中学英语课堂导入存在的问题及其对策

论文总字数：36329字

摘 要

随着新教学体制下教学方式要不断的更新优化和素质教育的全面推进，教学的方式呈现出多元化的趋势。在中学英语教学过程中，课堂导入所占的比例最少，但却影响整节课的效率。作为教师，必须重视英语导入环节，使学生在学习新课前，对教学内容产生浓厚的兴趣，激发学习热情，收获良好的教学效果。教师是有效甚至高效课堂的实施者和引领者，就应从课堂教学第一步入手追求各个环节的整体高效，从而指导教学实践。本文就初中英语课堂导入现状进行了分析, 并提出相应的解决对策, 以期能促进我国初中英语教育的可持续发展,给教师与学生带来最好的收益。

关键词：初中英语教学；课堂导入；问题及对策； 高效教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Current Problems of Lead-in in Junior Middle School English Teaching 3

3.1 Lack of novelty . 3

3.2 Lack of objective awareness . 4

3.3 Lack of cultural awareness.. 4

3.4 Students’ subjectivity and requirements not being reflected. 5

3.5 Teachers’ lacking personality and personal charm.. 6

4. Methods of Effective Lead-in in Junior Middle School English Teaching 7

4.1 Promoting creativity skillfully 7

4.2 Setting proper teaching objectives. 8

4.3 Enhancing the awareness of cultural lead-in. 10

4.4 Respecting subjectivity of students’ fully 10

4.5 Building high-quality teaching staff 12

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Lead-in is a kind of teaching behavior that teachers guide students to make psychological preparation and cognitive preparation for learning new lesson knowledge, and make students clear about teaching content, learning purpose, learning methods, so as to produce learning expectations and participation needs. In short, introducing is a way for teachers to organize students" psychological preparation and knowledge preparation before class when a new teaching content and activity begins. It is a warm-up activity in the whole teaching process. The intention is to make students enter the best state of classroom learning in their shortest time. Teachers are required to create a harmonious teaching atmosphere and classroom atmosphere quickly, and bring students into an ideal condition, which make them know better the teaching tasks and contents.

As a crucial step for classroom teaching, splendid and efficient lead-in can spark students" learning interest and curiosity; attract their attention to specific teaching task. Therefore, as the first part of English classroom teaching, lead-in is the basic preparatory stage before the implementation of teaching activities. In other words, the success of the whole teaching effect depends largely on the lead-in. However, in many junior middle schools, examination-oriented education system determines the vast majorities of teachers are busy instructing various knowledge points, and ignore the significance of lead-in, which may weaken the role of lead-in. All these common misconceptions are not conducive to the development of lead in. And according to the overall design idea of English curriculum, which aims at reflecting the organic connection of the courses in primary school, junior high school and senior high school and the gradual development of students" English language ability in each stage, so as to ensure the integrity, gradual progress and continuity of English courses. We teachers must try to be an extraordinary designer in lead-in part by overcoming the deficiencies and bring the most efficient outcome to students.

2. Literature Review

Western scholars emphasized the importance of lead-in. They have done some researches about lead-in from various theories and viewpoints. In 1980s, many famous scholars such as Games M. Cooper, Willie, Richard I. Arend and Robert E. Slavine have achieved great success in the field of lead-in. Teaching has 3 periods which includes pre-task, while-task and post-task. And lead-in belongs to the phase of pre-task, whose aim is to make preparation for the whole class teaching. Besides，lead-in is the first step of the new curriculum, which plays an important role in sparking students" interest and desire, which is indispensable in the whole classroom teaching. That means lead-in is a tool or technology, meanwhile, teachers can establish communication between old and new information (Arend 58) The American educational psychologist Robert E Slavin (152) figured out that when design a lead-in, teachers should endeavor to arouse students" attention and interest, spark their curiosity, and create a relaxing and delightful atmosphere in the class to guide the students into the state of learning new knowledge.

