论文总字数：34508字

摘 要

情景语境运用是活跃课堂教学氛围的有效方法。情景语境教学能够激发学生学习英语的兴趣，然而就目前而言，缺少语言习得和使用环境，是中国学生外语表达能力差的一个重要因素。基于建构主义学习理论和皮亚杰的认知发展理论，文章研究了小学英语教学中情景语境创设存在的问题，并探讨了创设情景语境的方法，期望教师运用这些方法灵活地创设情景语境从而提高教学效果。

关键词：小学英语；情景语境；创设

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review . 1

2.1 Previous Studies of Context in the West 12

2.2 Previous Studies of Context in China 2

3. The Theoretical Basis for Situational Context Creation in Primary English Class 2

3.1 Constructivist Learning Theory and Situational Context 2

3.2 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development and Situational Context 3

4. Problems on the Creation of Situational Context in Primary English Class 4

4.1 Setting up Multiple Situational Context with Little Correlation 4

4.2 Teaching Words in Isolation 5

4.3 Using the MultimediaTeaching Courseware Improperly 5

4.4 Providing Insufficient Support when Students Do Activities 7

5. Ways to Create Situational Context in Primary English Class 6

5.1 Creating Situational Context Contacting the Actual Life 6

5.2 Teaching Words in Relevant Situational Context 8

5.3 Applying Multimedia Appropriately to English Teaching 8

5.4 Scaffolding English Classroom Activities 9

6. Significance of Situational Context Creation to English Teaching 11

6.1 Arousing the Pupils’ Interest in Learning English 11

6.2 Activating the Atmosphere of Class 11

6.3 Cultivating Pupils’ Practical Abilities of Using English 11

6.4 Reducing the Difficulty of Teaching 12

7. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

Appendix 14

1. Introduction

Context is the background knowledge and the specific environment used in language or a dialogue. Once language breaks away from context, it will just become some text symbols. Situational context is created through the combination of teaching background, teaching scene and the teaching activities. Obviously, the application of situational context makes it easier for the learners to achieve the teaching goals. It is advocated that we should learn knowledge in certain kinds of context. The context learning means that learners should grasp knowledge in the process of related situational context with the guidance of teaching objectives. Training students" language skills in the context of communication would be helpful to the development of students" comprehensive ability of using language. But in the current primary school English teaching, the lack of classroom context does exist. Especially many English teachers themselves were taught by the English teaching methods lack of context, so for them to create situational context is a great challenge. With the reforms in English teaching, some English teachers have begun to try out consciously with various ways to create situational context for students and encourage students to use English to express in classroom activities, but there are still some problems in the actual teaching process. This article mainly expounds how to solve these problems and tries to explore the significance of situational context creation to English teaching.

2. Literature Review

Context studies, though without a much long history, have attracted the attention of many great scholars, and significant achievements have been made owing to their great efforts. In the following part, the author will generally review these studies both at home and abroad.

2.1 Previous studies of context in the west

It is commonly believed that Poland anthropologist and linguist Bronislaw Malinowski first put forward the term “context”. He pointed out “to use the real linguistic fact is the full utterance with its context of situation.” (Malinowski, 1923: 47)

This concept was elaborated by Malinowski’s student J. R. Firth. Firth (Firth, 1957: 223) took over Malinowski’s theory of “context of situation”, and extended the theory to linguistics. Firth thought that meaning was closely related to context and suggested that the meaning of the language should be studied through a hierarchy of contexts.

Halliday (Halliday, 1989: 43) is another person who made great contributions to the development of context. He put forward the notion of register, a name given to variety of language differentiated according to use. Register is actually a representation of the context of situation.

American sociolinguist Dell Hymes (Hymes, 1972: 87) also presented his view on context. He holds that knowing how to use language appropriately in social environment is an important sign which indicates that, to what degree, one has mastered the language.

The above is a brief review of what has happened in the field of linguistics on context abroad. These studies of context, no matter what perspective it is from, contribute to the understanding of a text.

2.2 Previous studies of context in China

In spite of the fact that the study of context by the Chinese scholars started later than overseas scholars, Chinese scholars have made great achievements in this field.

