Strategies for Reducing Chinese Middle School Students’ Anxiety in Speaking English
[Abstract] Currently, students learning English have realized the importance of oral English and they are eager to acquire English speaking ability to cope with everyday communication. However, they frequently worry about their oral English when communicating with others. In this article, we study some difficulties in learning oral English of middle school students by doing informal surveys on them. According to the surveys, they encounter many difficulties but the basic one is anxiety, which negatively affects the performances in their English speaking activities. Besides, this paper explores some practical oral English teaching strategies by studying the new teaching concepts promoted by The English Course Standards in the hope that students reduce their anxieties and are encouraged to participate in oral English communication.
[Key Words] speaking; teaching strategy; anxiety; culture sense; cooperative learning; formative assessment
中国中学生英语口语焦虑问题的教学策略
[摘 要] 现今,英语学习者已经充分认识到英语口语的重要性,因此渴望能够掌握用英语流利交流的口语技巧。但是,进行交流的时候,学生往往因为顾虑重重而没有办法自由地表达其所思所想。本文通过对一些学生做出的非正式的调查了解到学生在英语口语过程中遇到的难题。学生学习英语口语过程中遇到的难题很多,但是其中最普遍的是学习讲英语时候的焦虑感和紧张感。焦虑和紧张成了学生开口讲英语的思想障碍,对学生英语学习百害而无一利。本文还对新课程标准所提倡的一些口语教学理念及口语教学评价理念做出可行性分析并对可行性较强的英语口语教学策略做出初步探讨,力图减少学生讲英语过程中的焦虑感和紧张感,使学生能够用英语自由地表达思想,真正把英语作为一种使用的交流工具。
[关键词] 英语口语;教学策略;焦虑感;文化意识;合作性学习;形成性评价
1. Introduction
English speaking is a demonstration of a person’s overall ability to use English. It is the skill that is judged upon most in real-life situations. It is also an important part of everyday interaction and most often, the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. In many other countries, oral English is a basic skill for students to master, and therefore they paid a lot attention to English speaking at schools.
On January 3rd, 2004, the Ministry of Education issued a notice concerning the distribution of Teaching Requirements for English Curriculum. In the requirements, one shift is highlighted, namely, the shift of the focus of the teaching syllabus from reading to speaking and listening. The skill of speaking has also been required in the new English Syllabus and The Senior English Course Standards published by the Education Ministry of China has regulated English Speaking as one of the compulsory course.
But the current Chinese education, to a great extent, has been carried out in a sort of “fixed” system of “grammar and vocabulary only”, and oral courses are almost nowhere to be found. So, the problem of students is not having nothing to say but not knowing how to say. Just as Huchun Dong says, students say what they can say but not what they want to say. [1] This doubtlessly limited the opportunities of students’ individual development.
It is not easy to teach English and it is more difficult to teach oral English. In order to develop students’ oral competence so that they can use the language they have learned correctly, appropriately and expressively in real situations, the teacher needs to be acquainted with as many teaching strategies as possible, and understand the underlying theories and principles, so that he/she not only knows what to teach and how to do it, but also why he/she could do it in a certain way and how to solve problems when they arise.[2]
2. Some difficulties in learning oral English of middle school students
English learning is a complex process, subject to the influence of social, linguistic, educational, and cognitive factors. [3] It is reasonable that students worry about their disfluency and unidiomaticity and other aspects of language use. Recent talks with a group of students learning English that I interviewed informally after oral classes prove that the following are among their difficulties: Lack of interest in learning English makes it impossible for students to speak with the instructor and peers actively in the ESL classroom; Anxieties relating to Engli