Research and practice on newly produced
syllabus focus on the using of NSE SH
By Zhou ying
From shenyang No. 2 High School
Abstract
Looking back, language teaching experiences several innovations, from Grammar Translation,
Direct Methods, to Audio-lingo language teaching, Communicative Language Teaching, etc. So we
say, we are well on the way of language teaching and we are moving forward. That is the forever
direction. On the contrary, staying the same is by no means possible. Here are some suggestions and
ideas supported by the new syllabus, which have been tried with my colleges in our classrooms.
Now we are experiencing a new syllabus, combined with a new course book. We want to make
sure that we include a variety of teaching approaches in our lessons, to keep students motivated and to
help them learn better. Our purpose is to train students practically and basically and prepare them to
improve according to their own feature in future. We have to think about
﹣why we want to change the way we teach
﹣how we organizing lessons in English as much as possible
﹣what kind of motivation to make sure that students learn better when they participate actively in
the lesson.
﹣which activities to select to meet the students’ needs(for example, the students have to pass
exams)
﹣how we change the course book’s order in using it to match the new syllabus
Key words
grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence , discourse competence, and strategic
competence., language skill, knowledge of language, attitude and emotion, learning strategy and sense
of culture. Syllabus, curriculum, students’ practical and basic needs, long-term and short-term need
1. The developing of the theories with the new syllabus and
multiple theories should be explored to find the best way to
motivate the students.
As early as the 1970’s, the goal of language teaching is to developed what Hymes(1972: 279)
refers to as “communicative competence”. According to Munby (1978:11) communicative
competence means the mastery of an ideal speech situation. The communicative competence has four
sectors. Canale and Swain (1980:47) share the same idea with Hymes. The four dimensions of
communicative competence are identified － － grammatical competence, sociolinguistic
competence , discourse competence, and strategic competence.
Grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence; Sociolinguistic
competence refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place,
including role relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the communicative
purpose for their interaction. Discourse competence refers to the interpretation of individual message
elements in terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the
entire discourse or text. Strategic competence refers to the coping strategies that communicators
employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication.
The grammatical sector is only one of four parameters of communicative competence, and it can
not be the goal of language teaching. Students should acquire knowledge of sentences, which are not
only grammatical, but also appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not,
and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner.
Widdoson(1981:2) also makes distinction between usage and use as aspects of performance. He
states that the learning language involves acquiring the ability to compose correct sentence, but that is
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only one aspect of the matter. It also involves acquiring an understanding of which sentences are
appropriate in a particular context.
Grammatical competence is the mastery of the linguistic code, and it is the basic competence to
achieve the other three competences. However, grammatical competence is independent of the other
three. That means that no matter how well we develop grammatical competence, it is only the ability
to make explicit the rules of usage, not the use of the language in a skillful and appropriate way. From
the analysis of the teaching situation in China, we can see that grammatical competence is
overemphasized and at the same time the other three competencies are given either insufficient
attention( sociolinguistic competence and discourse competence) or ignored (strategic competence), as
Johnson(1998:192) points out that, they are structurally competent but cannot communicate
appropriately. As a result, China is currently sending thousands of scholars of science and technology
to study abroad. There are more and more students who study at a university in the USA, Great Britain,
Australia or Canada. However, it would be extremely uneconomical, even a waste of time, for them to
spend time in English-speaking countries merely learning the language.
Now the new syllabus is supposed to change the situation and solve the problem. It is not a simple
reflection or copy of the theories of language teaching in the world, but developed according to the
situation in China. The communicative competence is developed into compound command of
language and is broken into details to make a new parameter of five components: language skill,
knowledge of language, attitude and emotion, learning strategy and sense of culture. The key principle
of the new syllabus is that the curriculum should be organized according to students’ practical and
basic needs and educate them based on their own features.
(英语课程标准 2006 P 7).
According to Richards(1985:7), the results of the needs analysis enable goals to be set for a
language program. Such goals must be realistic in terms of the setting and circumstances in which the
program will be implemented, and relevant in terms of the language learning needs. That means they
not only need to learn English to pass the NMET, that is the students’ short-term need, but also need
learning English for their future lives, that is their long-term need.
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2. Training the students’ thinking in English by organizing English
lesson in English.
According to the new syllabus, the curriculum should be arranged to students individual features
and meet their developing needs(long-term and short term needs), and the teaching aims at training
students’ compound language command, focus on grasping information, dealing with information and
solving problems, accordingly leading them to think and express in English(英语课程标准 2006 P 2).
So there is no longer any excuse in using Chinese to organize English lesson. In English, we get
across our message, and then students take the message to carry out whatever kinds of tasks, including
analyzing the texts, learning the new words, learning the sentence structures, practicing the reading
skills.
