互动式语言教学法在初中英语教学中的应用本科毕业论文.doc

本 科 毕 业 论 文

题目：
互动式语言教学法在初中英语教学中的应用

摘 要

语言是交际工具，培养学生的交际能力是英语教学的最终目的。近年来，由于社会大力倡导培养学生的英语交际能力，使过去传统教育普遍存在的“哑巴英语”的现象得到好转。现在流行的互动式英语教学法实现了以学生为中心，以教师为主导的教学理念，强调“师生互动”“生生互动”“师生与其它媒介的互动”的有机结合，真正提高了学生的交际能力，对英语教学有着重要的作用。本文首先从互动式语言教学法的定义、内涵，在中国的应用研究，实施原则及与传统教学法的对比等方面分析概述互动式语言教学法；其次，本文从英语课堂互动结构流程及在不同教学阶段的互动活动重点阐述了互动式语言教学法在初中英语课堂教学中的实际应用，最后根据初中英语教科书Go for it!的内容进行了实战模拟。
关键词：互动式语言教学法；初中英语教学；应用

Abstract

Language is a tool for communication. As a result, English teaching should aim to improve the students’ communicative competence. In recent years, the past prevailing phenomenon of “Dumb English” in traditional classrooms has got a little change, for society highly advocates improving students’ communicative competence. Nowadays, the prevailing interactive language teaching approach is students-centered and teachers-guided, which emphasizes the perfect combination of “teachers-students interaction” “students-students interaction”“students and teachers-other media interaction”. It is of great significance for it can improve students’ communicative competence. First, the paper makes an overview of interactive language teaching approach, including its definition and intension, the researches on the application of interactive teaching approach in China, principles of interactive teaching approach.Then, by introducing the framework for English classroom interactive teaching and stages of interactive activities during teaching process, the paper has made a clear idea of the applications of interactive language teaching approach in junior middle school English teaching. At last, the paper gives a sample class based on the junior middle school English textbook.
Key words: Interactive language teaching; Junior Middle school English teaching; Application

Contents

1 Introduction................................................1
2 An Overview of Interactive Language teaching....................2
2.1 Definition and Intension of Interactive Language Teaching Approa2
2.2 Researches on the Application of Interactive Teaching Approach in China.....3
2.3 Principles of Interactive Teaching Approach......................4
2.3.1Student-centered.........................................4
2.3.2Teacher as Initiator and Director..........................5
2.4 Differences between Interactive Teaching Approach and Traditional Teaching Method.....................................................5
3 Applications of Interactive Language Teaching Approach in Junior Middle School English Teaching.......................................7
3.1A Framework for English Classroom Interactive Teaching................................7
3.2 Stages of Interactive Activities during Teaching Process.......7
3.2.1 Warming-up Activities.......................................8
3.2.2 Presentation Activities..............................9
3.2.3 Practice Activities................................10
3.2.4 Production Activities..................................10
3.2.5 Feedback Activities...........................................10
3.3 A Sample Class..............................................11
Conclusion………………………………………………12
Bibliography…………………………………………14
Acknowledgments………………………………….15

