论文总字数：30656字

摘 要

随着社会的飞速发展，传统的英语教学模式方法单一落后，已经不适应新课改的要求。本课题旨在提倡运用原声电影进行英语教学高教学质量。首先，文章在对当今初中英语教学中存在的问题进行分析的基础上，阐述了使用英文电影教学的优势，指出了将英语电影带入课堂的必要性。同时，本文对英语电影的选片标准进行了详细的说明，以及对影片具体应用进行阐述。希望有助于课堂教学，并提高初中生的英语水平。

关键词：英语电影；中学英语教学；电影选择；应用

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Problems in Current Middle School English Teaching 4

3.1 Lack of learning interest 4

3.2 Poor oral expression 4

3.3 Exam-oriented education 5

4. Advantages of Applying English Movies in Middle School Teaching 5

4.1 Improving learning interest 6

4.2 Creating an active atmosphere in class 6

4.3 Improving intercultural communicative competence 6

4.4 Raising students’ aesthetic awareness 7

5. Application of Movies in English Teaching 8

5.1 The criteria of selecting English movies 8

5.2 Procedures of applying movies in English teaching 10

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

If there is a resource that can be applied to improve something, it will deserve to be tried. English movie is such a resource. Movies, as a mirror of the real life, is a combination of motion picture and a modern art, composed of active photography and slide shows. It is an epitome of the culture and artistic nature. As to improving English competence, English movie plays an irreplaceable role.

In today’s English teaching, teacher’s teaching method is a bit of stiff, which can not meet the requirements of new course standard of English teaching. Students’ English learning is lack of initiative and interest. To solve the problems, the method of promoting English teaching by watching English movie is one of the priorities.

Watching English movies is not only a way to improving students’ listening and speaking ability, but also a platform for students to comprehend the culture of some countries which speak English. Therefore, there is no denying that English movies are of tremendous benefits in learning English.

The whole thesis consists of six parts. The author first introduces the background and reviews relevant literature which can support the viewpoint of applying English movie in teaching. Then the thesis also discusses the current problems in English teaching and explores the advantages of applying English movies in teaching. At last, detailed application of English movies in class will be recommended.

2. Literature Review

Several theories contribute to the feasibility of applying English movies in teaching. Constructivism, an important branch of cognitive theory, has special significance for language learning and teaching. Language learning is a process of constructing our personal knowledge. Language itself is a social construction, and it has both the characteristic of the construction and attrition of society. In the view of the theory of constructivism, education must be student-oriented and bring their sense of participation into full play and develop their capacity to acquire knowledge actively. Constructivism believes that situation is one of the four elements in learning environment. Learning is always linked to a certain situation. Creating the real or close to real learning situation is beneficial to the construction of learning content, but it should meet the course content, teaching target establishment and the current study topic. The learning of language is almost the same with that, which needs a language environment. “Language must be presented and practiced in certain scene,” a British linguist Paime has said (Paime 23). With the creation of modern teaching environment and application of multi-media teaching to cultivate students’ interest in learning, students will not feel dull any more. English movies which are equipped with sound and image can make students learn in the specific language environment.

Another theory is motivation theory. Motivation is commonly thought of as an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to particular action (Brown 34). At present, Chinese English teachers fail to focus on the effect of the students’ motivations. A qualified teacher should know the key role both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation play in teaching and create suitable situations to foster the students’ extrinsic one to promote their development in study. To change the single teaching mode, various external conditions should be used to stimulate the student’s motivation and cultivate the students’ learning enthusiasm.

The last theory is the affective filter hypothesis. The theory was first raised by Dulay and Burt in 1977. In addition to some objective factors in language learning, some affective factors which are like a filter will filtrate the number of input in learners’ brain. Krashen further develops the theory. Krashen thinks that affect includes attitude, motivation, anxiety and self-confidence. Teachers can get some enlightenment from the affective filter hypothesis such as facilitating anxiety to challenge new tasks or debilitating anxiety to avoid the students’ weariness of school (Yuan Xuhua 98). With the use of this theory, teachers can analyze students’ learning motivation and help them possess a positive attitude. What’s more, it will also help teacher to the ignorance of the relationship between the students’ affective factors and their learning will have negative influence on the teaching and learning effect.

