试从交际法的角度看高中英语课堂教学的真实性和对话性
【Abstract】With the development of English Methodology, esp. the Communicative Approach, the principle of authenticity and conversation of English classroom teaching in senior high school has always been an important issue in the field of foreign language. The following passage illustrates the importance of the principle of authenticity and conversation of English classroom teaching in senior high school from the perspective of Communicative Approach. This essay first is devoted to the origins of Communicative Approach and its enlightenment on English teaching in senior high school. Then it demonstrates the definition and importance of authenticity and conversation and the relationship of the two. Finally it explains despite of the unavoidable disadvantages of Communicative Approach, its proposal of “Giving propriety to speaking and laying equal attention on the four basic skills” inspires the new thought in English classroom teaching in senior high school. But to make full use of it in English classroom teaching, the two factors of authenticity and conversation should be well integrated in the course of classroom teaching.
【Key Words】authenticity; conversation; communication; English classroom teaching
【摘 要】随着教学法，特别是交际法的不断，英语课堂教学的真实性和对话性就成为外语界探讨的一个重要问题。以下篇章从交际法的角度阐述了对高中英语课堂教学有重大影响的高中英语课堂教学的真实性和对话性的重要性。通过介绍了交际法产生的背景及其对高中英语课堂教学的启发，解释了交际法下英语课堂教学的真实性和对话性的重要性及二者的关系，最后分析说明了尽管交际法也存在一些不足之处，但其提倡的“口语领先，兼顾四会”的确对高中英语课堂教学起着重大作用。而要真正利用其来为英语教学服务，必须让真实性和对话性统一于高中英语课堂教学中。
【关键词】 真实性；对话性；交际；英语课堂教学
1. Introduction
There are several schools in English teaching, such as Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual Method of Actual Oral Method, Cognitive Approach, Functional Approach, etc. The Function Approach, also named Communicative Approach, Notional Approach or Semantic-Notional Approach, with the first most commonly seen, was “a result of the growing need to promote European unity and coordination in the field of education and, linguistically, of the development of sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.”[1] In fact there are many factors that contribute to the appearance of Communicative Approach, yet it is certain that the proposal of this method more or less enlightens those who concern about the English classroom teaching. As we know with such English teaching methods as audio-lingual and Grammar-Translation Method either rely on repletion and drills or spare no efforts to enable students to read scientific works and enjoy literary works, and to improve the students’ ability to cope with difficult subjects and materials. Therefore, students are unconsciously taught to master grammar and vocabulary through reading and writing exercises, and the rules of the language rather than its use. This may well explain why students taught with such theories have poor pronunciation and intonation, and are weak in oral skills. Though they have learnt much about the rules, they cannot apply them even in writing, much less in speaking. Moreover, the language learned is mostly of a literary type, the vocabulary disconnected with their everyday life and the students are often overloaded and do not fully perform their potentialities. These disadvantages led the educators and linguistics to reflection. They are much worried that the students are not learning enough realistic, living language, and that they do not know how to communicate in appropriate social language, gestures, or expressions. In brief, they are at a loss to communicate in the culture of language studied. This is what Communicative Approach tries to solve. It aims to teach communication skills consciously and propose to set communicating ability as the goal of language teaching, to develop the four abilities of language and to acknowledge the inter-dependent relationship between language and communication. Furthermore despite the disparity of weak and strong Communication Approach, the former is defined as to use English for the purpose of study, and the latter to make use of English to study, the Communication Approach evokes the foreign language teaching in China. With the emphasis on “developing the communication competence. It takes into great consideration the needs of the students –what to teach is based on consideration of what the learners should most likely use to communicate in the foreign language,” [2] It’s more concerned with the use of the language to serve as the motivation of the learning, and stimulates their active participation in the learning process without losing sight of grammatical and situational facts. However, to fulfill these desirable goals, two factors in English classroom teaching in senior high school are essential: authenticity and conversation. Only these two principles are co-existing and well-integrated can an English Classroom teaching be successful.
2. The authenticity of English teaching in senior high school
2.1 What is authenticity in English classroom teaching in senior high school
Curricular reform has been one of the hottest issues in language teaching nowadays, and one of the main purposes of this reform is “to transform the current situation which overemphasizes complicated, difficult, and outdated book knowledge into one which closely connects the curricular with students’ life and modern social scientific development.” [3] Either from the perspective of Communicative Approach or that of curricular reform, this provides the origins of authenticity. Moreover, with the further development of foreign language teaching, authenticity has been paid more and more attention to. It has gone far beyond the scope of textbooks. Authenticity is “not an abstract or absolute notion and takes into consideration the teaching materials, classroom activities and teaching environment as well as the social and cultural context.” [4] In English classroom teaching with Communicative Approach, the authenticity of the teaching materials and classroom activities outstand amid all.