Chinese scholars, like Liu Honglian and Xing Qianqian, whose data analysis and quantitative study and theoretical theory also have confirmed that lead-in in junior middle school weigh a lot in English teaching steps. They also do some research from many aspects. Students’ attention like magnet, teachers should pay more attention on lead-in and arouse students’ interest and curiosity at the beginning of the class. (Ma 75) Besides, lead-in is a kind of teaching art. Lead-in is the first hammer that can knock in the students’ brain and suck them like a magnet. (Li 121)So, we can draw the conclusion that lead-in is the significant step of teaching which tend to forth a new lesson, interconnect the new and old knowledge, stir up students to think, strike students’ interest, and produced a real situation and so on.(Wang 45)

The Oxford Dictionary of Advanced English Learners defines lead-in as a preface or a preface that allows one to enter the next part of something smoothly. In the classroom, the introduction of new lessons actually refers to the teaching activities within 3-5 minutes before the beginning of classroom teaching or the imparting of new knowledge. Lead-in is often considered as two parts, namely, "Lead" and "in". "Lead" means that the teacher should try to adopt methods artfully and skillfully to attract the students" focus so as to help them have a good preparation for the new content. "In" refers to the students are introduced to a new world of knowledge.

Facing different students, teachers can explore various forms of introduction in the process of teaching. Experience and practice proved that lead-in always be related to several external objective factors: time, texts, actual environment, and those subjective factors: teachers" experiences, personality, intellectual level and students" sex, age, life hobbies, cognitive level, and so on.

3. Current Problems of Lead-in in Junior Middle School English Teaching

3.1 Lack of novelty

Under the influence of former teaching mode, many junior middle school English teachers still stick to the original teaching mode, and the monotonous teaching thinking in their minds seriously affects their imagination. In this case, teachers lack proper ways to promote the development of students" subjectivity, which will also have a negative impact on students" English learning. For example, when a teacher asks a question to a student, the student"s answer is not in the answer that the teacher envisages beforehand, but the teacher cannot respond to it in a timely manner. Teachers usually lead students to the answers they originally envisaged. This kind of embarrassing situation in the actual teaching process is not conducive to the development of students" individualization (Ren 2014). It is likely that form is single, and the teaching reference book of imitating mechanically by hand lacks novelty. What calls for special attention is that some teachers do not study the textbooks carefully and spare efforts to think about every step of teaching. Instead, they mechanically imitate. Some teachers choose one or two forms of guidance according to their personal preferences, but they start new lessons in the same or similar way every day in class. Without innovation, they cannot promote students" enthusiasm, let alone participate in classroom learning. In fact, students have a lot of expectations for teachers" new teaching every day before class. Teachers apply the same form of means every day. In the long run, students will inevitably feel tired and boring. Sukhomlinski, an excellent educator once said, "If a teacher does not try to produce a high-spirited and intellectual state of mind for his students, but he is eager to impart knowledge, which can cause an indifferent attitude and fatigue for emotionless mental work. Nothing is more important than the fact that lead-in, as a key link in classroom teaching should be flexibly applied but never just copy mechanically.

3. 2 Lack of objective awareness

Some teachers lack of objective awareness when they lead in. They can"t combine the content with the teaching goal closely, which leads to the content of the guide deviating from the real life and social hot issues. Some teachers tend to start teaching new courses with some daily communication language. For example, when teachers ask students in class, "Are you happy today?" "Did you enjoy your holiday?" "What will you do today?" and so on, these are just simple exchanges with students, and there is no connection with the content to be taught. They cannot promote or catalyze the follow-up teaching. There is no denying that if the guiding part of the classroom is full of interest, it will surely bring strong spiritual stimulation to students, so that they can throw themselves into the classroom with full emotions, and participate in classroom learning more actively and consciously. This may require teachers should have a thorough understanding of students" daily learning and life, earnestly grasp students" interest in learning, reasonably grasp the topic, and urge students to have something to say.（Wang 13）The real lead-in is the starting point of the course and the first teaching activity aiming directly at the teaching goal of the class. Clear purpose and clear direction are two rulers to check whether this starting point is effective. Bloom, an American educational psychologist, said, "Effective learning begins with knowing exactly what the goal is." Today I want to talk about three topics: the status and function of teaching objectives, the interpretation of teaching objectives, and how to standardize the setting of teaching objectives. So, if the teacher himself or herself cannot distinguish the goal is inaccurate and unclear from content, whether his lead-in has the function of operability and orientation, we can say that this step may not play its due role.