Choosing the movies that are suitable for students’ language cognize and that can increase the learning interests. There is no doubt that movies can provide an authentic situation to spread knowledge and edify sentiment, so it is meaningful to apply English movies in teaching. Applying original English movies makes the process of learning more relax, which can reduce the debilitating anxiety effectively and build students’ confident. Many students like watching movies and this can strengthen the inner motivation. Middle school students are in their golden period to imitate the pronunciation and intonation and they also in their critical period to shape their value configuration, so it is necessary to bring English movies in middle schools’ English teaching. Up to now, 286 primary and high school, 20 kindergartens, 550000 students and 23000 teachers have taken party in the study and practice of the movie course (Wang Zhi’an 67).

A large quantity of scholars has studied the different aspects of English movies. For example, Wang Jun and Ke Shuping have analyzed that translation of movie dialogues from perspectives pf pragmatics, form the Perspective of Pragmatics, in the dictation of culture, author Ma Jingping in his Analysis of Cultural Perspective of English Original Movie Role has discussed the original movie is the carrier of culture. Applying movies as language templates can develop language skills (Stollar 37). Stempleski put forward the movies’ educational value and how to use movies to design activities to develop students’ creativity (Stempleski 90).

3. Problems in Current Middle School English Teaching

The primary aim of learning a language is to have better communication, however, it is hard to provide middle school students with an environment only English, This suggests that there are many problems existing in current English teaching in china.

3.1 Lack of learning interest

The lack of learning interests is an important problem. Students feel pretty fresh when they learn English at very onset. Their momentum is relatively high, and therefore they have enthusiasm to learn English. However, they find learning English is not as easy as they used to think when the difficulties of learning is enlarged. They often get bored to remember the seas of new words and complicated grammar, which, however, play a passive role in their English learning. After then, some of the students are flinching from the difficulties in English learning and some even simply have no confidence to learn and give up. Momentary interest cannot last forever. Thus, in order to enhance the English teaching, applying English movies is a suitable approach. The rendered scene, pure deep emotion, charming characters and superb performing arts in English movies leave a deep impression on students, which will arouse students’ interests in learning English.

3.2 Poor oral expression

Oral English is important for English learners. But actually, compared with many aspects of English learning in middle school, students’ oral English can be consider the worst one. A bad pronunciation can’t make students read words correctly. All that would lead to the hard comprehend of texts and the weak communicating ability. What’s more, one will feel anxious if he can’t catch up with other students or keep up with the teacher. When they find it hard to speak English, they will lose their valuable confidence.

3.3 Exam-oriented education

There is something wrong with the evaluation system. Over the past decades, more and more people are trying their best to pick up this language for different purposes. However, exam-oriented education seems to become the main problem in both English teaching and learning. The article, “The Review and Thinking in English Teaching in China”, analyzes and evaluates our country"s current English teaching situation. English test is the standard embodiment of English in China (Li Shaohua 28). Exam contents lay emphasis on listening and written language. However, English application ability and oral language ability are ignored. All the education organization and activities have been arranged around different examinations. The priority of education has been put on exam skills which lead to students’ lack of motivation and creativity. Students may good at exams, but they are not competent. Till now, there is still not a good way to balance test-oriented examination with competence-oriented examination. It is high time that we should find a right way to balance test-oriented examination and competence-oriented examination. Movie appreciation which can make students get better understanding of English learning is one of the effective teaching methods to compensate for current situation of test-oriented examination.

4. Advantages of Applying English Movies in Middle School Teaching

Learning English has become a irresistible trend in the age of globalization so that it is essential for English teachers to find suitable approaches to teach English. Movie is not only an form of art presentation, but also the embodiment of the language and culture. The vivid plot and visual figures in movies play the indispensable role in both promoting English teaching and boosting students’ language. Teachers can teach students what they can never learn from textbooks. To be more specific, the advantages are reflected in the following aspects.

