安振彦

【摘要】本文主要讨论利用活动和游戏来发展学生们的语言习得能力,目的是使所教和所学的内容更有趣,更有激励性和挑战性。活动和游戏作为英语教学和学习的组成部分应该作为一个教学研究项目加以研究,发展和完善,以便使学生能从这些活动和游戏中获益良多,一方面为语言习得获得更多语言输入和输出的机会,而另一方面可以利用活动和游戏改变教学的单一和枯燥,给学生更多与教师和同学交流互动的机会,这样做对于减少学生们的焦虑和紧张,改变他们的学习态度和激发他们参与语言输入和输出的语言活动有这十分重要的意义。

【关键词】利用、活动、游戏、语言习得

An zhen yan

【Abstract】

In this essay, the utilization of activities and games to cultivate students' potentials for language acquisition are the main focus of discussion in order to make what students are taught and learning more interesting , motivating, and challenging. Activities and games as necessary parts in English teaching and learning should be studied, developed and perfected as a project of the teaching research,so that students can benefit a lot from them and get more language input and output for language acquisition on the one hand , on the other hand , activities and games can be stimulants to change the monotony of teaching and give students more chance to interact with teachers and students , which is very helpful and meaningful in reducing students' worry and panic, changing their attitudes to their learning and motivating their participation in language input and output.

【Key words】utilization、activities、 games、 language acquisition.

1.Introduction:

Games and activities as supplements to 〖JP+4〗teaching plays an important role in English learning and teaching ,〖JP〗 which involve students learning English in anatmosphere full of interests, motivations and challenges. They can be stimulants to encourage students active involvements in English learning owing to the variety of activities and games. So games and activities are something that can change the monotony of teaching and bring some fresh experiences to the students. Consequently what students are taught and learning will be more interesting , motivating and challenging in acquiring the language they are learning.

2. Communicative activities

Communicative activities mean getting students to actually do things with language and it is the doing that should form the main focus .'(Harmer, 1991: 151). According to what Harmer says about communicative activities, English teaching and learning should be combined with some communicative activities, from which students will get more chance to practice speaking, writing, reading and listening in English to get more language input and output for language acquisition.

2.1 Pre-teaching Activities

Pre-teaching activities are preliminary activities with the purpose of warming up students in pre-teaching activities and getting them prepared for what they will read and listen to based on the 'Schema Theory' advanced by Rumel Hart in 1980 and Carrell and Eisterhold in 1983 and O Malley Chomot and Kupper in 1989, which involves the bottom-up process and top-down process in understanding language. The former refers to the process of understanding phonemes, words, sentences first and then the discourse, while the latter refers to the use of the knowledge stored in the brain as background knowledge to help learners to understand what they read and listen to, getting a general idea through prediction, imagination and association. The evidence from applied linguistic research and second language acquisition research show that most ordinary or low-level language learners tend to rely on the bottom-up process to help them to understand what they are reading and listening to instead of the top-down process. As a result the efficiency of their reading and listening will be affected for lack of such knowledge and skills in the top-down model and their burden of encoding the information in reading and listening will be heavier than before as what they are learning becomes complicated. In view of this, the pre-teaching activities should focus on this and give students more chance of practicing these two models in their daily English teaching and learning. If they keep at doing this in their usual English learning, their burden with reading and listening will be less and less until they become efficient readers and listeners. Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to design certain communicative activities to develop their abilities in using different schemata to help them understand different styles of writings and listening materials to reduce their burden of processing information in reading and listening. In response, pre-reading activities should be interchangeable with different purposes to train them to how to learn and how to use the language for real communication through communicative activities of talking about yourself, simulation, role play, discovery techniques, problem solving, reaching a consensus, discussion and relaying instruction as preludes to get students mentally ready for what they will do next. If they are reading or listening to what they are familiar with, the communicative activities can be based on task-based activities to train them how to read or listen with purpose. Take the text 'The Professor and the Yo-Yo' in College English ,Book II, Unit 5 for example, we can ask students what they know about Einstein and what they want to know about him first and then ask them to write down what they know about him and what they want to know about him on a piece of paper for presentation after negotiation through discussion. Sometimes we can initiate students' top-down process model for prediction about the main ideas of a text using the title, picture or chart. For example; taking up the text 'American Education', first ask students to predict what the author will talk about and how he will develop his idea about the education in America and what writing style it is by dividing the whole class into different groups to discuss them and then to present what they have found before the whole class. In the way students are not only trained to use extra linguistic knowledge to predict what they are reading or listening to will be about,that's to use the top-down skills to predict what they haven't known before, but also to know how to read and listen more efficiently. So pre-teaching activities should focus on this to cultivate students how to read or listen with purpose through prediction, imagination and association based on schemata knowledge in their minds.

