How to use English language
teaching to train students thinking
TO: Mr Xiao
From: Wang Li (王莉)
Date: December
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31st， 2001
Abstract of Contents
The syllabus for English teaching indicates clearly that its goal not only
makes students know the knowledge but also makes them turn the knowledge
into language skill and then fosters communication competence at the same
time. How to change the knowledge into the competency? I think we should
often develop the students’ internal latent energy of thinking in images and in
reason. And from that we can improve students’ thinking and creating thinking
competency continuously and obtain the good teaching result.
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Table
of Contents
Introduction
I.
Train students’ accumulativeness thinking through the old information
and condition so as to improve their listening comprehension.
II.
Carry out the reading—teaching through giving off thinking.
III.
Set up scenes, evoke interest ,and let students carry out thinking
through the connection in length and breadth.
IV.
Let the students freely imagine the ends of a story in order to attain the
creativeness thinking .
V.
Encourage students to take part in different kinds of practice activities
so as to foster them creativeness thinking.
Conclusion
In traditional language teaching pedagogy, we only emphasize reading,
writing skills and the grammar — translation method .We often rely on
mechanical drills and imitation as a teaching mould. But as the English
teaching going deep ,doing that will make students thinking simple, learning
boring with the long period of dull formularized imitation and repetition.
If we want to foster students’ communicative competence，firstly we must
let students grasp the knowledge about the language，and then we must teach
students how to use the language appropriately in communicative situation .
Forming them four skills of language ， listening ,speaking ,reading and
writing ,we can reach the goal of CLT， and the students won’t “be high marks
low competence”. The central and the most active factor of forming
communicative competence is thinking competence. So we should
continuously renew our teaching concept. We should adopt the advanced
scientific method to obtain the bets result.
Now I’ll expound how to train students’ thinking from my experience of
sixteen-year’s English teaching.
1. Train students’ accumulative thinking through the old information and
condition so as to improve their listening comprehension.
“Listening ”is the essential form of people’s communicative activities. If
you want to grasp a language，you must listen and understand it clearly at first,
and then you will feel carefree .When I train students’ listening, I pay attention
to the timber of inspiring students’ listening, especially I use the old formation
and condition to analize , sum up so that I can obtain the accurate
information .e.g: The listening material is “Billy is as careful as Lily .”Find out
the following sentence of the similar meaning from A.B.C.D. A. Billy is
more careful.B. Billy and Lily are Both careful. C. Billy and Lily aren’t
careful enough. D lily is more careful. Students should judge and choose “B”
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according to the listening material “as…as”. Another listening material is “Jim
didn’t stand up until the teacher came in”, A Jim didn’t stand up when the
teacher came in, B.Jim was standing when the teacher came in .C. when the
teacher came in， Jim stood up . Students should choose “C” correctly
according to the listening material “not….until”. Though there are no word
barriers in the above two examples, most of students can’t still grasp the
accurate information .So when I train students’ listening. I usually pay
attention to fostering students using old information and condition to improve
their thinking competence .
II. Carry out the reading teaching through giving off thinking
Giving off thinking is to follow different directions to think. It’s to reform
the old information and conditions again and find out the several kinds of
possible answers , conclusions and hypothesis. And it is an important link to
develop the students’ mentality . e. g: Junior Book III lesson 78 “Standing
Room Only” At first I let students read the text themselves and know the
world population is rising rapidly, the first task that faces us is to contral
population growing. And then I ask students, “what’s the population of
China ? ” All the students answer “About 1.2 billion.” Next to that question ,I
tell students the population of China is growing fast too. “What is our national
policy?” The students think over, discuss warmly and point out “Family Plan ”.
That is to say “One family , One child .” If we don’t make it, we would be
standing Room Only in China. Another e.g.: Senior Book I lesson 22 “A New
car factory”. After students prepare it and the teacher explains it, they know
that the building of a new car factory will bring a lot of chance of getting
employment to the citizens , and it will bring many other new engineerings ,
e.g.: building a new hospital ,a new express way. But I don’t stop here .I go on
asking students ,“What will be the bad results of new car factory?” The
students will start to talk about their ideas individually .Some say“We are
afraid the factory will bring noises .” Some say “It will bring pollution to the
quiet and clean city .” Others say “We are afraid that it’s not safe and we
should lock the door before leaving home. ” Prastice like this not only makes
students get a deeper understanding the text but also fosters their thinking
competence, and at the same time it adds the students’ interesting to learning
English.
III Set up scenes, evoke interest, let students carry out thinking through
the connection in length and breadth.
After the students understand the whole text, requiring them use the
preceding ways of thinking to make responses to the conversation within the
shortest time . So the students’ thinking appears very active.
e.g.: Junior Book II lesson 81“Shopping” I use some different colour
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clothes , shoes and other things in different styles as proerties to set up a
small general store in front of the plantform. I let students act as shop assistant,
customers and other characters, and divide students into several groups to play.
The students practise many learned words, sentences inside class or outside
class in conversations. “e.g. Welcome to our shop. How much does the jacket
cost? This shirt is more expensive than that one. I’ll take it ,etc.” When the
student who acts as a customer breaks a cup, the student who act as a shop
assistant has a quick thinking. He says “don’t worry”. He points to the broken
cup and says “The cup on the floor is mine. But you may buy twelve cups. The
cups are very nice and cheap. I think you will like them.” In course at their
watching and learning from each other, their quickness, flexibility of thinking,
their communicative competence can be fostered and improved.