In do so, we should follow two tips: the first, using simple language. When you organize you
lesson, never use new words, to make sure your students understand everything. And at the same time
you have to check their understanding frequently and repeat or write it out where necessary. Second,
repeat your sentences during a period, for example for one or two months. After that you try
something new. Anyway you can not go too quickly and teaching plan should be well prepared, and
put your sentence on you teaching plan instead of in your mind.
It does not matter how difficult the beginning. Keep going and the students will benefit later in
time. When you do reading and producing sentence in speaking, they are supposed to speed up, since
their Chinese give up little by little.
Listening and speaking is their long-term need, though the NMET(The National Matriculation
English Test) has no room for the two skills at the moment. Consequently, in our English lesson we
can not over emphasis these two skills, but if we persist in using English to organize our lessons,
during the process, these two skills go side by side with their reading and writing skills, instead of
being sacrificed at the cost of them.
To do this challenges many teachers. Quite a lot of them give up trying on excuse that students
can not follow, for it is beyond the students ability. The point is that they usually give up without
bothering to improve themselves..
3. To get students involved in lesson is the best way to motivate
them.
The new syllabus points out that the methodology and approach must match the new situation,
and the traditional, teacher-dominated, course-book- oriented classroom must be changed. The
teacher’s role must be changed into a supporter, organizer, helper, participator and partner to develop
students’ ability to do research and grasp the information, organize their own learning(英语课程标准
2006 P 25, 27).
Girard(1977)emphasized that it is an important part of the teacher’s job to motivate learners. In
more recent ‘learner-centered’ approaches to language teaching, however, the teacher’s functions see
mainly as a provider of materials and conditions for learning, while the learner takes responsibility for
his or her own motivation and performance.(Ur 2000:276)
Learner motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more pleasant as well as
more productive. The constructivist movement in recent cognitive psychology has re-emphasized the
active role students play in acquiring knowledge and the social construction of knowledge has been an
important principle in socio-cultural theory(Vygotsky 1979, Wertsch 1985 ). Situationism emphasizes
the requirement the authentic learning should take place in meaningful context, in what are called
‘communities of practice’(Lave 1988). Take teaching vocabulary and reading for example, since them
are both the major parts of language teaching.
3.1
How to teach vocabulary
As for how language should be presented to learners, the common method is to begin with a
vocabulary list, only to sacrifice the chance to motivate and get students involved in using their minds
to work out the meaning according to the context. One way of remembering words long-term is to
work out the mean for yourself rather than turning straight to the dictionary. It is worth taking what
seems like a longer route when you are reading. Some students think this advice is the teacher’s way
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of making things difficult. In fact many studies have show that thinking deeply about the meaning and
trying to work it out is the way to make the words stick (Lewis. M 1999: 125). Ur(2000:93) suggests a
view emphasizes the importance of dealing with whole, meaningful chunks of language in context,
rather than decontextualized items such as lists of vocabulary, or isolated examples of grammatical
structures.
Dealing with new words in this way is very useful and practical both in everyday life or in any
kinds of examination, such as NMET. It has its at least three advantages: firstly, this method develop
students cognitive level by reading and comprehension; secondly, this method prepare students
psychological habit and they will not be nervous when they come across new words unavoidably in
both real life and examinations; thirdly, the new words are easier to remember, since their get it with
more efforts, as is said by Lewis. M above.
In helping students to remember, more enjoyable games can be added. Among them the most
popular one is guessing a word. The teacher writes out a word behind a student, another student in
front of him tries his best to describe the words until he get himself understood, and his partner work
out the word.
3.2
How to train students’ reading skill
To be practical and basic is the principal of the new syllabus. Reading is the most important
form of input for the students in China. The specific situation in China is that reading is almost the
only way to receive information in English for most of the students. In NMET it weights 46.6%. To
carry out the new syllabus’s principle－－train the students’ ability of grasping information, dealing
with information and solving problems, reading skills are by all means the focus of our language
teaching task(英语课程标准 2006 P 2).
Students reading in a foreign language usually try to read a text intensively, which means trying
to understand every word. Intensive reading is something that many teacher know how to teach well.
But as we know, this not how we read in our first or main language, what’s more, it can not be helpful
in doing the NMET texts. We often use other reading sub-skills, so we need to teach these sub-skills
too. Under the abstract principle, the new syllabus gives out the specific ideas on teaching reading
sub-skills: train the students reading strategies, to build up their sense of discourse, focus on training
their ability in grasping and dealing with information. The new syllabus tells us what exactly we
should do in our teaching: skimming; scanning; predicting; reading for the main ideas reading for
specific information; making difference between facts and opinions; guessing new words; analyzing
the structure of the text; understanding the attitude of the author; giving commends on the text, etc.