2.2While-teaching Activities

While-teaching activities refer to the stage of teaching being expanded further, during which activities should foster the language competence and performance, understanding and practice as what are emphasized to know about language and know how to use language in linguistic theories. The language competence and performance advocated by Chomsky put an emphasis on learning the intricate ruled-based system, which refers to the knowledge about the language, and on acquisition, which refers to the realization of this knowledge into real use. Understanding before practice put forward by Krashen , 1995 and Ellis, 1990 sees comprehensible input as an important factor for language acquisition based on the child's first language acquisition, in which 'caretaker's language, here and now principle and simple code' (Krashen, 1995:23-27) as evidence from this research come up to show the importance of understanding first and practice in the process of learning language. So pre-teaching activities should be based on these concepts to give students more chance to develop their language competence, that's the knowledge about language for one thing, for another thing, to develop their communicative competence and strategy involving knowing how to put language to real use. While-teaching activities should serve as the purposes to cultivate students language skills and communicative competence and strategy inreading, listening, speaking and writing. Therefore, while-teaching activities should be carried out in groups, pairs or in the whole class to fosterlanguage skills and communicative competence and strategy. that students need for extracting main ideas, reading for specific information, understanding text organization, checking comprehension, inferring, dealing with unfamiliar words, linking ideas, understanding complicated sentences, understanding writers' style, evaluating the text, reacting to the text and writing summaries.In 1970 the British applied linguist Allwright conducted an experiment which challenged traditional notions of language teaching. He said that 'If the language teacher's management activities are directed exclusively at involving the language learners in solving communication problems in the target language, then language learning will take care of itself.' (Harmer, 1991: 34)

2.3 Post-teaching activities

Post-teaching activities should aim at strengthening what students have learned and developing their language competence, communicative competence and strategy further by using various communicative activities. According to the theory advocated by Krashen in 1995, in which the differences between learning and acquisition are mainly discussed, post-teaching activities should be different depending on the needs for language learning and acquisition. So post-teaching activities should be form-focused when it is used for learning, whereas they should be content-focused or meaning-focused when it is for acquisition. But actually they involve each other in the process of language activities, the difference lies in the formal learning and informal learning. The key is to tell the difference to put activities to full use for language learning and acquisition. Take writing for example, first students are equipped with required knowledge about writing such as coherent and cohesive devices to make what they want to say understood by analyzing some samples first and then practice using them in communicative writing. In the way what they have learned will become part of their acquired knowledge, just as what Krashen said ' Language is acquired when it is used for communication.'(Krashen, 1995:1) So language teaching and learning should serve for the acquisition of the language, which is the goal of learning a language.

3. Communicative games

Communicative games are based on the principle of the information gap. Students are put into a situation in which they have to use all or any of the language they possess to complete a game-like task.'(Harmer, 1991:126) So communicative games can be used to activate students acquired language to rehearse their language for real communication based on the principle of the information gap, which is conducive to language acquisition. Since communicative games are in the form of game-like tasks, which are characterized by interest, motivation and challenge, they can bring fresh experiences to the students, change the monotony of the teaching, rouse their active involvement and motivation. The communicative games can be used for a change before teaching, in teaching or after teaching depending on the situation and teaching accordingly. For example, if we want to check students' grasping new words before teaching, we can holdword games like 'Hanging Man, Acting out for Word, Bingo, definition for word, listening for word, writing for word or drawing forword 'to help students understand the words in different contexts. If we are in the middle of teaching, or after that,we can stop to refresh students by having communicative games like relaying instructions, role play or writing or retelling for guessing a place or famous people without mentioning their names or reaching a consensus about the things you have to bring with on a holiday or debate about certain content concerning the text that students have just finished. During doing these games, students have more chance to activate their stored language to rehearse what they have learned and acquired, from which they can get more language input and output for language acquisition and achieve the goal of language teaching and learning.

4. Conclusion

The ultimate goal of language teaching and learning is to acquire the language that students are taught and learning. Activities and games as the media to achieve this goal play an important role in the processes of teaching and learning, understanding and practicing the language owing to their characteristics of instruction and interaction. Therefore, we not only try to know how to teach and how to learn, but also to know how to put what students have learned and acquired to real use through holding activities and games to help them understand ,assimilate and internalize the language and acquire it finally. Just as some applied linguistic research theories and second language acquisition theories advocate that the more comprehensible language input learners receive, the more they will acquire. As a result they will be more competent at the language and be able to use the language at their disposal.So we should employ various activities and games to expose students to all kinds of comprehensible language materials to increase the quantity of their stored language in the language acquisition device in one way and to give students more chance to activate their language in the language acquisition device to rehearse their stored language for real communication in another way. Just as what Krashen says ' Language acquisition occurs when the language is used for what it was designed, communication.'(Krashen, 1995:1)

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收稿日期:2009-07-24