4.1 Improving learning interest

As Einstein said, “Interest is the best teacher”. Once a person has a strong interest to do something, he will insist in pursuing what he is interested in. Successful teaching requires stimulation of students’ interest instead of coercing students into studying (Zhao Huiming 7). Effectively stimulating students’ interest in learning can motivate them to actively explore the knowledge. It is universally acknowledge that movie is enrichment of life, and also an art of reproduction of social life. Simultaneously, it can bring students the auditory and visual, which will attach students’ attention and improve their learning interest. Movies contain different themes such as war, love and science fiction which they show strong interesting in. Thus, movies unconsciously influence and stimulate them to put English into practice. Through this way, the learner’s English competence will be trained.

4.2 Creating an active atmosphere in class

Active classroom atmosphere can build a infectious education situation and help teacher create positive atmosphere smoothly. Educator Ushinski said if students don’t have any hobbies, but forced to study, this would stifle their will to grasp knowledge. An investigation which is made by Wang Ping, a scholar in favor of integrating movies with subject teaching, shows that 91.96% students are willing to learn English by movies, and nearly 42.71% students used to discussing the plot of the movies with their classmates. Nearly all the students like watching movies. Applying English movies satisfy the students in some degrees. The statistics show that movies satisfy learners’ psychological needs, and this kind of satisfaction will create an active atmosphere. Watching English movies is not only an enjoyment, but a useful way to assist teachers to establish a good environment in class and makes the atmosphere more active.

4.3 Improving intercultural communicative competence

Language environment is as significant as the blood vessels which distribute human body for language learners and English movies can show us an authentic environment. Meanwhile, our lives are surrounded by the effect of movies such as the dress, the fashion, the diet and the language. The brain which is like a warehouse will storage more and more language materials by watching English movies. Student will associate and imitate languages while talking to others. Students can comprehend what should say to deal with on sundry occasions. For instance, You’ve Got Mail has the scene of shopping, Sleeping in Seattle teaches us how to chat in the office, One Day introduces how to talk to a person who you love, The Bridges of Madison County has the scene of asking directions. Because of the vitality of English movies, students could learn the native English without going abroad. Many teachers encourage their students to speak English boldly and take cultures and contexts into consideration. English movies provide us abundant conversations, which can help students to communicate with others under diverse circumstances.

English movies demonstrate magnificent western culture vividly through authentic scene. Watching those movies can deepen the understanding of students’ cultural and promote their intercultural communication competence. Students can use and learn the language appropriately with different cultural backgrounds in specific situation.

4.4 Raising students’ aesthetic awareness

Movie is called "the seventh art", which is the perfect combination of language and art. English movie is a reflection of western culture and a mirror of the wisdom of people. Therefore, watching English movies is also a intermediary to raise students’ aesthetic awareness. The Pursuit of Happiness reveals the indomitable spirit: The Patriot tells us people’s brave and their pursuit of racial equality during the war: The shooting of The Legend of 1900 is extremely poetic and the movie teaches us something about faith and belief: The Graduate shows condition of American college students and the gap between their parents. Middle school students’ life is so circumscribed that they can not experience the various aspects of life. Watching English movies can increase students’ knowledge and deepen students’ cultural deposits. Besides, good movies can make people reflect on life, which may have positive effect on the attitude towards life. The profound cultural foundation in the lines can raise students’ aesthetic awareness.

These excellent movies not merely enlighten us about aesthetic awareness, but also lead students to figure out the significance of life.

5. Application of Movies in English Teaching

Applying English movies has become a new way for English teaching. Students can learn many aspects of English through English movies. The criteria of selecting English movies and the procedures of applying English movies are shown below.

5.1 The criteria of selecting English movies

English movies’ contents are wide-ranging, so not all of them can be used in middle school English teaching. As a result, choosing the suitable movies enjoys high priority.