Application of Interactive Language Teaching Approach in Chinese Junior Middle School English Teaching
1 Introduction
Nowadays, society is highly-developed. As a communicative tool, English is the most widely used language in the world. Since the reform and opening up, especially after the entry to WTO in 2001, China has been playing a more and more important role in the world. As a result, English learning in China has become more and more heated.
The government pays much attention to classroom English teaching because of the fact that, for most students in China, learning English from their teachers in the classroom is the main approach to English learning. During the past few decades, much progress has been made in English learning and teaching. For example, textbooks have been recompiled and updated; testing and evaluating systems have gradually shifted the attention away from the check of knowledge points towards listening comprehension and communicative competence; new and advanced teaching approaches have been introduced and tried. Among them interactive language teaching approach is of great importance. As Wells (1981:29, 46-47) puts it, “interactive language teaching is a linguistic collaborative activity involving the establishment of a triangular relationship between the sender, the receiver and the context of situation, whether the communication be in speech or writing.” About the application of interactive language teaching approach, however, there are still some problems existing in middle school English teaching and learning. It is important to find out the problems and the related causes. This paper focuses on analyzing the problems and the causes in the application of interactive language teaching approach in middle school English teaching in China and trying to find the corresponding strategies.
The paper consists of four parts.
Part one makes an introduction to the whole essay.
Part two makes an overview of interactive language teaching approach, including its definition and intension, principles,researches on the application of interactive teaching approach in China , and differences between interactive teaching approach and traditional teaching method.
Part three introduces the framework for English classroom interactive teaching and stages of interactive activities during teaching process to make a clear idea of the applications of interactive language teaching approach in junior middle school English teaching. Then gives a sample class.
Part four draws a conclusion. It makes a summary of the main issues discussed in the paper and points out the significance of the application of interactive language teaching approach in junior middle school English teaching.
2 An Overview of Interactive Language Teaching Approach
2.1 Definition and Intension of Interactive Language Teaching Approach
Lange (1990:79) stated that “one of the goals of new foreign language curricula is to provide the occasions for the student and the teacher to find the discourse needed to negotiate both the expression and meaning”. The communicative purpose of language impels us to create interactive classrooms. Then what is interaction?
According to Brown (2001:159), “interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other”. And Rivers (2000:6) says that “it is the interaction between teacher and students, students and teacher, student and student, students and authors of texts, and student and the community that speaks the language”. This highlights interaction in the classroom. Then how to apply interaction in classroom? In other words, what is interactive teaching approach?
Interactive teaching is the term given to a style of teaching developed through research undertaken as a part of the learning in Science Project at Waikato University in the 1980s. According to Wells (1981:29, 46-47), “interactive teaching approach is a linguistic collaborative activity involving the establishment of a triangular relationship between the sender, the receiver and the context of situation, whether the communication be in speech or writing”. As for interactive language teaching, it focuses on providing learners with more activities to interact directly with the target language. To meet the demand, both the teacher and students will be in great change and challenge. It first requires the teacher’s high degree of indirect leadership, perceptiveness, emotional maturity, and sensitivity to the feelings of students. At the same time students are required to be able to listen to others (the teacher and other students), to talk with others, and to negotiate meaning in a shared context and situation. In order to encourage the student to talk, for the sake of sharing ideas and opinions, cooperating towards a single goal or competing for individual goals, not just producing language as an end in itself, classroom activities and tasks should be well structured. It will most likely be found:
doing a significant amount of pair work and group work
receiving authentic language input in real-world context
producing language for genuine, meaningful communication
performing classroom tasks that prepare them for actual language use “out there”
practicing oral communication through the give and take and spontaneity of actual conversations
writing to and for real audiences, not contrived ones
(Brown, 2001:81)
In conclusion, interactive language teaching is (1) inclusive: everyone is expected to participate and to learn; (2) collaborative: everyone is expected to work together to achieve particular goals; (3) communicative: providing maximum opportunities for sharing and communication; (4) thought-provoking: paying attention to enquiry, application of knowledge and problem solving.
Actually, interactive language teaching approach is not a concrete model and it has no specific and fixed teaching procedures. In China, We have our own English teaching environments, a specified group of English learners and different education and examination systems. Even the English teaching environments in primary schools, junior middle schools and senior middle schools differentiate each other. Thus, interactive language teaching approach should be based on the specified English teaching environments. This paper focuses on middle school English teaching.
2.2 Researches on the Application of Interactive Teaching Approach in China
More and more educators in china have realized that classroom interaction is of great importance in developing students' communicative competence. And with some feasible ways intended to make English teaching and learning more effective, educators actually have done much work trying to make some reforms on English teaching and learning.
In 1989, based on a empirical study in English learning, Wang Qiang claimed multi-direction classroom communication as an important teaching principle.
In 1993, Wen Qiufang, whose study holds a dominant position, classified elements of English learning into conception and strategies, representing interaction knowledge and interaction regulation respectively. Drawn from the experiment, she concludes that differences between a more proficient student and a less proficient student lie in their different performance in interaction. Usually, the more proficient student is superior to the less proficient one in interaction.
In 1998, in order to release students from boring and burdensome English learning in traditional classroom, Ying and Zhou carried out an experiment trying to test the effectiveness of student-centered teaching model. After more than one year's practice, it turned out to be rather successful and feasible since both teachers and students had reacted positively, and students had made great progress in language skills. These are firm evidences of the effectiveness of student-centered teaching model .
In 1999, under the condition of implementation of The New English Curriculum, which emphasizes student-centered, task-based interactive language teaching approach,Wang Qiang and Wang Lei began their researches on observing classroom behaviors and analyzing communicative patterns.
In 2001,Chen Xiaoqiao, Li Baoqing and Zhang Hshishi made a study on interactional teaching from the sociological viewpoints, and even proposed some possible strategies to promote interaction between teachers and students. Moreover, Yan and Liu summarized the characteristics of native English-speaking teachers' teaching and analyzed their advantages of teaching in Chinese context, including language proficiency, life experiences and personality, which can create an authentic environment for students to practice their oral English.
In 2002, Guo carried out a collaborative teaching and learning experiment in oral English class between native English-speaking teachers and non-native English-speaking teachers trying to find a combination between them in China. After investigating Chinese students' views of communicative and non-communicative activities and their difficulties in English classes, Rao found that Chinese students prefer a combination of communicative and non-communicative activities in class. And he suggested that students take part in various classroom activities in language teaching process, and the teacher may help students understand the nature of the language, the function of the class, the roles of students and the teacher.
In 2003, after an increasing series of communicative language textbooks being punished by the end of 1990s, interactive language teaching started to be accepted and teachers are encouraged to teach interactively and communicatively in class.

2.3 Principles of Interactive Teaching Approach
2.3.1Student-centered
A "student-centered" classroom means more than allowing students to work in pairs or groups, to express themselves freely in classroom discussions or debates, or to make their own decisions in selecting. A genuine "student-centered" classroom is a democratically educational environment that enables students to develop their own critical thinking and learning styles equitably and freely. As a result, they can have a better understanding towards themselves with increased confidence and communicative competence, which can help them meet the diverse demands of school and life . Under the condition of student-centered principle, students are the foundation of instructional planning. Thus, when planning the lessons, the teacher should bear the real needs of students in mind and try to meet their demands. A student-centered environment is communicative and authentic, which trains students to work in small groups or pairs and to negotiate meaning in a broad context. In such a environment, students become positive and autonomous learners, which accelerates the language learning process (River 1987:89).

2.3.2Teacher as Initiator and Director
Social constructivism claims that individuals are actively involved right from birth in constructing personal meaning. They don't passively obtain knowledge transmitted from others, but actually construct their own interpretation based upon their past experiences and their interactions in the world. In interactive classroom, the teacher plays the role of an initiator or director, that is, to get students started, to guide them, to stimulate them to further and deeper communication. The teacher's effective guidance can keep the interactive process flowing smoothly and efficiently whether in rehearsed or spontaneous la