3.3 Lack of cultural awareness

Motivated by the development of economic globalization, Sino-foreign exchanges have become increasingly frequent. More and more bilinguals are needed. As a common English language in the world, we must pay attention to the infiltration and differentiation of different cultures in our teaching, and cultivate a group of cross-cultural communication talents who not only understand their own cultures but also widely involve foreign cultures. Hymes, an American sociolinguist, once said, "A person who learns a language should not only learn a language, but also know how to use it appropriately in a specific context to communicate." That is to say, the cultivation of communicative competence requires not only the ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing, but also the knowledge of social and cultural background.(Ji 33-38)However, In English teaching, we can find that teachers don’t have enough cultural awareness to guide students have a better command of a foreign language. Teachers can pay attention to explain the specific cultural background and social background for students, and analyze the background knowledge, values, aesthetic tendency and other social knowledge related to the article. Due to the differences in geographical conditions, historical background, values, customs and behavioral patterns among different countries and nationalities, their cultural characteristics also show different phenomena. Only by comparing common cultural contexts with other foreign cultures, can we find the similarities and differences between different cultures, help students establish cultural sensitivity in intercultural communication, and ultimately improve their cultural awareness. When it comes to cultural lead-in in English teaching, I think we have various topics to deal with. Specifically, we can compare the expression of human joy and sorrow, the choice of conversation distance, the expression of gesture expressions, body posture, the life habits and customs of different cultures and so on; By comparing the differences of life style and thinking concept, their cross-cultural awareness can be enhanced.

3.4 Students’ subjectivity and requirements not being reflected

The so-called classroom teaching guide is a kind of teaching activity way that arouses students" attention, stimulates students" interest and motivation, clarifies the learning purpose and establishes the interrelation between knowledge. That is the teacher guides the students into a positive learning state and attracts them to specific teaching tasks and procedures. It must be the psychological and learning state produced by the interaction between the teachers and the students, rather than the self-directed and independent completion by the teachers. (Jiang 20-22) For example, In the reading of 8B Unit4 “The shortest player in the NBA” a teacher"s classroom supervisor did this: "Today we are going to learn something about an eminent basketball player who was known as Spud Webb. He was a great man in history and once won the Slam Dunk Contest in 1986. He is an insistent person in his career. How much do you know about him?" The students looked blank because of the difficult new words. The student opened the book by following teachers’ order and the lead-in ended. Apparently, such a process cannot achieve the satisfactory effect at all. Junior high school English stage should enable students to have a rough understanding Chinese and foreign cultures, so we can design a video to show students the sports stars Jordan, Beckham and Yao Ming they are familiar with. Through vivid videos, students can understand the differences of sports culture in three countries and the representative sports events in each country. Foreign linguists have pointed out that in any language learning, listening and speaking account for 70% of the total language while reading and writing accounted for only 30%. Under this circumstance, students will open their mouth to speak their minds and can deepen their understanding of foreign culture, cultivate their world consciousness, And their intercultural communicative competence can also be improved. It is also an expansion of the knowledge of this unit. Furthermore, the new curriculum standard calls for giving full play to students" initiative and enthusiasm in learning and training students’ self-study ability, independent thinking ability. Therefore, in the classroom, the teacher plays the role as a "director", while the students are "actors". The director should give the actors enough space to perform and give the stage to the classroom. (Duan 180-181) So, given that situation, we have to put students’ real needs into consideration. This phenomenon also reflects that some teachers may not dig their theoretical knowledge for they are keen to rely on teaching experiences. From my standpoint, I think only by improving teachers" knowledge level and teaching skills can we improve teaching efficiency.

