English teaching is mainly focused on four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, among which I think listening and speaking are the most basic ones. As we all know, to begin with a language, one should first learn to speak the language and try to understand what people are talking about so that communication is made possible. With the background knowledge of English in primary schools and junior middle schools, our students are able to speak and listen, but with limitation. As they enter senior middle schools, our aim is to improve and develop these two skills to meet the needs of further communication in the future.
It is true that Chinese students are not so bold as those in Western countries mainly because they lack self-confidence and they are afraid of making mistakes. In addition, they are quite used to the old teaching method, which lays more emphasis on grammar. Instead of opening their own mouths to speak, they would rather listen to the teachers and take notes busily. On the other hand, in order to make themselves understood by all the students, some teachers would explain the grammar rules or even the texts in Chinese rather than in English in class. Thus, students get fewer opportunities to improve their listening skill.
In our school, which is one of the selective schools in Shanghai, we pay much attention to the practice of speaking and listening and try as many ways as possible to encourage our students to speak the target language more.
The first way is daily talk. At the beginning of each lesson, one student is expected to give the whole class a 3-minute daily talk, the topics of which may touch on various aspects such as sports, music, hobbies, films, latest news, etc. They can choose whatever they like. After that, one or two questions will be put forward to test if the rest of the students understand the speaker. Obviously their listening skill is developed as well.
The second is situational dialogue. We have situational dialogues in almost every lesson. I give my students different situations like on the street, at the post office or at the library according to the content in our textbook and ask them to think about what people generally say in those situations. It is usually done in pairs and it is quite short so that many pairs can be involved in it.
The third is role play. The English book we use in our school is the one published by Oxford press. It is really a good edition which contains 12 units in each volume. There is a main topic in each unit. I choose such topics as hair care, successful interview, quiz program which are very practical and close to life for the students to prepare their role plays by group work. The members of each group take different roles respectively in the play. Once we learned a text called “The phantom of the opera”, which as we all know is a very famous play in Broadway. The students had great enthusiasm in preparing it because they knew more or less about the plot. Some of the groups acted it out so well that I myself was deeply moved and impressed. It comes out that, in this way, students can not only have a good understanding of the text but practise their spoken English as well.
Besides, debate is also used as one of the classroom activities now and then. Students are willing to take an active part in it because they can express their points of view about a certain topic freely. It occurs to me that last time when we talked about soccer, I gave them a topic for discussion:” Which do you think is more important in a soccer match, team spirit or individual skills?” Then I divided the students into two groups. Each side stuck to their own views and there was a heated argument between them. Finally, I ended the debate with a conclusion which served as enlightening guidance for them.
Apart from that, we hold English corner regularly. Every time there is a subject under discussion and at least four or five English teachers will be there. Sometimes we will invite foreign teachers and students to join us. Every student is welcome and they don’t have to worry about the mistakes that may occur. We try to make the atmosphere relaxing so that communication can go on smoothly.
In my view, a majority of students can get confidence by working in pairs or groups while the teachers’ encouragement and support are absolutely necessary.
As for listening practice, we insist that there is no Chinese in English lessons. At first, probably most of the students cannot fully understand what the teacher is saying, but we are sure that as long as we persevere, they will get used to it sooner or later. Facts speak louder than words. Later on, we can even give grammar lessons in English without translating everything into Chinese.
Once a week we go to the language lab which is equipped with advanced audio-visual systems. We use “College Focus Listening” as our listening material. It contains dictation, questions and answers and multiple choices. At the end of each unit, the students can mark for themselves to see how much progress they have made.
In each lesson, I play an English song on cassettes and at the same time hand out the sheets with incomplete lyrics on them. The students are told to fill in the missing words while enjoying the music. It is an effective way to arouse their interest in the listening course as well as to develop their listening skill.
After school, some advanced students are required to listen to VOA special or BBC and also to watch English news reports on TV to acquire further improvement in listening.
With the help of the teachers and through their own hard work , our students really make great achievements during the three years in senior middle school. They have no difficulty in communicating with each other in English. Even the foreigners are amazed at their fluency in the second language. 100% of our students can pass the oral test of the entrance examination and 80 to 90% of them get grade A and B.
All in all, we can see speaking and listening complement each other. They play an important role in English learning. According to our experience, language environment is essential for language learners. Therefore, as a language teacher, we should try our best to create such an environment to satisfy our students’ demands and we are still searching for better ways to improve our teaching method.