试论中学英语教学中的素质教育

harder, more  actively and positively.

From the writer’s own learning and teaching experience, the learners seem  to have greater interest in the anecdotal and cultural background of the  texts. There are some interesting dramas in SEFC such as “The Necklace”,  The Merchant of Venice” and “At the Tailor’s Shop”. The teacher can  prepare definite material concerning the text, also the anecdotal and  cultural intentions of the author. For example, the character of the hero  or heroine, or perhaps the unexpected ending of the drama or the play  itself. The students will surely be more attracted to the material and  learn more efficiently, no matter what you ask them to do. Just explaining  some language points is not sufficient. It is essential for the teacher to  study and be familiar with the text so that the lesson is interesting and  attractive to the learners.

ii Strengthening the students’ determination and emotion in learning. A good frame of mind speeds up learning. Learning efficiency can be  enhanced if the learners’ intellectual activities are transformed from  delight and interest into careful thought and reason. The teacher should  create this kind of pleasant learning atmosphere by his own movements,  gestures and expressions that suggest to the learners that they are being  cared for, trusted and expected to do well. Great attention must be given  to protect the learning enthusiasm of the low-leveled learners and lead  them to understand that they really have the ability to overcome their  learning difficulties. Further more, the teacher should be modest and  strict with himself. Modesty-humility, an active work attitude and  nthusiasm will stimulate the learners’ interest and increase their  enthusiasm and determination to learn.

VI Linguistic competence. i Listening and speaking.  Many theories of modern English teaching methodology as “Total Physical  Response” and “The Natural Approach” aim mainly at listening  comprehension. (Ma Yinchu). “The Silent Way” especially emphasizes that  during a rather long period of silent time for listening, the learner has  a sense of security and he doesn’t have to worry about being forced to  speak if without enough preparation. (Brown)

Speaking of his “Input Hypothesis”, S. Krashen points out that when one  learns a language, he first pays attention to the meaning rather than the  language structure. Structure acquisition can be obtained if one tries to  understand the information that is going to be absorbed. The teacher  should input a correspondent amount (i+1) of comprehensible input in the  listening class. The more the learner inputs information (listening), the  more likely he will be able to output (speaking). (Krashen)

English listening and speaking classes in high school are of great  importance to the cultivation of the learners’ ability to listen and  speak. Listening texts in the high school English textbooks are usually  brief and the topics are very simple. This gives the learners more time to  prepare and discuss among themselves some of the topics relating to the  material they are going to use. If they can do this before they list

en,  they can then undertake some oral composition or even continue debating if  possible. This is beneficial to the expansion of their range of knowledge  and the improvement of their ability of thinking and reasoning in English.

ii Reading. Reading includes personal reading and reading aloud as well as listening  and reading. For most learners, the main purpose in learning English is to  read--to get information. In the past, reading was thought to be the main  or even the only purpose for learning English. Now this is not necessarily  the case, however, reading still takes the greater part of examinations.  So it has maintained its importance.

Reading competence should be based on the level of linguistic knowledge of  the learners. They often have some difficulty in improving their reading  ability. This difficulty results not only from their method of learning,  but mostly from their lack of basic knowledge about grammar, sentence  structures, parts of speech, tense, voice, non-predicating verbs and so  on. Also they are lacking in vocabulary and some background knowledge of  the English-speaking countries.

Cultural background knowledge is a very important basis on which the  learners can improve their reading ability. As the high school period is  the elementary period (Junior High School) and the period from elementary  to middle level (Senior High School) for teaching, the introduction of  cultural background knowledge is of great importance. (Ge Bingfang)

During the course of reading, the reader does not get the information he  wants passively, but forecasts and understands the meaning of the text  with the help of this background knowledge. Cultural background knowledge  can be gained through classroom teaching, extracurricular books,  extracurricular activities, conversations and lectures given by foreign  teachers, movies, televisions and so on.

The “Schema Theory” holds that people can’t understand newly emerging  concepts and ideas without connecting to known concepts and personal  experiences, which are the two essentials of background knowledge. Our  understanding and explanation of newly emerging information depends much  on the existing schema. The inputting information must be in coherence  with them. (Wang Chuming)

Intensive reading and extensive reading are the two aspects of reading.  The former should focus on the linguistic knowledge (syntax, vocabulary,  rhetoric, etc.) and it can lay some foundation for the latter. The latter  should focus on expanding the learners’ scope of knowledge, enlarging  their vocabulary and cultivating their reading skills. The teacher should  train the learners in the skills of skimming, scanning and global reading.  The real sense of reading is a delicate u

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