小组活动在大学英语口语训练中的应用-文学学士毕业论文.doc

Abstract

Recently, one of the most common methods in the numerous oral English teaching activities is group work. However, some practices indicate that it’s difficult to successfully carry out group work in the university which isn’t as effective as teachers expect. The writer of this study summarizes the characteristics and the significance of application of group work in college oral English training on the basis of Cooperative Learning theory, and tries to analyze the reasons why it is difficult to carry out group work in college oral English training. And through the discussion of significant factors influencing the application of group work, this study tries to summarize the principles and procedures of carrying out group work and use a practical example to elaborate on the procedures, so as to help teachers to carry out the group work in college oral English training more effectively and to help the college students to increase their oral English ability more rapidly.
Key words: group work; college oral English training; principles; procedures
摘 要

近来，在众多提高口语的教学活动中，最常见的一种就是小组活动。然而，实践表明，在大学中小组活动却难以顺利开展，效果也不如期望的那样明显。本文作者以合作学习为理论基础，概括了小组活动在口语训练中运用的特点、意义，尝试分析了小组活动在大学英语口语训练中难以开展的原因，明确了实施小组活动时应注意的问题，并在此基础上尝试总结出开展口语小组活动的原则及有效实施步骤，并运用实例进一步解释、细化此步骤，期望能以此来帮助教师有效地开展小组活动，从而帮助大学生提高英语口语水平。

关键词：小组活动；大学英语口语训练；原则；步骤

Table of Contents

Abstract i
摘 要 ii
1. Introduction 1
1.1 The background of the research 1
1.2 The significance of the research 1
2. Literature Review 2
2.1 Status of domestic and international researches 2
2.2 Rationale of group work: Cooperative Learning theory 2
2.3 Characteristics of group work 3
2.4 Significance of carrying out group work 3
3. The Reasons for the Difficulty of Carrying out Group Work 4
3.1 Lack of preparation 4
3.2 The incorrect grouping 4
3.3 The incorrect distinction of the roles between teachers and students 4
3.4 The incomplete evaluation 5
3.5 The unilateral understanding of group work 5
4. The Significant Factors Influencing the Application of Group Work 6
4.1 Good preparation of group work 6
4.2 Proper grouping 6
4.3 Changing the roles of teachers and students 6
4.4 Appropriate evaluation 7
5. The Application of Group Work in College Oral English Training 8
5.1 The principles of carrying out group work 8
5.1.1 In accordance with teaching objective 8
5.1.2 Development of the ability of cooperation 8
5.2 The procedures of carrying out group work 8
5.3 The practical example of application of group work 9
6. Conclusion 12
References 13
Acknowledgements 14

1. Introduction

1.1 The background of the research
With the rapid development of globalization, the requirement of the society for college students’ oral English ability is increasing every day. And the holding of the Beijing Olympics Games, the Shanghai Expo 2010, and the Guangzhou Asian Games accelerate the speed with which China enters into the world. There is no doubt that the society needs the college students who can speak English fluently. But oral English training in China’s university has been inefficient and not so satisfactory for a long time. In spite of many years’ efforts, most college students are not able to use the language in real communicative situations well.
On one hand, most of the college students were told the importance of oral English from their teachers and parents, but they themselves haven’t really experienced how important it is in practical use, so they don’t have enough motivation to practice their oral English. Gethin (1998) thought language can not be taught but only learned.
On the other hand, in the traditional oral English training, the teacher is the center and students just listen and take notes, even don’t want to speak out when they have to speak. In other words, the teaching mode is relatively monotonous. To avoid this situation, many teachers are trying to apply group work teaching to oral English training, but the effects are not as good as they expect.

1.2 The significance of the research
Nowadays, the society needs the excellent person who has the skills of speaking and writing both in mother tongue and foreign language, especially in English. But right now, the college students’ communicative competences are obviously weak. Therefore, the study of group work for the improvement of the college students’ oral English ability is significant and worthwhile. Many teachers realize that the traditional oral English training methods do not fit the increasing requirement of the society for college students’ oral English ability. Some of them change their teaching method by carrying out group work in oral English training. However, the group work is sometimes difficult to carry out and the results are not satisfied. This study summarizes the characteristics of group work, the significance of applying group work to college oral English training, and tries to analyze the reasons why it is difficult to carry out group work in college oral English training. And through the discussion of the significant factors influencing the application of the group work, this study tries to summarize the principles and procedures of carrying out group work and gives out a practical example to elaborate on it. This study tries to strengthen the positive effect of the group work in the expectation that teachers can use the group work better in oral English training and students can increase their oral English abilities though group work.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Status of domestic and international researches
The recent literatures which study about the group work show the cognition of the effectiveness of the group work. The early time of overseas study about group work can be traced to 1960s. The academician summarized the value of carrying out group work in oral English training. Merrill Harmin (2002) summed up that it is worthy to use group work because it can promote the productive and active learning, stimulate students to communicate in target language, and it also can foster one's creative ability, expressive ability and the ability to study on one's own. In China，some scholars such as Wu Weiwei & Pan Jixian (2000) made an empirical research on the group work which shows that group work can make students do more interactional modifications which can increase the possibility of language acquisition(Long 1981, 1983; Long & Porter 1985, Pica 1991). The empirical study confirmed that group work is an effective method in college oral English training (Wu Weiwei & Pan Jixian, 2000).
Group work is one main mode of the application of Cooperative Learning theory in English teaching, especially in oral English training (Yuan Chunyan, 2005). The application studies of group work in college oral English training indicate that this method has advantages, for example, it can make students do more communications because it distances teachers’ control, and it also has disadvantages, for instance, the week and strong students usually get big different gains through the training because of the different English level or some other reasons (Barnes, 1976).

