My opinion on the English education in China

I Introduction

I had been an ordinary student of China for almost 16 years. In those years, I was learning English in school all the time. The experience makes me think of a lot of things about the English education in China.

It’s well-known that The purpose of English teaching is to improve the students' four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, with the base of necessary phonetics, large vocabulary and good grammar, But this is not the final purpose. The final purpose is to let students be able to use the language.

Why do we study English? If a man is only good at listening and speaking, can we say that he is good at English? No, If a man is only good at reading and writing, can we say that he is good at the language? No, If a student is good at English, he should be able to use the language, both in speaking and writing.24ky.com!JQ­b @Vj
However, most of the students in China do better in reading and writing English than in listening and speaking. They can read and write, but they can hardly communicate. They can hardly express themselves with their own words. This is partially because of our examination system, and partially of the teaching method . Maybe we are not able to change the examination system, but we should think how can we improve our teaching method?

In most schools of China the so-called 'grammar-translation' method is used to teach English. Grammar-translation is a way of studying a language that approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its rules of grammar, followed by application of this knowledge to task of translating English sentences and text into Chinese and from Chinese into English. Great value is placed on the reading of English and its writing/copying but no attention is given to speaking the language or to listening it being spoken by a fluent speaker.

Grammar is taught deductively through presentation and study of its rules which are later practiced through Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese translations or via fill in the blanks exercises. As a result, students learn all the grammatical rules of the language but not the language.

Most of our language teachers believe that the fundamental purpose of learning English is to be able to read English literature, rewrite some exercises from the textbooks and fill some blank spaces in exam papers. Functional language is considered superior to spoken language.

Their only goal of teaching English is to enable students to translate Chinese into English and vice versa. Furthermore, as the students are required to write an essay, application letter and story in their annual examination, they are dictated specific stories like 'Thirsty crow', 'Greedy dog' and 'Union is strength' by their teachers.

They are also given notes on essay topics that come again and again in the exams like 'A morning walk', 'My best teacher' , 'The postman' or on how to write a letter to one's uncle thanking him for a gift. The students usually memorize these notes so as to reproduce them perfectly in an exam.

The ability to communicate in English is not the teaching aim in the case of the vast majority of our English teachers in government schools. In order to explain to students the meaning and use of a new word, teachers use new words in single sentences. While they do this, there is no active use of English in class, the result being that students get no opportunity to practice their speaking or to learn the phonetics of the language. As a result many of our students cannot pronounce even very simple English words.

Grammar is usually taught deductively through repetitions and drills. Such activities are boring and do not even necessarily teach grammar. The grammar is distributed in different topics like tenses, active and passive voice, direct and indirect speech, subject-verb agreement and so on. These topics dishearten and confuse students because more often than not they cannot apply these rules in their routine verbal communication.

Grammar is the part of the natural form of language and it should be taught inductively. This inductive teaching of grammar should try and involve students in a way that requires them to think and not just provide mechanical responses.

It is a very common practice in our public schools that a teacher or a student read a paragraph from the textbook and then the teacher translates it word by word into Chinese. In the end one are two students re-read the paragraph with the Chinese translation. Some teachers write the difficult words along with the Chinese translation on the black board and students copy it in their notebooks. One wonders what this achieves.

Most linguists are of the opinion that a second language can be taught without translation it into the learner's native tongue provided the teacher explains the meaning to the learner through demonstration and action. A language could best be taught and learnt by using it actively in the classroom rather than using analytical procedures that focus on grammatical rules. So teachers need to encourage direct and spontaneous use of English in classroom.

This is where the importance of speaking English and listening to others speak it comes in. Unfortunately, this is something our government teachers completely ignore, perhaps partially because most of them are not able to speak the language fluently themselves. Only the teacher is the source of knowledge and students are passive followers of the teacher and the text. Spoken language is more important than written words especially when a new language is being taught.

One way to do this would be for the teacher to create situations in the classroom where students are encouraged to express their ideas and opinions on a particular topic in the language that is being learnt.

Writing, too, is an important aspect of learning English. There is a very close relationship between writing and thinking. The students in our schools usually write for the teacher or an examiner. But not much thinking goes into their writing, which isn't really their fault all that much because that is the way they have been taught.

They copy from a textbook or the blackboard into their copy and submit it to the teacher. This practice of copying limits them to the ideas of the others and they never try to write formulate and write down their own original ideas. Besides, teachers also make the mistake of asking students questions that mostly require a one-sentence answer.

Clearly, not much thinking or analysis goes into putting down on paper such an answer, and no wonder such questions test memory rather than any thinking or analytical skills on the part of the student. Just as in speaking a new language, students being taught English have to be given opportunities to write their own ideas and opinions in the language.

They should be given time to write freely on any topic of their liking to develop some kind of fluency. Topics from textbooks can be used but teachers can always organize a class activity and base the speaking and writing exercises around that activity.

Usually, in our government schools a teacher and the textbook he or she uses take centre-stage in the language learning process with a student's role being passive and mostly peripheral. Learning a new language is quite a natural thing for many people, especially when they are young and the teacher should keep this in mind when conducting a lesson.

This means that students who are being taught English should be asked to play a more active role in the lesson. For example, instead of a teacher using a new word in a sentence and then students copying it down in their notebooks, it would be much better if each individual student is given a chance to use the new word in a sentence of his or her making. Pictures, illustrations and even actual objects can and should be used in the teaching of the language, especially because they allow students to relate to what is being taught.

Perhaps most importantly, English should be the exclusive language of the classroom and there should be no need by a teacher to use the native language of the students to translate the meanings of English words. Communicative interactions encourage students to negotiate meanings of new words and facilitate the building of cooperative relationship among them.