3.5 Teachers’ lacking personality and personal charm

Charm is actually a comprehensive reflection of teachers" personality, morality, knowledge and intelligence. Excellent teachers can ignite the flame in students" hearts. Teachers" ingenious blackboard design, interlocking teaching design, especially humorous teaching style, fluent and authentic language input, and unique teaching mode make students feel that listening to English class can be a kind of enjoyment. For example, the teachers prepared different colors of water. And let students go to the platform to mix the two colors of water to produce new colors. This experience really achieved the combination of teaching and pleasure, stimulated interest in learning and is conducive to students’ intellectual development. At the same time, some teachers also use the old method to show some boring color pictures. I think the effect is totally different. Therefore, teachers" charm to students is infectious. What’s more, in classroom teaching, teachers should imperceptibly infiltrate their own emotions into every teaching link. For example, when talking about school life, teachers ask, do you like and enjoy junior high school learning life? Some students are happy to accept the pleasure and challenge of learning, while others will turn against it because the heavy burden of homework. Well, teachers naturally want to hear positive thoughts to go to the next step of the class, but when they hear these negative voices, Can he or she deny the idea of students or choose to give them correct guidance and emotional education? Obviously, the answer is the latter. And for us teachers can respond artfully to students: Although the learning process is arduous, we may encounter setbacks on the way, but when we review junior high school life we can find it is one of the most valuable treasures of our life. We made kind and helpful friends here. We strive for our bright future together, right? So, let’s cherish our school life! Thus, teachers must treat every student sincerely. A little careless care, a smile, a thoughtful word and a caressing action may touch the heartstrings of children, change their learning attitude, and even change their life trajectory and destiny. True education is to cultivate students" personality with teachers" personality, to enlighten students "wisdom with teachers" wisdom, to win respect, to awaken the soul with the soul. (Wang 19-20)

4. Methods of Effective Lead-in in Junior Middle School English Teaching

4.1 Promoting creativity skillfully

As we all know, the cultivation of innovative spirit is greatly stressed in quality education. There are doubts about the value of learning, but small doubts make small progress, big doubts make great progress." Teachers can set suspense properly, which can make students have cognitive conflict, and then pull the chord of thinking, induce students" interest in learning, mobilize students" enthusiasm for learning, and meet the requirements of quality education. (Yu 23-25)Such suspense introduction can enable students to apply sentence patterns in books to real life in the process of using language, learning and using flexibly. Teachers create suspense according to the content of textbooks so as to arouse students" curiosity, stimulate students" desire for learning, and prompt students to raise questions. The right suspense is a stimulant. Creative lead-in is considered to consist of Question Lead-in, Background Knowledge Lead-in or conversation Lead-in etc…In this part, I do think teachers must utilize their personal talents skillfully, Among many traditional teaching media, the teaching method of simple strokes has gradually attracted the attention of teachers for its advantages of simple operation, intuitive image and no excessive restrictions on external conditions. This also fully proves that the concept in the English curriculum standard "teachers should make full use of rich and diverse teaching resources" , so that the teaching content, form and process are more intuitive, vivid, image, in order to adapt to the cognitive characteristics of children. For example, when it comes to the topic of animals, I still remembered an excellent open class whose instructor picked up a piece of chalk and drew a vivid animal on the blackboard calmly and smoothly: tiger, lion, monkey. Next, a few strokes sketched the image of a wildlife park, which was very vivid and brilliant. Not to mention how delicate the classroom design is, teachers" solid skills in simple strokes have attracted students and teachers on the spot. It can not only improve teachers" professional level and creativity, but also cultivate students" good ideological quality.