2.2 Rationale of group work: Cooperative Learning Theory
Cooperative Learning, as a teaching strategy for classroom instruction and classroom management which springs up in the middle of 20th century in America, is used in a wide variety of teaching contexts. The strategy means that students learn together in small groups with the students who have different learning abilities and through cooperation, each member can learn from his/her teammates (Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R.T., 1989) and finally the teacher can judge their performance in groups (Slavin, R.E., 1980). This strategy can help group members to complete the assignment more successfully and understand the knowledge more deeply. When it is applied to language training, it can help language learners to get more chances to practice the target language and also can help them to heighten their awareness of speaking English through cooperation with each other. The famous English and Israeli educationist Light, P.H. (1992) and Mevarech, Z.R. (1992) think Cooperative Learning can be explained as a learning environment that students work in groups to achieve the same purpose. Cooperative Learning strategy’s peculiarity is the scientific organization and implementation of group work. Group work is one of the important methods to be applied in Cooperative Learning. Group work has many types, such as group discussion, group debate, role-play, group speech, group game and group presentation. The most common used in college oral English training is group discussion, group presentation, role-play and group game.

2.3 Characteristics of group work
As we all know, the final objective of college oral English training is to foster the students’ communicative competence in English. The promotion of the students’ ability of using language proficiently mostly depends on classroom-teaching format which is directly related to the quality of teaching. The application of group work in oral English training is to divide the students into several groups to achieve the same purpose during cooperative work.
The first feature of group work is that the teaching mode has been changed. Group work emphasizes student-centered teaching mode in which students are the principal roles in the class, and it is a poly-sided teaching mode which contains not only the original interaction between teachers and students, but also the interaction between students themselves. It provides students with a speaking and cooperating situation. They must step up with their teammates and take the group representation in the first place. In this teaching mode, students are more easily to speak out than in the traditional class (Jeremy Harmer, 2000).
The second characteristic is that the roles of teachers and students have been changed. When carrying out group work, students change from a "deuteragonist" into the "protagonist". In other words, students are the center in the class who study by themselves and teachers are just planners, instructors, regulators, recorders and evaluators. Students no longer just listen to what the teachers teach passively but become initiative. That is to say, every student has the chance to participate in the activities and he/she must work in groups to study the content or speak to others, he/she must think and express his/her views, listen to the opinions of others, complete the learning task assigned by teachers together.

2.4 Significance of carrying out group work
Group work is often considered as an essential feature of communicative language teaching (Brumfit, 1984).Long and Porter (1985) summarized the main pedagogical arguments in favor of it. It creates opportunities of language practice for students, it improves the quality of students’ talking, it helps to individualize instruction, and it promotes a positive and affective climate. And a psycholinguistic justification has been advanced that group work provides the kind of input and opportunities for output that promote rapid L2 acquisition. The application of group work in college oral English training can gradually help the students to form a habit of presentation, and avoid the fear of making mistakes. What’s more, this strategy changes the traditionally teacher-dominated teaching methods radically and it is the effective application method of Cooperative Learning. Merrill Harmin (2002) commented in his book that group work can give teachers much more time to give guidance to individual student in the study or training and it also can facilitate the effective and active study, furthermore, it gives students more opportunities to enjoy different experiences, so as to make them increase the interest of speaking.

3. The Reasons for the Difficulty of Carrying out Group Work

3.1 Lack of preparation
Some teachers carry out the group work without preparation, or just make a simple plan even without the design of teaching objectives. In fact, the group work will not be carried out successfully without full preparation made by teachers. Teachers will easily lose the control of the class, and the students will learn nothing in this way. So, teachers should make full preparation before carrying out group work.
In addition, the preparation also contains the student’s preparation. When students get the task and start it without thinking and searching information, the consequence is always that most students have no ideas about the task or just sit back and leave others to find a way out. This is the main reason why many students always don’t know what to say and how to say, or not willing to speak out or even still speak in mother tongue. The use of language depends on the accumulation of knowledge and words. If a student doesn’t know how to say the word “creative”, he or she would have no way to talk about the topic that “Am I Creative”. Students without preparation will be afraid of speaking. They would rather be quiet than speak out. For this reason, group work will not get the expected effect. So, students should also prepare for the group work.

3.2 The incorrect grouping
When grouping the students, some teachers frequently do this step without considering the students’ differences of study abilities or discrepancies of individual. Under such circumstances, for example, the active students who are good at English and the shy students will be grouped in the same group. And this grouping is improper which will lead to a possible result that the active students who get the most opportunity to practice their oral English on their own initiative become the leading role and the shy students who lose the chance to express themselves due to passive and unconfident personality become the supporting role naturally. As a result, the advantage that every student can get the chance to show himself in group work cannot be brought into play. Therefore, teachers must divide students into groups according to the actual conditions of students and this depends on the full preparation of teachers.

3.3 The incorrect distinction of the roles between teachers and students
Firstly, some teachers have incorrect distinction of the roles between teachers and students. From the features of group work we can see that students are the protagonists in the class and teachers are the deuteragonists and the class is the student-centered class. But it doesn’t mean that teacher is not one part of the class. Some teachers ignore the impact of teachers on the group work, and just give out a plan or topic and let students put it into practice all by themselves. This one side thinking should easily make teachers lose the control of the class and make students get out of their mind during the training. Another extreme thinking is that teachers are still the center of the class an