According to linguists, accuracy in a language comes from being fluent and those teaching methods that stress accuracy first actually hinder a learner from achieving fluency. Students need to be encouraged to speak as much as possible in English. Fun, novelty and positive reinforcement are very important stimuli to motivate learners to take interest in such language learning.

Furthermore, Teachers should understand that like any language, English has to be taught as a whole language. The four language skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing - should be taught all together as an integrated whole.

What can we do about the four language skills? I have some suggestion in this area.

II Ways on developing the four abilitieseP-|

1.listening

Listening, one of the means of language communication, is used most widely in people's daily lives. About 45%of an adult's time concerns listening to other people , listening to the radio, listening to the music. In linguistics, giving the students a lot of listening activities is a good way of enlarging their vocabulary. On the other hand, it also helps the students improve their listening comprehension.
I know an investigation. About 43.2% of the students think that the most bothering and most difficult is listening comprehension, and even some of them have difficulty in understanding their teacher who gives lessons in English. Then how to improve the students' listening skill?
We know the largest difference between mother language learning and foreign language learning is the environment. A child can soon learn his mother language well. He has heard a lot before he can say something and walk. Then after he is able to walk and say, he has a chance of listening to more. Before he goes to school, he has already been a good listener and speaker. But for a foreign language, you can meet it only in formal places, classes, for example, otherwise, you can hardly have a chance to meet it. So I think you should try to let the students be in a language environment.24ky.com5A#DP
Let the students grasp the phonetic symbol. I think the phonetic symbol is the base. A good intonation and phonetic depends on the base. Oral reading after a radio or a teacher is a good way at the beginning, Students should do much about it.

Pay attention to the oral reading skill, It includes stress, strong form, weak form, intonation incomplete plosive consonant, affricate consonant, syllable and so on. Training and practicing the oral reading is not a day's word. The teacher must give correct information about it . There is no easy way.全球中文口译网)v%g2mr
Enlarge the students' knowledge about English. Encourage the students to read something in their spare time about geography, history, culture, stories and so on. For example, there are two materials of the same difficulty. One explains something about China's Spring Festival, the other is about Thanks giving Day of the western countries. The former is easy to understand but the latter is more difficult. Why? It is clearly because the students know little about the latter.
Both listening test and listening practice are necessary, but practice is more important. You can understand your students through listening tests. Only through the practice can the students improve their listening comprehension.

2. Speaking

Speaking can't be taught separately. It is often connected with listening. So we often speak of listening and speaking.

The traditional way of listening and speaking is aural-oral method. Now, the new method of two-way communication is very popular.

As you know that any teaching method has its psychological base. The aural-oral method began in the 1940's. It is based on behaviourism. One of its psychological theory is that learning a language is forming a set of new language habit. This is its usual process: Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement.
The two-way communication makes up for the defect in communicative ability in the traditional teaching. Two-way means the relationship of the communication between the teacher and the students. This relationship is connected with the communicative activities between two people.

So, in a word, the aural-oral method is not a out-of-date one, but a useful one. Especially it is fit for the beginning stage. It attaches the importance to the oral drills, and has a bad communicative function. It is only used to aphonetic base. After all, the aim of the language learning is to communicate. So the two-way communication is more effective and direct, but it is also fit for the beginning stage.

3.Reading

Reading is an important way of gaining information in foreign language learning, It is a basic skill for a foreign language learner. There is a lot of reading exercises in an examination today. But all these readings must be done in limited time. So students are asked to read them correctly and with a certain speed. To do this, you should change your bad reading habit and raise your reading efficiency.口

New words prevent you from reading fast. One way to overcome this problem is to guess. There are many ways to guess the meaning of a new word. First you should find some hints. Context, some phrases, such as "means", "refer to" are all the hints. Sometimes you can't guess what the word means. If the word doesn't affect your reading, let it be.

Another problem that affect your reading speed is your reading habit and your reading skill. Some one reads word by word. Some one reads with his finger pointing to the words or with his head shaking. Those are all bad habits. You should read phrase by phrase. Don't blink your eyes so often and don't shake you head. Just move your eyeball. That's enough. If you want to get more word information, there must be a proper distance between your eyes and the reading material

I think browsing is an important step while you are doing you reading comprehension. #Y,A}0Kf‑V口译,口译网,中文口译,口语,会议,同声传译,国际导游,欧洲,美国高级,Some students begin to read at once when he get a reading material, even without knowing its title. But after reading for many times, he won't understand anything. Looking through the material first means forereading. In an examination, you want to grain the information which the questions ask, you can't read the material in a usual way, you can't read the whole material word by word. You have to omit some sentence, sometimes even a whole paragraph, which have nothing to do with the questions.

4.Writing

Writing is one way of providing variety in class procedures. It provides a student with physical evidence of his achievements and becomes a course whereby he can measure his improvement. It helps to consolidate the students' grasp of vocabulary and structure, and complements the other language skills.全球

Sentence is the base of an article. So we should begin our writing with sentences. First, students should be asked to express with sentences-sentences making, then to write short articles.

III Conclusion

I think if you are training these four skills, you'd better make full use of your teaching instrument and use varieties of ways to stimulate the students' interests.2

Generally speaking these four skills can't be separated. People often say "First listening and speaking, then reading and writing". That's right. But I think this way of saying is fit for the beginning stage. If we want to learn English very well, we should mix the four skills together.

Before you are going to have a new lesson, do reading and writing first. Ask students to read the text in advance, and do some exercises connected with the text.

Listening and speaking are the major ways while teaching the new lesson. Be sure to let the lesson go on in a foreign language situation.24ky.com­N+w$?B

Which I have talk about in the last paragraphs are all my opinions and suggestions on the English education of China. I hope the English education of China will become better and better, and I believe there is a will, there is a way.

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