As in the case of the authenticity of teaching materials, Morrow thought, “An authentic text is stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a large audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort. [5] While traditional texts are loyal followers of the examination and cannot stimulate student’ learning motivation. Comparatively speaking, they are inauthentic, and “a rule of thumb for authentic here is any material which has not been specifically produced for the purposes of language teaching”. [6]
The authenticity of classroom activities means that teachers should not design activities simply centered on the teaching goals, but closely connected with living situations. To be more exact, teachers should bear in mind how to take full advantage of the authentic materials to design authentic classroom activities, with the purpose of improving students’ language communicating competence.
2.2 The importance of authenticity of English teaching in senior high school
As we know, the main purpose of Communicative approach is to develop students’ communicating abilities and the use of language and this can only be achieved through communication. However, this communication does not merely refer to teacher-and-student communication in classroom, but more than communication to others in English in real life. This determines that only when there is real and natural situation for students’ language study can Communication Approach completely serve English teaching. While as the most important environment of English study, English classroom in senior school has every reason to be authentic.
First, in traditional language teaching, materials written at the request of vocabulary and grammar separate themselves from the real life, lack flexibility and can not accomplish the goal to train students’ language communicating abilities in real environment. While the authenticity of materials create beneficial circumstances for enhancing students ‘communicating abilities. As these materials derive from the concrete situations in life and can help make teaching interesting, lively and meaningful. Thus out comes the superiority of authentic language materials: the formal usage and expressions set examples for language study; the familiar and attractive topics helps students to better understand the culture, customs and mind styles of the westerns and further incite their hidden study motivation, which will finally promote teaching results.
Second, authenticity of study materials paves way for the effective communication in English classroom; as what students learn from the materials may one day happen to them, their response to the situation more or less reflect their communicating competence. Therefore, it is essential for the teachers to design and organize classroom activities on the basis of authentic material and to design authentic classroom activities to provide opportunities for the students to use the target language.
2.3 How to achieve the authenticity of English classroom teaching in senior high school
The basis for the authenticity of English classroom teaching is that of language materials, yet the authentic materials can be said to “be those factual communication activities rather than those specially prepared for language teaching.” [7] ，that is to say, articles in newspapers and magazines, review or comment on the Radio or on TV, the original texts about history geography and nature in west, records of the speeches of native speakers, etc. Such materials as take root in real life have prominent advantage over those designed merely around classroom exercises or drills.
In terms of authenticity of English classroom activities, there is no fixed model to follow, but these activities hold one principle in common: students take an active part in them and the communication between teacher and students is far beyond that of book knowledge but more than the exchange of ideas about life experiences. It is generally agreed that the key of the implement of Communication Approach lies in classroom questions. To be more exact, when design a classroom aimed at enhancing student communication abilities and the understanding of book knowledge, a teacher should take into amount the interest and features of the thought of the students, put forward questions that can stir up students mind, and by this way, students will find they’ve got much to say and are willing to express their own ideas, thus developing the communication competence.
Take one for example, we taught as student-teachers in Changle Huaqiao Middle School in March this year, when giving the lesson of 15 Destinations, I asked the students to discuss about the local sightseeing, attractions foods, and transport of Changle. They showed much interest and seemed to pour out all what they knew to the class. Though some Chinese were heard in their speech, they talked much more than even before. Therefore we can see that carefully-selected questions push forward the on-going of the effective teaching in classroom and perfectly meet the demands of the Communication Approach.
3. The principle of conversation of English classroom teaching in senior high school
3.1 What is conversation in English teaching in senior high school
First we should know that conversation doesn’t merely mean an informal, usually private, talk in which two or more people exchange thoughts, feelings, or ideas or in which news or information is given or discussed. It is not only “speech exchange among human begins under the background of conversing, but also the nonverbal communication.” [8] And it is a two-walk or even multi-lateral (many-wayed) communication activities and includes spiritual exchange.
3.2 The importance of conversation in English classroom teaching in senior high school
The theory of Communicative Approach makes English teachers in senior high school take a more practical and flexible attitude towards English classroom teaching. They begin to give propriety to ing and speaking while laying equal emphasis on all four basic skills with students’ communicating abilities as the final goal, yet to make classroom teaching a real platform for teacher-student’s factual and equal communication, conversation is the most basic but important carrier.
Association among human beings can be realized through numerous ways, and conversation is the most direct and effective one. Classroom teaching is a process, which takes utterance between teacher and students as the presenting pattern and conversation as the main communicating medium. Furthermore, language teaching can be understood as language communication or language activities and conversation is the most significant feature. Therefore, English classroom teaching in senior high school has to keep an eye on conversation, which provides a perfect background for the fulfillment of communication during teaching. Besides, conversation facilitates the course of teaching and prods the development of students’ communicating competence. As during the course of conversing, exchange for ideas, truth, notions and the share of knowledge and experience, either between teacher and students or among students all effect the communication. Therefore, English classroom teaching with the theory of Communicative Approach in senior high school should attach more importance to conversation.
