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1、Chinese students spoken English anxiety, the teaching strategies Abstract Currently, students learning English have realized the importance of oral English and they are eager to acquire English speaking ability to cope with everyday communication. However, they frequently worry about their oral Engl
2、ish when communicating with others. In this article, we study some difficulties in learning oral English of middle school students by doing informal surveys on them. According to the surveys, they encounter many difficulties but the basic one is anxiety, which negatively affects the performances in
3、their English speaking activities. Besides, this paper explores some practical oral English teaching strategies by studying the new teaching concepts promoted by The English Course Standards in the hope that students reduce their anxieties and are encouraged to participate in oral English communicat
4、ion. Key Words speaking; teaching strategy; anxiety; culture sense; cooperative learning; formative assessment Abstract Today, English learners have been fully aware of the importance of spoken English, so eager to master fluent in English oral communication skills. However, when the exchange studen
5、ts are often worried about which there is no way to freely express their thoughts. In this paper, some students made aware of an informal survey of students in spoken English encountered problems. English speaking students to learn the difficulties encountered in the process a lot, but one of the mo
6、st common problem is to learn to speak English when the sense of anxiety and tension. Anxiety and tension became the English-speaking students in open ideological obstacles to students learning English 100 harm than good. This paper also advocated by the new curriculum standards for a number of oral
7、 teaching philosophy and concept of oral teaching evaluation and feasibility analysis to make the feasibility of a strong oral English teaching strategies to make a preliminary study, sought to reduce the students to speak English in the process of anxiety and tension, so that students can freely ex
8、press thoughts in English, the real use of English as a communication tool. Key words spoken English; teaching strategies; anxiety; cultural awareness; collaborative learning; formative evaluation 1. Introduction English speaking is a demonstration of a persons overall ability to use English. It is
9、the skill that is judged upon most in real-life situations. It is also an important part of everyday interaction and most often, the first impression of a person is based on his / her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. In many other countries, oral English is a basic skill for students to
10、 master, and therefore they paid a lot attention to English speaking at schools. On January 3rd, 2004, the Ministry of Education issued a notice concerning the distribution of Teaching Requirements for English Curriculum. In the requirements, one shift is highlighted, namely, the shift of the focus
11、of the teaching syllabus from reading to speaking and listening. The skill of speaking has also been required in the new English Syllabus and The Senior English Course Standards published by the Education Ministry of China has regulated English Speaking as one of the compulsory course. But the curre
12、nt Chinese education, to a great extent, has been carried out in a sort of fixed system of grammar and vocabulary only, and oral courses are almost nowhere to be found. So, the problem of students is not having nothing to say but not knowing how to say. Just as Huchun Dong says, students say what th
13、ey can say but not what they want to say. 1 This doubtlessly limited the opportunities of students individual development. It is not easy to teach English and it is more difficult to teach oral English. In order to develop students oral competence so that they can use the language they have learned
14、correctly, appropriately and expressively in real situations, the teacher needs to be acquainted with as many teaching strategies as possible, and understand the underlying theories and principles, so that he / she not only knows what to teach and how to do it, but also why he / she could do it in a
15、 certain way and how to solve problems when they arise. 2 2. Some difficulties in learning oral English of middle school students English learning is a complex process, subject to the influence of social, linguistic, educational, and cognitive factors. 3 It is reasonable that students worry about th
16、eir disfluency and unidiomaticity and other aspects of language use. Recent talks with a group of students learning English that I interviewed informally after oral classes prove that the following are among their difficulties: Lack of interest in learning English makes it impossible for students to
17、 speak with the instructor and peers actively in the ESL classroom; Anxieties relating to English speaking negatively affect performance in English speaking; Inappropriate and unfair assessments making by teachers make students hesitate to speak. When teaching in Xiangan No.1 Middle School, Xiamen,
18、as a practice teacher in March, 2006, we did an informal survey on the situation of students learning of oral English. The questionnaire was designed to get a rough idea of the oral English learning of the students and particularly the difficulties students meet in speaking English (see appendix.) 4
19、. According to the analysis (see appendix), 54.3% of the students find it difficult to speak well because they are afraid of criticism or losing face. Anxieties get in the students way to speak; 51.2% of the students like the section of free talk; 82.1% of the students realize that the ability to sp
20、eak English fluently is very important; 94% of them are interested in foreign culture and customs; nearly half of the students wish that their teacher can correct the mistakes they make with encouragement and smile and they wish to be assessed in various ways. Students learning English frequently wo
21、rry about the small-size vocabulary, incorrect grammar and inappropriate expressions in their spoken English when communicating with others. English teachers are very familiar with the worries that English learners feel in their language learning process, particularly in their oral communication. Th
22、is worry phenomenon should be included in anxiety in SLA research. 5 In reviewing research examining the effects of anxiety on language learning, Macintyre and Gardner concluded that learners excessive anxiety negatively affects performance in the second language. Worrying too much about learning an
23、d performance is both unnecessary and harmful. It may prevent learners from practicing English-speaking skills. 6 3. Related teaching strategies 3.1 Developing students culture sense 3.1.1 Analysis and strategies If the students motivation for learning English is zero, teaching them speaking English
24、 will be a huge problem for the teacher. So, before deciding on any other teaching strategies, what the teacher has to do is to arouse students interest and increase their motivation in learning English. There are many techniques that a teacher can take to help motivate students interest to learn, b
25、ut no one motivational technique works well for all students. Since 94% of the students attending the questionnaire wish that their teacher could introduce foreign culture as often as possible, one can safely conclude that developing students culture sense is a general motivation practice which can
