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Abstract:In recent years, China has promoted education for all-round development, meanwhile, what’s the best teaching approach for our English vocabulary teaching in senior high school is still groping. Facing the different teaching approaches and methods developed by linguists and language teachers, we should also be aware that new methods and approaches might have limitations. We should adapt them creatively to fit into our own teaching practices. This paper mainly concerns the proper application of the Task-based Language Teaching method as well as Situational Language Teaching (SLT) approach in teaching English vocabulary to senior high school students.
Key words: Task- based Language Teaching, the Situational Language Teaching, real-life situations, communicative competence
一. Introduction
In recent years, china has promoted education for all-round development, meanwhile, what’s the best teaching approach for our English vocabulary teaching in senior high school is still groping. Facing the different teaching approaches and methods developed by linguists and language teachers, we should also be aware that new methods and approaches might have limitations. We should adapt them creatively to fit into our own teaching practices. This paper mainly concerns the proper application of the Task-based Language Teaching method as well as Situational Language Teaching (SLT) approach in teaching English vocabulary to senior high school students.
二. Problems in teaching English to senior high school students
There are two major problems in teaching English to senior high school students. One is how to encourage students to be interested in English study and speak more English in the class, and the other one is how to help them get high marks in examinations.
Getting students involved in English class
Motivations for senior high school students are mostly for the College Entrance Examination instead of their own sake, that is, they are eager to get high marks in their future exams, whereas, someone are truly fond of Englisht (from students’ response in my questionnaire to freshmen in senior high school). They are bored of the traditional Grammar-Translation Method practiced by their middle school teachers of English, while they also want to master the skills for passing exams. They have learned English for six years in middle school mainly for the purpose of passing exams instead of for communicating with others, but many of them haven’t learned it well. Some students’vocabulary is so limited that they couldn’t understand the meaning of the reading and comprehensive parts; some stndents know every word or phrase they need to use but they can’t join grammar point they are to follow.To encourage them to be brave and patient enough to learn English better is the greatest challenge for an English teacher in such a situation. Therefore, teachers need to design a variety of teaching strategies. The first task is to help them build the intensive motivation and interest in learning English, as we all know that Learning is most effective when an individual is ready to learn, and then it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach them the skills and methods in english leaning efficiently, and thus it requires the teacher to use a more student-oriented teaching approach. the TBLT is particularly the best way to arouse their interest and participation. 三. Brief introduction of TBLT and SLT
To have a better idea of why and how TBLT and SLT can be used in solving the above problems, we shall first have a thorough understanding of these teaching approaches. Richards and Theodore (1988) give a best summary of teaching approaches in their book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. A brief summary is as follows:
1. Task-based language teaching
Task-based language teaching was first invented by a British Indian linguistsN．S．Prabhu in the 1970s, popularized abroad in the 1980s, and introduced into China in the 1990s. Task-based language teaching can be regarded as one particular development within the broader “communicative approach”. TBLT is a new teaching method. It has some connections with a real world of learners’ lives and learning experience, and it can arouse learners’ interest and participation. It pays more attention to the function of knowledge system of language, and probes into the way of study and use of language. And it also bridges the gap between the native language and target language of the learner and it pours vigor into the senior English teaching in China.
2. Situational Language Teaching
Acquiring linguistic data is not sufficient because the scene is not a linguistic one, we will meet different objects and events which are present at the moment of communication. In this respect Halliday remarks “when we acquire our primary language, we do so by learning how to behave in situations, not by learning rules about what to say” (M.A.K. Halliday et al. 1964:179)
Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established. Situational Language teaching uses a structural syllabus and a word list. Structures are always taught within sentences, and vocabulary is chosen according to how well it enables sentence patterns to be taught. The practice techniques employed generally consist of guided repetition and substitution activities, including chorus repetition, dictation, drills, and controlled oral-based reading and writing tasks.
Since the purpose of teaching a foreign language is to enable the learners to use it, then it must be heard, spoken, read, and written in suitable realistic situations. Neither translation nor mechanical drills can help if they are not connected to practical life. The situational language teaching methods focused on the need to practise language in meaningful situation-based activities. Therefore, the situational language teaching approach continued to be part of the standard set of procedures advocated in many current British methodology texts.