IV. Let students freely imagine the ends of a story in order to attain the
creativeness thinking.
The goal of English language teaching is not only making students grasp
new knowledge but also making the know ledge be removed properly and
synthesized, used. Practice like this can give full play to the students ,
creativeness thinking of multidirection. Students have much imagination. The
adapted beginnings and the ends of a story are various, and the substance of
the story is very interesting. e.g.: Let students rewrite the end of a story in
what follows.
One day, after breakfast Mrs Read( Kate Read )had a look at the watch
she bought ten years ago and found it didn’t work now. So she decided to buy
a new one.
It was a fine day and there were a lot of people in the market, Mrs Read
and her daughter of four, Sue, entered shop, and she began to look carefully at
the watches. But then, she couldn’t find Sue. She ran to the manager’s office
for help. They began to go up and down to look for the girl. Suddenly….
Guesses by the students
1. Mrs. Read heard a girl crying. It was her daughter Sue! How happy she
was then!
2. Mrs Read heard a girl calling her, “Kate!” It was her daughter Sue.
“Why not call me ‘Mother’? Mrs Read asked. “There are many mothers here,
and I don’t want all of them to answer me,” said the girl.
3. Mrs Read’ s BP was calling and it said “If you give me a large sum of
money as a reward, you can see your daughter.”
V. Encourage students to take part in different kinds of practice activities
so as to foster them creativeness thinking.
We teachers should be armed with modern education theory. We should
make efforts to change the traditional teaching concept. We should organize all
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kinds of practice activities. I often introduce some foreigners to my students
and encourage them to talk with the guests so that their ability to use language
appropriately in social situation would develop.
Whether the English language teaching can carry out the thinking training
smoothly and successfully, it depends on the teacher’s leading use. When
planning a lesson, teachers must be aware of the aims and language contents
of the lesson firstly, and then the teacher must be aware of the teaching kids
that are needed. Doing that can guide students to think. Teachers must try their
best to foster the students’ habit of being fond of thinking and of speaking in
class. Teachers should strive for interesting material and teaching methods.
The contents of thinking training must be from easy to different , form
elementary to advanced. Doing that may embody the several stages from
audio-visualization to creativeness thinking. Teachers must pay attention to the
students’ individual differences of intellectual development. Teachers should
let students fully express their ideas. Teachers should timely praise the
students who make speeches actively and also encourage the students who are
not so good. Doing that can make students set up mental advantage of English
learnability. Since I usually attach import to the students’ thinking training in
teaching. The students’ thinking is very active and the teaching rhythm in class
quickens gradually. So the students’ practical ability of using language
improves securely.
《Teaching plan for Lesson 54 Junior Book III》
Material:
CHRISTMAS
DAY
On Christmas Eve---the night before Christmas Day—children all over Britain
put a stocking at the end of their beds before they go to sleep. Their parents
usually tell them that Father Christmas will come during the night.
Father Christmas is very kind-hearted .He lands on top of each house and
climbs down the chimney into the fireplace. He fills each of the stockings with
Christmas presents.
Of course,Father Christmas isn’t real. In Jim and Kate’s house, “Father
Christmas” is really Wr Green. Wr Green doesn’t climb down the chimney.He
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waits until the children are asleep. Then he quietly goes into their bedrooms,
and fills their stockings with small presents. When they were very young, Wr
Green sometimes dressed up in a red coat. But he doesn’t do that now. The
children are no longer young, and they know who “Father Christmas” really is,
But they still put their stockings at the end of their beds.
TEACHING PLAN
AIMS: a) To have the class know something about Christmas in Britain and
many other parts of the world.
b) To have the class learn important phrases.
c) To have the class practice in retelling the text.
NEW LEXIS:Britain,stocking,chimney,kind-hearted dress up ,no longer, on
top of, at the end of, be asleep.
GRAMMAR: Object clause (that)
PROCEDURE
WARM---UP(3 minutes)
Listen to the Christmas song of tape player
Let students answer questions about Christmas Day(When is Christmas
Day /Christmas Eve?)
STAGE1 PRESENTATION (approx, 12mins)
1. We are going to learn more about Christmas, This is an important
festival in Britain and many other parts of the world. Just like spring
Festival in China.
2.showing a picture about this text
1) The teacher retells this text according to the picture.
2)Student listen to the teacher carefully and answer the question: Who is
Father Christmas in this lesson? (Mr Green)
3)Learning new words, phrases and important sentence (teaching while
writing on the Bb)
STAG2 PRACTICE (approx.15mins)
a)Repetition new words and phrases
b) Repetition object clause (that…)
c)Answering the questions of Ex.1
d)Cue students retelling the text
e)Doing Ex.3 and public check.
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STAG3 PERFOMANCE (approx. 15mins)
1、Several groups of students act plays about Christmas. (In each group
one can act a Father Christmas, Two can act as children, the other can
act as mother)
2、The whole class sing the Christmas song.
HOMEWORK: Retell the whole text and write it on the exercise book.
TEACHING AIDS:
A tape recorder ,two Christmas trees(lights,stockings,presents...)
BLACKBOARD WRIGHTING DESIGN
Lesson 54
Christmas Day
Father Christmas
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
Christmas stockings
be asleep
fall asleep
during the night
dress up (in)
no longer=not…any longer
kind---hearted
warm—hearted
white—haired
Their parents usually tell them that Father
Christmas will come during the night.
He told me that he would come soon.
(主) S +P(谓)+O(that object clause)
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