3.3 How to fulfill genuine conversation in English classroom teaching in senior high school
In the first, the fulfillment of genuine conversation should take the prerequisite for the equal relationship between teacher and students. Since the quality of classroom proceeding with the theory of Communicative Approach is communication, an equal human relationship should be established. This comprises two aspects: on the one hand, equality in thought and human dignity between teacher and students should be maintained. Communicative Approach believes that teacher and students are both participants of the classroom communication and teacher’s absolute authority is gradually overlooked. The teacher is required to listen for varied viewpoints of students and should manage to encourage more ideas to be heard in classroom. Moreover, teachers should take care not to find fault about students’ speeches, but try to understand their state of mind, protect their novelty of thought. Only when a teacher acquaints himself/herself with the students can he/she converse and communicate with them.
Secondly, the equality between teacher and students does not mean that we forsake the superiority of teachers’ knowledge, experience and techniques to those of students, but that it is this very superiority that entitles the teacher to give students encouragement. Besides, it’s known that man’s minds become more active in a free and easy-going atmosphere. Therefore, teachers should make every effort to create a democratic casual and equal teaching ambience, contributing to students’ expressing out their thoughts. By the seemingly aimless conversation, students’ aptitude to think and communicate is completely explored.
Thirdly, the way of conversing should be paid attention to. Classroom conversation can be divided into that of teacher-student and that among students. The former pattern lends the way and is important in the cooperation and development of the English classroom teaching, as “teachers should create a wide variety of meaningful and authentic situations around the textbook and teaching events with the purpose of pushing the conversation roll on. Teachers should help students through the language acquisition process to ensure the success of teacher-student interaction.” [9] While the latter can be pair work or group discussion. Students can develop their understanding and comprehension of the target knowledge on the basis of their living experiences and the knowledge they already know. If deliberately guided, this kind of conversation can facilitate learning, contribute to the performance of student’s individuality and finally promote their communicating competence.
4. The relationship between the authenticity of English classroom teaching and conversation in senior high school
The authenticity of English classroom teaching makes preparations for the successful classroom communication, while it is conversation that plays as a direct medium. The authentic materials and classroom activities ensure students’ participating interest, bringing into playing their initiative or enthusiasm and directly lead to the successful classroom communication. Yet all these can hardly separate themselves from conversation. The passing on of knowledge and skills has close link with conversation, either it’s between teachers and students or among students, let alone communication, which is the senior extending of classroom teaching.
As a matter of fact, authenticity and conversation are of equal rank in the fulfillment of teaching goals in functional-based course (i.e., a course that is designed with Communicative Approach). They are interdependent and stimulus for each other’s performance.
On the one hand, as the fundamental pattern of English classroom organization, conversation affects the implement of classroom authenticity. As in a course organized with Communication Approach, the traditional one-way and immunologic teaching style is abandoned and one that targets at heightening students’ leading character becomes popular. On the other hand, authenticity acts as a background for the continuance of conversation. In functional-based classroom, there’s much uncertainty during teaching course, which is the basic difference from the traditional one. It is uncertain what to expect during the course, including students’ response details of communication etc. This uncertainty also provides a great deal of sources of conversation. No pre-existed conclusion or fixed answers, countless new explanation of the same issues. And there’s larger open space to converse, which enables conversation to proceed.
5. Conclusion
As current teaching and research have increasingly focused on the reform of teaching patterns, the Communicative Approach seems to be feasible with its advocation of “giving propriety to oral speaking and laying equal attention on the four basic skills.” [10] However, as far as learning theory is concerned, neither Brimful and Johnson nor Littlewoods, can offer any absolute discussion, but several principles can be generalized as follows; [11]
1. The communicative principle: activities that involve real communication promote learning.
2. The task principle: activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning.
3. The meaningfulness principle: Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning process.
Therefore, it seems that activities involving real communication and carrying with meaningful tasks serve to effective communication and teaching and learning. In other words, the authenticity of English classroom teaching is the natural requirement of Communicative Approach. And the cardinal form of classroom organization——conversation, if going well, can promote teaching greatly.
Brumfit further elaborates “A communicative methodology would start from communication, with exercises which constituted communication challenges for students. As they attempted the exercises, students would have to stretch their linguistic capabilities to perform the given tasks, and would be given subsequent teaching, which could be of a traditional form, where they clearly perceived themselves to need to improve to establish communication adequately in relation to the task.” [12] “yet despite of the unavoidable disadvantages of Communicative Approach i.e., it refers to the learning theory very few.” [13], there’s still much desirability and it indeed benefits English classroom teaching a lot. And an effective and successful English classroom teaching goes together with as two important and necessary factors: authenticity and conversation, which parallel in a communication-based classroom.
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http://whpenglish.com/Article-Show.asp?ArticleID=170.2004
[12] C. J. Brumfit & K. Johnson. The communicative Approach to Language teaching[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社.2000. P188-189
[13] 张依娜.交际教学法问题之思考[J].外语与外语教学.2006年第4期. P22
