2. The problems in junior English classroom
2.1 Situations and disadvantages of the traditional English classroom
In the traditional junior English classroom, the teacher is regarded as an authority who dominates the whole class. They are supposed to be knowledgeable and respectable. In general, being the “older” and “wiser” people in class, they are given the power to award or punish students. In such a tradition, it is clear that they are the controllers in the classroom.
The teacher sits or stands behind a desk which symbolizes his authority, spends a large proportion of his time lecturing, tries to put everything into students’ heads and pays scant notice of the feelings and reactions of students. There is little cooperation between teachers and students and the productive skills such as speaking and writing are almost ignored.
On the other hand, students are considered as “slaves of knowledge” or “receiving machines”. They are expected to learn structural knowledge and assessment which are often based on the information they derive from their rote skills. The students do not have to prepare much for the class. They sit in straight rows facing the teacher and the blackboard. They sit passively listening and busily taking notes. Needless to say, they have no opportunity to ask questions and participate in learning activities of their own accord. Students are just “ignorant audiences” waiting to be filled up with knowledge by the teacher. All the activities in the classroom are teacher-centered. “This teaching style is sometimes characterized as ‘jug and mug’– The knowledge being poured from one receptacle into another empty one.”[3]
Besides, in China, a good student will timely complete all the assignments given by the teacher, do whatever he is told to do by the teacher and he will actually have a very similar opinion or conclusion to the teacher. What is more, a student with more independent thinking or a questioning spirit is less likely to win the favor of the teacher. As a consequence, students’ motivation of learning will soon disappear even though they are junior students who are curious and eager to do well in everything. The whole class is quite dull and boring.
2.2 New requirements in a modern English classroom
With the rapid growth in interaction with the outside world and consequent deepening reform of foreign language teaching, the traditional teacher-centered teaching is not adequate for the classroom teaching. Now a lot of Chinese teachers are conscious of the importance of training students’ communicative ability in the junior English classroom teaching and traditional teacher-dominated approach is gradually being shifted to a learner-centered one. T