Professor Chen Wangdao (Chen Wangdao, 1997: 79) put forward the opinion that the rhetoric must adapt to the situation. The situation here basically means different kinds of particular environments in which the writing or speaking occurs.

Wang Dechun (Wang Dechun, 1983: 54) claimed that context, also called verbal environments, is the environments in which language is used. Context consists of both objective and subjective factors.

Professor Zhang Yunfei (Zhang Yunfei, 1986: 245) held that there are two kinds of extra-linguistic context: context of situation, which refers to the actual speech situation in which a word occurs; the entire cultural background against which a word, or an utterance or a speech event has to be set.

He Zhaoxiong (He Zhaoxiong, 1987: 23) identified two kinds of contextual knowledge: linguistic knowledge and extra-knowledge.

The development of context theory has been analyzed and reviewed in detail. With various researches abroad and at home, it is obvious that increasing emphasis is being put on the theory of context, and the theory of context has gradually been playing a fundamental role in language study.

According to the studies of these scholars, it will benefit students a lot if teachers create context properly in English teaching. The pupils have their own age characteristics, therefore, when creating situational context in primary English class teachers should combine the theory of context with other theories related to children’s age characteristics.

3. The Theoretical Basis for Context Creation in Primary English Class

3.1 Constructivist learning theory and situational context

The Constructivist learning theory came into being in 1990s. The main view of constructivist learning theory is that the child constructs knowledge about the outside world, in the process of interaction with the surrounding environment, which results in the development of their own cognitive structure. The theory focuses on the creation of teaching atmosphere, and opposes the traditional teaching method which has no teaching context. It advocates that we should learn knowledge in context.

According to the constructivist learning theory, knowledge is not absorbed through teachers’ analysis, but with the help of teachers and classmates. Situational context should be beneficial for the learners to construct the learning materials. In situational context creation, they can form the multi-construction of language. The teaching design does not start from the analysis of teaching objective but from how to create the beneficial situational context. The teachers can create a suitable context for different studying characters, which can strengthen the learners’ knowledge constructing abilities. The Constructivist learning theory is an important basic guideline of the new curriculum reform. As the modern educational theory and educational technology develop, the constructivist learning theory will play a more and more important role in English teaching and learning.

3.2 Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and situational context

Jean Piaget (Piaget, 1972:231) made contributions to the field of cognition with his observations on cognitive development in children. It is through Piaget"s work in cognitive development that we can come to understand the way children learn and interact with the world around them. He put forward that the essence of human development is to adapt to the environment. The environment affects a child"s cognitive development, as they mature their interactions with the environment changes.

Piaget formulated that a child’s thought process follows a series of cognitive stages. Each stage defines a new way of thinking that serves as the basis for the next successive stage. The third stage of cognitive development is the Concrete Operational stage, beginning at age 7 and ending at age 11. Usually，primary school students are at this stage. In this stage, intelligence is shown through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Based on this theory, it is found that if teachers create situational context with concrete objects it will be easy for students to acquire knowledge.

Problems on the Creation of Situational Context in Primary English Class

According to the theories mentioned above, we found that some teachers can’t create context properly. The following are some problems existed in the creation of context in primary English teaching.

4.1 Setting up multiple situational context with little correlation

In order to remove obstacles before learning the texts, some teachers are used to put the practice of key sentence patterns in leading-in part. But sometimes there will be such a situation, that is, the context created to practice key sentence patterns has nothing to do with the text context.

Here comes an example. There is a text about Chinatown. The context involves Chinese dancing and Chinese restaurants. The main sentences are “There is a Chinatown in New York.” and “There are lots of Chinese shops.” At the beginning of a class, the teacher asked the students to describe the classroom with “There is/are…” For example, some students said: “There are lots of desks /chairs.” Then he took out a bag and asked the students to guess: “What’s in the bag?” After that the teacher presented a picture of a living room. The students were asked to describe different things in groups. It took ten minutes to finish this part.

It is obvious that the contexts created to practice sentence patterns have nothing to do with the content of the text. In order to practice some language points, teachers usually create various contexts without considering the correlation between them.