26、motivate their interest in English. The culture-bound aspect of teaching material is often of great interest to students, and it can be used to provoke an interesting discussion not only about the other culture, but also about the home culture. The discussion results may facilitate the speaking task
27、s. Once students interest is motivated, they will realize that learning English has a lot of fun and will surely enjoy learning English. Once they enjoy learning English, they may look forward to speaking English and they are less likely to be afraid of speaking. So , provoking students interest can
28、 be considered as a good way to ease students anxieties in speaking. 7 Another reason for developing students culture is that language is the carrier of culture and the importance of teaching culture is emphasized in the The English Course Standards. To accord with the course standards, culture teac
29、hing is supposed to be an important part in a successful teaching plan. While teaching oral English, getting the students familiarized with the culture and social background relevant to the speaking task is essential. One problem in communicating with foreigners is that many words and expressions sp
30、oken by the foreigners are culture-bound and students cannot bring their knowledge of the world to help them understand the conversation. Take the word privacy for example. Individuality is regarded as a characteristic of the western culture and privacy is a common sense of the westerners. So, priva
31、cy has two meanings in the dictionary (Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionar, 4thedition ): one is state of being away from others, alone and undisturbed; the other is secrecy, opposite to publicity. However, in China, where people do not care about their privacy that much, privacy refe
32、rs to secret only. When they talk about privacy , they are often referring to egotism and secrets of love affairs. While in the western countries, people respect others privacy and mind your own business is an important code in the social etiquettes . 8 Besides, different conventions lead to differe
33、nt usages of language and difficulties in communication. Daily compliments, salutations, thanks, regrets, comity and taboo are culture-bound. For example, when the Chinese are not to accept their friends invitation, they use some tactful expressions may be I will come I will think of it instead of t
34、he negative word no. Because we do not think saying no to our friend is a polite way to refuse. They choose to make promises rather than refusal in order not to harm the relationships. However, for a westerner, such kind of behavior means breaking ones promise and they will be angry at the Chinese.
35、Not knowing such kinds of culture differences, one will never make a good communication. 9 So the teacher should bear an open attitude towards foreign culture, share with students what he / she knows about how foreign culture differs from his / her own, and present them in teaching. To get students
36、familiar with Western culture, a teacher may create some situational contexts or employ role-play games for the students to experience this culture and know the differences in comparison with their own. 3.1.2 Operation and practices One practical way to teach culture is to create an authentic classr
37、oom environment. Classroom decorations and displays of all kinds, posters, cartoons, maps, newspaper cuttings, and exhibitions of trifles, such as theatre tickers and programmers, bus and train tickets, railway and airline timetables, restaurant menus, and so on create a visual and tangible presence
38、 of the target community. This is particularly important in a foreign language setting where the reality of language use in the speech community is geographically and psychologically far removed from the classroom. Playing an episode of a foreign movie to introduce students an aspect of way-of-life
39、culture is also a good way to provide situational contexts. For example, if a teacher wants to introduce the western dinner etiquette, he / she can tell the students that the French spoon toward themselves and eat from the end of the spoon, not the side; While eating, it is proper to keep your free
40、hand on the table, not in your lap; Also, the bread is quite handily used to scoop up vegetables or sauces and clean up the plate at the end of the meal; To cut food, the knife is used in the right hand and the fork in the left; Food is then put directly in the mouth with the left hand and the fork.
41、 The knife is held in the right hand while chewing; When whole fruits (such as apples or pears) are served, they are not eaten with the hands. The fork is again used in the left to hold the fruit and the knife is used to cut and peel the fruit. The pieces of fruit are then eaten with the fork in the
42、 left hand. It is important that the plate be empty at the end of the meal . After these introductions, the teacher may well practice his / her oral English but not the students. And students are likely to be confused by such long and complex soliloquy. Instead, the teacher can introduce this cultur
43、e by playing the movie Pretty Woman, in which there is scene that the actress Vivian asks a restaurant manager to teach her how to behave at the dinner table. Instead of the long and confused introduction, the video demonstrates students the correct way to eat bread or soup, and how to cut up and ea
44、t fruit, meat and vegetables in several minutes. The teacher can practice students oral English while introducing the culture. After watching the video, the teacher can provide students some questions to discuss: Is the described behavior generally applicable in a French home environment, or does it
45、 reflect only the customs of an urban middle class family? Is it a useful guide to the type of behavior expected of a foreigner? For a traveler or worker living in the host community is it important to know what aspects of behavior are tolerated from a foreigner and which would be regarded as embarr
46、assing , unacceptable, or even rude and ludicrous? By discussing such kind of interesting questions, students learn both foreign culture and oral English. 3.2 Promoting cooperative learning 3.2.1 Analysis and strategies Cooperative learning is a successful strategy promoted in the course standards,
47、in which students work together to understand and improve their learning. Cooperative learning advocates teaching speaking through interactive tasks and in practical terms, this leads to the use of pair-work and group work activities . Cooperative learning often creates student-centered climate in c
48、lassroom. Students in such classroom will feel more relaxed and easy to perform, either learning or speaking. Many students are afraid of speaking in front of a whole class because they are worrying about criticism and losing face or they simply feel shy. So, if the speaking tasks are designed to be
49、 completed in small group, this anxiety is less likely to happen. Besides, speaking in small groups is more natural, because in real life, students spend most of their time talking to one other person or to a few other people. If theyt speak to a large group of people, it is usually a more formal situation where they have spent time preparing what they are going to say