5.1.1 Appropriate movies

When choosing a movie, first of all, teachers should consider whether the content is positive. Middle school students have stronger plasticity so that violent and pornographic scene or dirty words may have negative effect on them. The movies should be based on the mode of student-centered topic teaching. A striking feature of the middle school English textbooks is that each unit deals with a subject, such as sports, culture, music, food or nature, etc. Standard pronunciation and suitable length is also very essential, for not all the original English movies can be used for educational purposes. It takes a long time to finish watching the whole movie, which may cause visual fatigue and lacking of novelty for students. Moreover, suitable length should be taken into account. The duration of the class in the middle school is only about 45 minutes. Due to the limited hours of class, the proper way is to choose a part of the movie, which is closely related to the teaching aims and the length of that part is about 15 to 20 minutes. The whole movie could be watched outside the class and the students can roughly understand the content of the movie before formal learning.

5.1.2 Teaching objects

English original movie learning is aims to transfer cultural knowledge and language knowledge into the acquisition skills, so the teacher should act as an organizer who organizes a series of activities to achieve some expected goals. Teachers should choose some movies that are conformed to teaching objects. The content should be beneficial, interesting and vivid enough to arouse learners’ interests. The movie itself reflects various aspects of life; it should not be too easy or too hard (Schumann 108). The teacher could select the movie according to the relevant content of the textbook. The basic teaching principle is to promote students’ English studies. If the movie is conducive to the study of textbook, students will link the textbook with the movie naturally. For example, in the text book of English in middle school, there is an article called Hollywood"s all-time best——Audrey Hepburn. The article is mainly written to memory the whole life of world famous actress Audrey Hepburn. Rome holiday a famous movie starred by her could be apply in the class to better understand the beauty of Hepburn.

Teachers must focus on the main objective of learning the movie, whether is order to discuss the theme or train both listening and oral strategies and whether focus on explaining grammar points or practicing pronunciation and intonation. Only by doing so, can teachers select the most appropriate movies and design effective activities.

5.1.3 Students’ language proficiency

Middle school students don’t have a good command of English. Therefore, it’s necessary for teachers to choose the right movies that tally with students’ actual language proficiency. According to the new curriculum reform, middle school students should grasp about 1600 basic words. It is a time-consuming and energy-consuming activity to measure the difficulty of the movies.

What’s more, students’ language proficiency is different. For some of the students, they can fully understand the movie, while for other students, they can only get the main idea, or some even only pay attention to the plot. Therefore, teachers should tend to show movies which are as much as possible with easy theme and simple words according to the competence of middle school students, such as Finding Nemo, Lion King, Charlotte"s Web and High School Musical. These movies are all close to middle school students’ lives.

5.2 Procedures of applying movies in English teaching

After choosing the feasible movies, teachers should consider how to exert advantages of English movies in teaching.

5.2.1 Pre-watching

Teachers can first lead in the background information, such as the plot, characters, history and culture. It will activate schematic knowledge to help students better accept new knowledge. Besides, introducing the background knowledge and plot of the movie, some difficult lines, sentence pattern and words can clear away possible obstacles. It is the guarantee of comprehensible language input. Providing comprehensible input in which students are interested in less anxious situations is the best method for second language acquisition (Krashen 45). For example, before watching the movie Forest Gump, teachers can guide students to know the Little Rock historical events, the ping-pong diplomacy policy, racial discrimination and segregation.

After giving such information, teachers can leave students in the suspense and let students to guess the type of movie. This can stimulate students’ curiosity and desire. Students can also be allowed to participate in information search to develop the autonomous learning ability, but the teachers should give corresponding guidance during the whole class.

Teachers must get full understand of the English movie which will be shown in the class. Looking for related image and word material can help teacher know the main points of English teaching. To help students receive information and improve the students’ initiative, teachers should elaborately design appropriate task-based activities according to teaching goals, movie difficulty and students’ English proficiency. Too much tasks and practice may distract students’ attention or make students tired. This requires teachers should control the amount of tasks.

The design of the whole teaching must meet the following requirements such us giving students enough opportunities to practice English and assisting students to establish their confidence to learn English, developing the ability to search information quickly.

5.2.2 While-watching

Usually, middle school students will not understand the original English movies until they watch several times. Due to the limited time, it’s impossible to watch the whole movie in classroom time. However, if the whole movie is worth watching, to solve this contradiction, teachers can arrange the movie appreciation after class. The combination of extracurricular watching and in-class appreciation can make up for the disadvantages of the limited classroom time. In the class, it is better to use movie clips. When students have obstacles to watch the movies, teachers must give some proper explanations.

