论中学英语教师课堂用语的有效性(二)
Interaction has always been the most neglected part of the language activities in which we engage in the classroom. This situation will not improve unless definite steps are taken to include substantial interaction activities in each lesson. Because “real” communication for our students takes place in the native language, it is not surprising that they need some stimulus to use the foreign language for natural purpose. Interaction does not take place in a void. It is not enough to put several people together; there must also be some situational element that naturally elicits an interchange. Interaction is a purposeful person-to-person affair in speech and in most kinds of writing. This interpersonal character of interaction explains why so much of foreign-language teaching and learning remains at the production or pseudo-communication level.
2.4 Errors
Non native-speaker teachers of English can hardly manage to teach natural English unless they themselves are persistent in learning. Mistakes made in the classroom by teachers would mislead students, especially when the teachers are their first guides to the new language.
3. Ideal classroom language
Though many people advocate that today’s English lessons in middle schools should be “student-centered”, teachers’ important role can never be overemphasized. Middle school students are in a critical period for language learning. They learn primarily through imitation. According to imitation theory, language is a special kind of behavior and to acquire a language is a matter of acquiring a targeted behavior. It follows that children are supposed to acquire their mother tongue through imitating the language they are exposed to (Skinner, 1968). It is nearly the same case with adolescence when they are trying to acquire a second language. English teachers are supposed to offer excellent models for their students. “Student-centered” should never be put in the way that teachers need to talk as little as possible and give the whole floor to students. On the contrary, the quality of English teachers’ classroom language, to a large degree, determines how a lesson can progress and how effectively the students can learn the target language.
Generally speaking, communication competence is taken to be the objective of language teaching. Communication requires interpersonal responsiveness, rather than the mere production of language, which is truthful, honest, accurate, stylistically pleasing, etc. Thus, teachers should be able to teach their students how to communicate in English, not just how to do grammar exercise or choose A B C or D as the correct answer. To do this, teachers should aim, not only to teach English in English, but also to exploit the genuine communicative situations that arise in the classroom for meaningful language practice. Such exploitation is also demanding on the flexibility of teachers’ classroom language. Gwynneth Thurburn wrote: “Children have to be won, to be made interested, and thrilled… Voice and speech of the teacher play an incalculable part (1939:167).”
3.1 The power of voice
The impact of one’s voice is magnificent. George Eliot said that she thought voices go deeper into us than other things. Walt Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass “Whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her shall I follow (1947:93).”
Ideal English teachers usually use their voices skillfully to stimulate their students to learn. They work to control their volume, pitch, rate, pauses, vocal variety, pronunciation and articulation. They have strong flexible voices to show enthusiasm, to control, reprimand and praise, to be able to “boom” when necessary, and enjoy the feel and sounds of words. Those teachers become better models for their students. In the same way, students respond better to a “stroking” voice and enjoy more difficult stories when the teacher reads well.
3.2 The glamour of spoken word
3.2. 1 Teachers’ creativity in language
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis claims that human beings acquire language in only one way — by understanding messages, or by receiving comprehensible input (1985:2). Krashen devotes 15 pages to the (rather convincing) evidence supporting the IH, relying primarily on experimental data. Some glottodidactic corollaries of the IH are of great interest:
—“Give enough comprehensible input, the necessary grammar is covered in sufficient quantity.” (Krashen, 1985:5)
—Acquisition depends on comprehensible input, not on simple “exposure” to the language:
—A teacher’s “simplified talk”, often refused in the name of authenticity, may make input comprehensible;
—Speech will emerge after a sufficient quantity of input has built a solid “acquired competence”.
According to IH, it is evident that language learning can take place when the learner has enough access to input in the target language. This input may come in written or spoken form (Hu Zhuanglin, 2001:370). In the case of spoken input, English teachers take an irreplaceable role. Since they nearly organize an English class for their students each day, they enjoy the precious chance to influence their students.
Students are motivated by fun and it is the most important ingredient in a successful class. Some words in style like “cool”, “come on baby” will help English teachers a lot with class control and basic communications. It also shows students that the teacher is trying to learn their language, give and take, mutual respect.
Excellent English teachers bring something new to class each time without repeating what they said last time. They teach students alternative ways of saying the same thing. For example, if they say, “Open the door please” this time, next time they would say “Would you please open the door” or “Do you mind opening the door for me?” In this way, psychologically students’ interests would be boomed and materially they would learn to use different expressions step by step. In a word, teachers’ creativity will lead to students’ proficiency in English. What matters in the class is the working relationship between the teacher and students. The creativity of the teacher, the involvement of the students and the language they both speak, the communication between them, are at the heart of learning.
3.2.2 Sympathetic communication
Spontaneous communication and free interaction are possible in any language only when teachers and their students have built up a warm, uninhibited, confident, sympathetic relationship and when such a relationship also exists among the students themselves. In the first lessons no such state of affair exists as yet. The teacher’s efforts from the beginning should be devoted to building up such relationships through enjoyable, successful experiences in using interesting and amusing segments of language in a multiplicity of ways so that students begin to feel that they can express real concerns through this new medium and that it is exhilarating to do so. This confident attitude, so essential to development of future speaking skill, is very fragile and can be stifled quite early by a situation where the teacher has the advantage of fluency and is inevitably right while the student is uncertain, groping, and for the most part wrong. Early interaction practice calls for self-restraint and tact on the part of the teacher. Much confident self-expression is possible even at a very early stage once the students understand the rules of the game — that you do the most you can with the little you have in some meaningful activities shared with others in the group, and that the teacher is there not to condemn but to give a helping hand, a gentle reminder.
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