4.2 Teaching words in isolation

In primary English class, words are usually presented isolated from context. Learners are given isolated words or sentence, which they are expected to internalize through exercises involving repetition, manipulation, and translation. In this case, students usually catch the separate meanings of the words instead of the meaning of the sentence.

Teachers usually ask students to learn a list of vocabulary in which words are isolated from the context. In one case, they ask the students to pick out all the new words in the text, rank them on a paper, and refer to the dictionary for their meaning.

Some teachers use the word card or material object to introduce several words, and then they use all kinds of games to practice these words mechanically. Maybe the classroom atmosphere looks very active, but it is only the situation relying on activity forms. And it lacks the specific context of communication. Students memorize these words with no communicative context, which doesn’t develop the students’ language skills.

4.3 Using the multimedia teaching courseware improperly

As is mentioned above, the Constructivist learning theory opposes the traditional teaching method with no teaching context. So nowadays many teachers use Multimedia to help English teaching. However, it is found that the English teachers can’t handle Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) appropriately.

In order to create attractive English environment, teachers use different forms in order to make it very charming to attract the pupils’ attention. The courseware are designed so fancy that pupils are easy to wander their attention; numerous and diverse pictures and sounds enable pupils not to concentrate on the contents. They will overlook their textbooks due to the reason. Maybe they are taught a lot in the classes, but they can’t gain knowledge through it. They will forget what they have learnt after the classes immediately.

4.4 Providing insufficient support when students do activities

Based on the Constructivist learning theory, teachers should create teaching atmosphere in English class. When dong group activities some teachers give students an example before they ask students to do activities, but because lacking situational context, the example is not enough to remove obstacles for students.

Sometimes, some teachers leave students little time to make preparations and just go through the motions. In this case, teachers can’t remind students of some knowledge and therefore it is difficult for students to think out useful expression.

5. Ways to Create Situational Context in Primary English Class

According to the present situation and problems on teaching context creation in primary English teaching, it is found that teachers still need more methods of creating teaching context. Here are some ways to create context in teaching implementation.

5.1 Creating situational context contacting the actual life

As is known to all, the knowledge comes from the practice, and it also reflects the objective things. The teaching context is to regenerate the real objects and the related knowledge background in textbooks.

However, with the purpose of highlighting and reflecting the visual teaching, some teachers design many fake scenes, seemingly different, but the results did not achieve the desired goal and students lost interest in participating in class activities (Yuan Fuen, 2006: 46). Actually, in order to let the students use the language independently and appropriately in real life, teachers should try to find the link point between teaching materials and student"s real life. Taking Yilin version of Fun with English for example, textbooks are closely related to topic, function, structure and tasks, and contents are presented in the context of close to the actual situation, such as, numbers, colors, season, months, date, time, weather, clothing, hobbies, profession, school life, family life, traffic and so on. In the primary school English teaching, teachers can use the teaching material resources to create a real situational context. Teachers teaching can revolve around the theme, combining the teaching contents and students" real life, which makes the students learn and use the language more effectively in familiar situation.

Contacting the actual life of the students and creating context close to real life can make students produce the identity of the value of learning English. Real communicative context can let the students learn and use English everywhere. The value of identity is the real source of power to stimulate students to learn English. It can also let the students like to learn English and willing to learn English from the bottom. Only in this way can the students apply what they have learned.

When teaching Unit 6 At the snack bar of 4A, Oxford English, a teacher created context related to a TV program, which is popular among primary students. The teacher asks students to play games with the children in the program. It is proved that the students took part in the games actively. Under the guidance of the teacher, students knew the names of some food, such as a hamburger, a sandwich, a glass of milk and so on. Some of the students knew the food and all of them were interested in the delicious food. In this case, it is easy for the students to remember the names of different food. It is also easy for them to use some sentences patterns, such as “What would you like?” “I’d like a sandwich/ a cup of coffee/ some noodles…”（Appendix）.

