王元周

The writer finds that there is a serious matter which influences the teachers who work in rural areas, namely, English as a language, what should be taught as the first place; if their teaching ideas fit the modern English teaching. Therefore, there are some suggestions from the writers teaching experience and the writer hopes them will work for those who teach a foreign language in countryside.

1. New teaching conception

In the rural areas, the English teachers mainly center on sentence structures and language points, and always ask the students to take notes, but seldom require the students to practice speaking. The English teachers usually stress and focus on the rules of grammar, but ignore listening training, and they always request the learners to recite new words separately, and so the students are unable to do actual communication. The teachers should tell the students the importance of four skills and adopt new teaching conceptions.

2. New training concept

Many teachers just focus on the top students in a class, for they are afraid of their falling into contempt. Few pay much attention to the development of the whole group of the students, and so it is hard to improve the teaching quality. Therefore, the instructors should have new training concepts and make sure that the majority can realize the teaching and learning goals.

3. New teaching methods

The traditional teaching approach has been unsuitable for modern English teaching, it is urgent to find new ones to change the teaching situation. The following should be taken into account: classroom teaching design, teaching means, teaching effective learning strategies, fostering learning interest, stimulating learning motivation, and so on. In China, Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Situation Approach, Audio-Visual Approach and Communicative Language Teaching method are used in English teaching. There are, however, two typical methods which can reflect the reform of foreign language teaching nowadays, namely the task-based teaching approach and the cooperative learning approach.

Here is a snapshot of teaching. “A Traffic Accident”

T: Ask the following questions:

a. What were you doing at five yesterday afternoon?

b. What was he/she doing at five yesterday afternoon?

c. Were you watching TV/having supper/playing games…at five yesterday afternoon?

d. Was he/she watching TV/having supper/playing games…at five yesterday afternoon?

(The answers are omitted)

T: What was Miss Fu doing at that time? Do you know?

S: Sorry, we dont know.

T: Can you guess? (The teacher encouraged the students to bring into play their imagination)

S1: Were you watching TV?

S2: Were you cooking?

S3: Were you having a lesson?

S4: …

T: Now you can use “what” questions to ask me.

Ss: What were you doing at five yesterday afternoon?

T: I was leaving school at five when I saw something outside the school gate. Can you guess?

S1: You saw a wallet lying on the ground.

S2: You saw one of your friends and talked to her.

S3: You saw Wu Bin (who dislikes learning) playing computer games and took him to the teachers office. (All the students laughed)

S4: You saw an accident.

T: Yes, I saw an accident. A traffic accident. (Writing the topic on the blackboard: A Traffic Accident) What do you think caused the accident?

S: …

(Cheng ＆ Guan,2003:73-74)

The case embodies the harmonious interaction of S-T and cooperative learning approach which reveals the new conceptions of inquiry-based learning.Moreover, it shows that the teacher can teach the Past Continuous Tens innovatively.

Traditionally, the teacher-centered is very popular and the English teachers often ignore the students role and the students just listen and make notes. Now many educators believe that the teachers should guide the students to think and give students more chances to practice speaking and discussing. A successful class should be student-centered. So the English teachers should concentrate on the development of students capability of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The teacher is the organizer of the teaching process as well as the guide and cooperator of students learning; furthermore, educators should be the students friends, rather than the leaders.

A serious problem is that there are more than 60 students in each class. The burden of the teacher is so heavy that he or she cannot take care of every student. Many teachers like more excellent learners and offer them more chances to answer questions, and ignore the underachievers. As a result, the learners have been polarized on this issue. Therefore, showing concern for the whole class is crucial to enhance the teaching quality.

In short, teaching English as a foreign language, we should regard it as a language to teach first and knowledge second. And just do it so, the language ability of learners could be developed as we are expected to.