Teachers can design a variety of tasks during while-watching period. The first watch focuses on practicing students’ listening skills and listening comprehension strategies. Once students watch movie clips for the second or third time, the purpose of learning will become more specific, for example, grasping the general idea of the clip. In the process of watching, teachers can play pause to ask the students to imitate the lines. Teachers can ask students to dub the movie. Dubbing can be a very effective method to improve the students’ oral English, because it involves lots of language elements including voice, tone, rhythm, grammar, vocabulary, and expression. Teacher’s guidance is extremely important in this period. The teacher shall, first of all, build up confidence of students and develop their learning enthusiasm. Secondly, they should develop students’ good habits such as catching the key words and taking notes. The whole process helps students to establish a web between existing knowledge schema and new knowledge. In the process of while-watching, teachers play mediation role to help learners go through difficulties in learning. In addition, it’s worth noting that teachers must be clear and define the purposes of the applying the movie, whether it is mainly aims to draw out the discussion of topic, train English listening strategies, explain grammar points, practice English pronunciation and English intonation, or present cultural differences. It is essential to be considered before selecting the appropriate movies and designing effective activities.

5.2.3 Post-watching

After watching the movies, teachers can guide students to absorb the knowledge, so appropriate classroom activities are of great importance. The arrangements of the teaching activities rely on the purpose of teaching and students’ language proficiency, too. Class practice and activities include classic dialogue dictation, right and wrong judgment and the question and answer. Speech or debate can be arranged to strengthen their knowledge and further develop language competence. What’s more, acting dialogue, dubbing, translating and singing movies songs can be used after watching movies. Students’ extracurricular autonomous practice includes practicing pronunciation and intonation, retelling the story, dictating the script, writing movie synopsis and making English movie posters etc, which are mainly language output practice.

6. Conclusion

English movie is kind of cultural carriers and it consists authentic expressions and environment. With the above analysis, a natural conclusion can be drawn that English movies are of tremendous benefits to English teaching in middle school.

At the beginning of the thesis, three theories constructivism, motivation theory and affective filter hypothesis are used to support the view of the application of English movies. Meanwhile, relevant literature is mentioned in this part. Then, the author lists some current problems which are lack of learning interests, poor oral expression and exam-oriented education in middle school English teaching. Some advantages are also carried out to prove the necessity of applying English in teaching. The application, which is the core of real English teaching, consists the criteria of selecting movies and procedures of applying movies.

One important thing which is not described before should be emphasize here. Students should be considered to be the center of the class. Teachers should actively exert students’ subjective initiative during the whole process of English movie teaching.

Watching English movies is a proper and an effective way to upgrade the quality of English teaching. It has been fully recognized that teaching English with English movies in the middle school has great impact on the evaluation of English teaching, which will help both students and teachers in a new way of English studies and teaching in the near future.

Works Cited

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Douglas, Brown. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Press, 1987.

Krashen. Film Language:A Semiotics of the Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Li Yanjun. “Oral English Improvement: by Watching Original Films:A Positivism Research Based on the English Screenplay Corpus.” Overseas English 3(2013): 95-97.

Schumann, J. A Neurobiological Perspective on affect and methodology in second language learning，London: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Sherman, Jane. Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press, 2009.   

Stempleski, S. Using Video in Action: Recipes for Using Video in Language Teaching. Now York: Prentice Hall International Group, 1990.

Stollar, F. Using video in Theme-Based Curricula. Alexndria: TESOL, 1992.

李少华：《英语全球化与本土化视野中的中国英语》，银川：宁夏人民出版社，2006.

[Li Shaohua. English’s Globalization and Localization in China . YinChuan: NingXia Human Press, 2006]

段淳淳：《英文电影配音与口语教学浅析》，《继续教育研究》，3(2011)：34-37.

[Duan Chunchun. “A brief analysis on English Movie Dubbing and Oral English Teaching.” Continue Education Research 3 (2011): 34-37.]

元旭华：《外语学习焦虑与学习成绩关系的调查分析》，《浙江师范大学学报》12（2003）:97-100

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