Creating the communicative context close to life can let students establish the connection between the knowledge and actual life, and it can deepen students" understanding of knowledge, it is important to let them feel learning English can be useful, and get a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. It encouraged them to be more active and persistent when learning English.

5.2Teaching words in relevant situational context

It is suggested that if students learn individual words, they will spend a lot more time and efforts in remembering these words. Therefore, it is essential to put students in situational context, giving students chances to identify, organize and record them. As teachers, we should choose proper teaching materials. After the texts having been handled with for general meaning, we start to concentrate on language items. After identifying some of context available to the students, the next step is to direct them to observe and find their range and limits more closely and to understand their communicative potential. In this way, we can make students aware of the being of situational context and help them to use it in their own picture of the language so that they can notice it in future input. In order to help them to use it accurately in future, we need to give students the chance to experiment with the context they have been familiar with.

When teaching Unit 6 At the snack bar, a teacher asked pupils to make friends with the children in a TV show. Then pupils tried to learn something from these children. For example, they learn to sing a song and try to introduce themselves. They also learnt to chant: Hamburger, hamburger, I like hamburger. In various relevant situational contexts, pupils learnt some new words and phrases such as hamburger, noodles, sandwich and so on (Appendix).

It is suggested that using all the opportunities to teach words in relevant context rather than isolated ones is a feasible idea that has been working well in English classes.

5.3 Applying multimedia appropriately to English teaching

It is a good way to teach English with multimedia, which broaden learners’ horizon and improve the teaching efficiency. Every English teacher should take the principle of aiming at best teaching effect，flexibly applying modern educational technology and introducing multimedia teaching to real teaching practice．However，there existed many problems in teaching in practice. So measures should be taken to improve our teaching constantly and optimize classroom benefits．

Pupils’ attention to class is very short and limited. Studies prove that the best time for pupils to think is from the 5^th minute to the 20^th after the beginning of a class. This is also the best time for classroom teaching. When testing students learning effect, the students" attention was not highly concentrated, so teachers can make use of multimedia computer to let the students look at the picture and dub for characters according to the change of image. In this way, students can have communicative practice in a relaxed and lively atmosphere.

Having finished teaching the new words and sentence patterns, the teacher used a flash to present contents of the text, tending to show pupils teaching materials in the form of cartoons. The cartoon enhanced the students’ visual and auditory effects, and to a certain extent, helped the students understand the content of the dialogue. The cartoon was so vivid that the pupils have great passions to find the food ordered by Mike and his family. In this way, the pupils learnt the text happily and effectively (Appendix).

To sum up, in English class, if teachers can use multimedia reasonably and create suitable context of English learning, it is easy for students to join in comprehensive training of listening, speaking, reading and writing. At the same time, it makes students acquire the basic knowledge of English and the skills of language in class.

5.4 Scaffolding English classroom activities

Scaffolding refers to the particular kind of help, assistance and support that enables a child to do a task which they cannot quite manage on their own and which brings them closer to a state of competence that will enable them to carry out other similar tasks independently in the future (Maybin, Mercer amp; Stierer, 1992: 75). That is to say, learners construct knowledge from experience with the help of either the teacher or a more capable peer. What a teacher can do is to design some effective classroom activities to guide students into a certain situation and making scaffolds to help them complete meaning-constructing. It is really of great benefit to conduct classroom activities.

In classrooms, pupils need a supporting structure that provides them with opportunities to learn English and use their emerging English skills in meaningful contexts, which needs the teacher to provide tasks that enable the learner to learn new concepts build on prior knowledge. Besides, the teacher must offer activities that are just one level beyond that of what the learner can do so as to assist the learner through the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which Vygotsky defined as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978: 76).

In order to help young learners combine old information or familiar situations with new knowledge, the teacher must guide learners through verbal and nonverbal communication and model behaviors. Research shows that parents and teachers can help this advancement through the zone of proximal development by providing activities and tasks that:

a. Motivate or enlist the child’s interest related to the task.

b. Simplify the task to make it more manageable and achievable for a child.

c. Provide some direction in order to help the child focus on achieving the goal.

d. Clearly indicate differences between the child’s work and the standard or desired solution.

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