试论中学英语教学中的素质教育

Cloze test, error correction and writing training are some necessary  supplements of reading. These kinds of discourse training relate much to  comprehension and are quite beneficial to the improvement of the learners’  reading ability. It is necessary to lead, instruct and supervise the  learners while reading texts. Further reading exercises can be given as  homework for them to finish independently after school. Reading  comprehension then means the ability to fully apply and use the language.

There are some other factors that influence reading ability, such as the  type of material, the reading quantity, the level of ability in one’s  mother tongue, the individual learner’s personality, reading skill and  strategy, etc. The teacher should attach much importance to the everyday  training and test the result timely.

iii Writing. Like reading, writing belongs to the discourse level but they function  differently. Reading is inputting and writing belongs to outputting. The  writer holds that writing can be described as productive. Writing ability  should include writing of all types: letters, telegrams, diaries or even  poetry and novels. But high school writing should begin from such very  basic forms as sentence-combining and sentence-making and then gradually  transit to the discourse level with connections to different writing  styles. During this period, the teacher may encourage some guided writing,  note-making, outlining, or even cloze test.

The importance of comprehensible input should be greatly emphasized.  Grammar can be taught very well but perhaps not writing. Maybe somebody  will ask why some learners can’t write at all, some write incomprehensibly  and some write simple but why others can write pretty well. Perhaps the  psycholinguist Eric Lenneberg can give a satisfactory answer. He compared  this phenomenon in writing to that in swimming: Somebody can’t swim at  all, some can only swim badly but some can swim quite well. (Brown)

In the writing classes, teachers can divide the students into different  groups according to their language levels and have them do group work. In  this way, they can help each other with structure and word choice before  they really begin to write. While commenting on their work, the teacher  may pay special attention to “pidgin mistakes”.

Every language is a tool to help a nation explore and perfect his own  world. The system of a particular language reflects the way in which a  people explore their world, the history of their nation, and the way they  trace their cultural development. For a foreign language learner, the  knowledge that he has of his mother tongue will greatly influence his  understanding and acceptance of another language. (Dai Weidong, Shu  Dingfang) We must try to help the learners weaken the influence of their  mother tongue in foreign language learning. Besides choosing some good  topics for writing, we can also choose suitable background knowledge and  reading exercises as supplements to improve the learners’ writing ability.

iv Translating. Many teachers in high schools consider translation a very important way of  teaching English. But the writer doesn’t agree. Perhaps it can be done as  a supplementary exercise, because there is so much difference in  interpreting English from/to Chinese. The writer holds that while learning  a foreign language, one must try his best to forget his own language.  Depending too much on translating will make the learners rely too much on  their mother tongue. This is very harmful to foreign language learning.

Ultimately translation can be considered as an excellent method of  enhancing the learners’ ability to apply and interpret the foreign  language but not before a high level of English competency is achieved.

VII Communicative competence. In order to keep up with the development of our improving national economy  and our entry into the WTO, we need to improve the learners’ ability to  communicate. The “Pendulum Phenomenon” in English teaching and learning in  China suggests that we should lay stronger emphasis on improving the  learners’ communicative competence. (Ma Tao)

The teacher has the responsibility to teach the learners how to use  English through the Internet because the learners’ purpose in taking  English is as a tool to know the world, to get all kinds of information  and to better express themselves. And this kind of method should  necessarily be based not only on English culture but that of other  English-speaking nations. IE, the U.S.A, Canada, Australia and New  Zealand.

English teaching must emphasize the practicality of the language and the  learner is the main practitioner of this learning. The learners acquire  linguistic and communicative competence through practice that is then  transformed into communicative competence. During this period, the teacher  can study the psychological characteristics of the learners’ learning to  decide the way of teaching.

The best way to develop the learners’ interest in learning and to create  good learning habits is to help them construct their own models of  learning through listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating  together. This will construct a good learning atmosphere. Further more,  teaching can make good use of the advanced mixed media that will expand  the learners’ range of knowledge. Practicing the skills of watching,  listening and speaking within a productive environment will stimulate the  learners’ interest and enthusiasm.

Real communication activities should be completed by the learners  themselves. While organizing pair/group work, we can let the groups  practice together and then ask various pairs/groups to model their  competence in the front of the class. One point to be emphasized is the  need to prevent the learners from relying too much on teacher involvement.

The teacher could try to do as follows: 1. Strengthen the learner