References
[1]Hymes, D. On Communicative Competence. [M]Sociolinguistics pp. 269-93. Harmondsworth: Penguin
[2]Johnson, K., and Morrow, K. (eds.) Communication in the Classroom [M]London: Longman.
[3]Richards, Jack.C., and Theodore, S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching [M]. Cambridge University Press.
Key words: Task- based Language Teaching, the Situational Language Teaching, real-life situations, communicative competence
一. Introduction
In recent years, china has promoted education for all-round development, meanwhile, what’s the best teaching approach for our English vocabulary teaching in senior high school is still groping. Facing the different teaching approaches and methods developed by linguists and language teachers, we should also be aware that new methods and approaches might have limitations. We should adapt them creatively to fit into our own teaching practices. This paper mainly concerns the proper application of the Task-based Language Teaching method as well as Situational Language Teaching (SLT) approach in teaching English vocabulary to senior high school students.
二. Problems in teaching English to senior high school students
There are two major problems in teaching English to senior high school students. One is how to encourage students to be interested in English study and speak more English in the class, and the other one is how to help them get high marks in examinations.
Getting students involved in English class
Motivations for senior high school students are mostly for the College Entrance Examination instead of their own sake, that is, they are eager to get high marks in their future exams, whereas, someone are truly fond of Englisht (from students’ response in my questionnaire to freshmen in senior high school). They are bored of the traditional Grammar-Translation Method practiced by their middle school teachers of English, while they also want to master the skills for passing exams. They have learned English for six years in middle school mainly for the purpose of passing exams instead of for communicating with others, but many of them haven’t learned it well. Some students’vocabulary is so limited that they couldn’t understand the meaning of the reading and comprehensive parts; some stndents know every word or phrase they need to use but they can’t join grammar point they are to follow.To encourage them to be brave and patient enough to learn English better is the greatest challenge for an English teacher in such a situation. Therefore, teachers need to design a variety of teaching strategies. The first task is to help them build the intensive motivation and interest in learning English, as we all know that Learning is most effective when an individual is ready to learn, and then it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach them the skills and methods in english leaning efficiently, and thus it requires the teacher to use a more student-oriented teaching approach. the TBLT is particularly the best way to arouse their interest and participation. 三. Brief introduction of TBLT and SLT
To have a better idea of why and how TBLT and SLT can be used in solving the above problems, we shall first have a thorough understanding of these teaching approaches. Richards and Theodore (1988) give a best summary of teaching approaches in their book Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. A brief summary is as follows:
1. Task-based language teaching
Task-based language teaching was first invented by a British Indian linguistsN．S．Prabhu in the 1970s, popularized abroad in the 1980s, and introduced into China in the 1990s. Task-based language teaching can be regarded as one particular development within the broader “communicative approach”. TBLT is a new teaching method. It has some connections with a real world of learners’ lives and learning experience, and it can arouse learners’ interest and participation. It pays more attention to the function of knowledge system of language, and probes into the way of study and use of language. And it also bridges the gap between the native language and target language of the learner and it pours vigor into the senior English teaching in China.
2. Situational Language Teaching
Acquiring linguistic data is not sufficient because the scene is not a linguistic one, we will meet different objects and events which are present at the moment of communication. In this respect Halliday remarks “when we acquire our primary language, we do so by learning how to behave in situations, not by learning rules about what to say” (M.A.K. Halliday et al. 1964:179)
Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established. Situational Language teaching uses a structural syllabus and a word list. Structures are always taught within sentences, and vocabulary is chosen according to how well it enables sentence patterns to be taught. The practice techniques employed generally consist of guided repetition and substitution activities, including chorus repetition, dictation, drills, and controlled oral-based reading and writing tasks.
Since the purpose of teaching a foreign language is to enable the learners to use it, then it must be heard, spoken, read, and written in suitable realistic situations. Neither translation nor mechanical drills can help if they are not connected to practical life. The situational language teaching methods focused on the need to practise language in meaningful situation-based activities. Therefore, the situational language teaching approach continued to be part of the standard set of procedures advocated in many current British methodology texts.
References
[1]Hymes, D. On Communicative Competence. [M]Sociolinguistics pp. 269-93. Harmondsworth: Penguin
[2]Johnson, K., and Morrow, K. (eds.) Communication in the Classroom [M]London: Longman.
[3]Richards, Jack.C., and Theodore, S. Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching [M]. Cambridge University Press.