(英语课程标准 2006 P 29). If we follow these instructions, we are really helping the students with
their all kinds of texts in their lives, for any teacher who is familiar with NMET should know that the
new syllabus just gives us a real picture of how the NMET tests students’ reading.
Thus we should be very careful in how to lead in to begin the reading text. Many teachers see
‘warm-up’ activities as an essential preliminary to the teaching of any text: they raise curiosity and
motivation, and provide some orientation of thinking and mood. But such activities can also have
negative effects; they may remove the direct impact of the literature itself which is a pity; and,
possible prejudice the students so that their understanding is colored by what they have been led to
expect. As Ur.P(2000:203) suggests that, “ I prefer to let the literature speak for itself. Further
background information and exploration come later.”
More over, neither in students’ real life nor in NMET text can students get the teacher’s help of
warn-up in reading. So teaching reading should form a pattern task to train students reading habit:
skim the title, headings, pictures to predict the theme of the text; read each first sentence of a
paragraph for the main idea; scan the text for specific information; make difference between facts and
opinions to know the author’s attitude, and the structure of the text, etc.
As a teacher, we should be clear about students’ problem with reading. There are two common
ones: firstly, they are influenced by Chinese literature, and not easily get used to the English text
structure: title shows the point of the text; the first sentence is the main idea. It is easy to say, but
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difficult to change students’ habit of thinking. What’s worse, they usually do the reading task
according to their own experience or emotion. Secondly, they are not sensitive to deeper meaning in
the text. What is called critical thinking is needed to work out the shuttle meaning. For a simple
example, there is sentence from the course book(Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press),
Student’s Book 1, Module 2 “My New Teachers”, “ … and, she explains English grammar so clearly
that even I can understand it!” To check students’ ability to grasp the information, a reading task is
composed like this: True or False: The writer thinks that he is good at learning English. The answer is
False. The reason is that in the sentence there is a key word ‘ even’ to carry the meaning that he is
poor in learning English.
.
4. Making necessary change for the course book to make the best
use of it.
We can never rely heavily on our course book or take it for granted. For any kinds of course
books, we can not accept it totally. We have to keep a criteria in our minds, and to tailor them to meet
the students’ needs. For example, we have to think of whether its content clearly organized and graded,
whether it has plenty of authentic language, , whether it encourages learners to develop their own
learning strategies and to become independent in their learning, whether it gives adequate guidance for
the teacher; not too heavy preparation load, etc. Most language-teaching course books probably need
supplementing to some extent, if only in order to tailor them to the needs of a particular class or to
offer richer options(Ur.P 2000: 189).
The new syllabus gives a clear suggestion on how to make a use of our course book(英语课程标
准 2006 P 62).
Since we have a clear teaching purpose as is discussed above, we have to explore the advantages
of our course book to make our language the most efficient, and make necessary change with the order.
For example, Module 1 ‘My Fist Day at Senior High’ “ English Student’s Book 1”( Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Press), post-reading task, exercise 4 Choose the answers with the same
meaning as the sentences from the text. We move it into pre-reading task, ask the students to scan the
text for specific information. More over, we should point out that this task is quite similar to NMET’s
style. We make a comparison:
Choose the answers with the same meaning as the sentences from the text.
Lines 21 – 24: Ms Shen’s method of teaching is nothing like that of the teachers at my Junior
High school.
(a) My previous teacher’s method of teaching is better than that of Ms Shen.
(b) My previous teachers’ method of teaching is different from that of Ms Shen.
(English Student’s Book 1” Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press)
The answer is( b); While in NMET 2006( LiaoNing province ) No. 71
71. From the last paragraph, we can infer that ______.
A. the situations in the developed and developing countries are different
B. “Empty Nest Syndrome” has arrived unexpectedly in our society
C. children will become independent as soon as they go abroad
D. the aged parents are not fully prepared for “Empty Nest Syndrome”
The answer is B and the evidence is based on the last sentence of the passage, “ Our society has
not been well prepared for the ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’. Though these patterns are different, the point
is the same: to test the students’ ability of grasping the information.
Since we change it into pre-reading task, we provide students a chance to train them
psychologically in doing reading tasks in NMET. That is a good challenge for them. In this way we
help them practically.
Another example, Module 3, ‘ My First Ride on a Train’ “ English Student’s Book 1”( Foreign
Language Teaching and Research Press), pre-reading task in Reading and Vocabulary, exercise 2:
Before you read My firs Fide on a train, check the meaning of these words. We remove to post-reading.
We let the students work out their means according to the context after the rough reading.
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In this way we make good use of the course book.
As for supplementing materials, the new syllabus gives us a clear instruction for a high school
student. That is, besides the course book the supplementing materials are needed to the extent of 23
million words (英语课程标准 2006 P 11), so enough extra reading materials should provided for the
students to give them enough chances to practise the sub-skills learned from the course book.
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