A Preliminary Study on Strategies of Activating Junior English Classroom Dynamics
[Abstract] As the development of society, in order to meet the demand of the 21st century that is a knowledge-economy era, our country carries out constantly the educational reform. The new English curriculum standard that was issued by the Education Ministry shows the importance of activating junior English classroom dynamics. Classroom dynamics is a kind of force that works in the system of language learning and teaching. It influences classroom activities and advances the process of language learning and teaching. A positive classroom dynamics has a beneficial effect on the moral, motivation and self-image of language learners and thus significantly affects their learning. Then they will develop a positive attitude to the target language, to the learning process and to the learners. Moreover, a positive classroom dynamics has a beneficial effect on the teacher’s classroom management and the vivid classroom atmosphere and can help the teacher to fulfill the teaching task effectively. On the analysis of different situations between the traditional and modern junior English classroom dynamics and some factors which affect the classroom dynamics, this paper shows the importance of promoting English classroom dynamics and presents some kinds of good teaching ways to create and increase junior English classroom dynamics. 激发初中英语课堂活力的策略初探 【摘 要】 随着社会的发展，为了满足21世纪这个知识经济年代的要求，我们国家也一直不断地在进行着教育改革。2001年7月教育部颁布了《英语课程标准》，新课程标准的要求体现了激发初中英语课堂活力的重要性。课堂活力是作用于教学系统的动力。它直接影响教学活动的开展，并推动教学的进程。积极的课堂活力不但对学习者的精神面貌，学习动力和自我形象的形成会产生良好的影响，从而使学习者对所学的语言，学习的过程和作为学习主体本身持积极的态度，而且有利于教师的课堂管理，使教学过程生动活泼，从而达到提高课堂教学时效的目的。本文通过对传统与现代的初中英语课堂活力的分析对比以及影响课堂活力的因素的探讨，展示激发初中英语课堂活力的重要性，并介绍了一些教学策略及手段来激发和增强初中英语课堂活力。
[Key Words] activate; junior English; classroom dynamics; learner-centered
【关键词】 激发；初中英语；课堂活力；以学生为主体
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of foreign language teaching and consequent deepening reform of educational methodology, creating dynamics shows its importance in junior English classroom. More and more teachers have accepted a communicative approach and have become more concerned with the effectiveness of classroom teaching. In traditional English teaching, the teacher is the main speaker who explains words, phrases and sentences, analytic grammatical structures and language points can no longer meet the need of students to cope with their future professions and practical uses in society. To change the situation, the ELT classroom should be made as learner-centered as possible. Our new language teaching goal enables students to learn by using the target language in meaningful interactive situations. The aim of the teacher’s work is not only to offer a description of the language but also through materials to create conditions in the classroom that will help the students learn through active and dynamic involvement and tasks. “Teaching and learning can and should be a joyful experience for both teacher and learner, and most teachers, except the very lucky or the very talented, will know from bitter experience that there is no more miserable teaching experience than to be shut up inside the four walls of your classroom with a prickly and uncooperative group.”[1] So activating the classroom dynamics and promoting students to learn English is an indispensable factor in the process of successful language learning and teaching.
To begin with, we should firstly clarify some questions as in: What is classroom dynamics? Why do we need to study it? What is the importance of it? Then we can have a decent reason to move on and talk about how to create and promote it. For dynamics, definitions are varied. Longman Dictionary of American says: The forces that work in any system or matter. The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary tells us: The motive forces, physical or moral, affecting behavior and change in any sphere. So we may say, in the classroom setting, dynamics is
