expand the opportunities for students to learn and use the language. Also teachers should encourage students to take part in exploring and utilizing resources for learning.