4.2 Setting proper teaching objectives

It is well known that the diversity of textbooks makes it difficult to digest. In this case, we must highlight the importance of teaching objectives which dominate and guide the process of teaching and are the starting point and final destination of all teaching activities. Teachers should take teaching objectives as the basic basis when carrying out instructional design of classroom introduction. American psychologist, Broome has a vivid metaphor to teaching target, he insists teachers and students should clearly know the teaching goal, just like before the combat commanders and fighters to clearly know operational goals, only in this way can let everyone give full play to the initiative and self-consciousness, to the fastest to annihilate the enemy, and win the war. (Pan 22)Let the students be the master of the classroom, teachers who instruct them are encouraged to integrate the teaching resources to complete what kind of learning goals, prompt it in the next learning activity consciously self -regulation and control, which will help students correct their learning attitude, maximize the effectiveness of the classroom. Just like what we’ve met in some English classrooms, such as the Comic strip part and Part B, some teachers tend to adjust sequence on the basis of teaching objectives. According to the content of the text, the teaching objectives should be set reasonably so that students can know what they are going to learn, how to learn and why to learn. It should have good relevance and close connection. It should be more interesting, more open-minded and more attractive, so that students can like learning English. Here, acting can also be used in lead-in. In 8B Unit6 Sunshine for all, is about disabled people actually. Teacher: What do disabled/homeless people need? How can we help them? So, let’s experience it. I have a cloth. I’d like to someone come here and try to act as a blind person. So who would like to experience. I need a volunteer now .Ok, Jasper, come here now. Take off your glass. (The teacher cover the student with the cloth) And the student tries to walk slowly in the darkness. Teacher: So, let him experience how a blind person lives in the world. We need Jasper to do something and you can do anything you like as a blind person. The student must walk carefully because of the darkness. Teacher: What things he is very afraid of? Can you tell me? Student: Maybe he is afraid of knocking something over or falling something down. When this step ends, the classroom environment is warmed. Students" interest in learning this topic will also be stimulated. When using performance, English teachers should consider students" real life and cognitive experience into consideration. And we know that the purpose of performance is to achieve today"s teaching objectives step by step and lay the foundation for the following procedures. During this process, students can know the anxieties, fears hopes of these disabled people, which can also realize today’s emotional objectives.

4.3 Enhancing the awareness of cultural lead-in

In the current English teaching, although most teachers’ awareness of English learning has been improved, but because of the examination-oriented education and the utilitarianism of English learning make some teachers only pay attention to the superficial knowledge of English such as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, cultural lead-in is only occasionally carried out in teaching, even without it. The goal of English curriculum in basic education stage is to cultivate students" comprehensive ability of using English language based on the development of their language skills, language knowledge, emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness. Language-speaking country culture is important, which is also a correct understanding, because learning English-speaking country culture can improve students" interest in English learning, broaden their horizons, and better understand English language knowledge. Chinese culture and spoken English culture enjoy the same status, so there is no difference between good and bad. Therefore, teachers should attach equal importance to Chinese culture and the culture of English-speaking countries, and train students to adopt an objective and tolerant attitude towards different countries: culture, and improve the necessary identification ability. This can not only help students learn about the cultures of different countries, but also cultivate students" cross-cultural awareness in the comparison of cultural differences between China and the West, which is the purpose of cultural lead-in. For example, in 8B Unit5 Good manners, the reading part is about manners in the UK. At the beginning of the class, I will greet students with several languages in Japanese, French and Tail, such as “Bonjour”, to let them guess which country the language is. Students are familiar with these classic languages so that their learning desire can be sparked easily. Meanwhile, student’ intercultural communication skills can be improved. According to language and the relationship between thinking and culture shows that only by introducing cultural knowledge on the basis of language teaching can students really acquire language. (Zhou 162-162).Therefore, the cultural lead-in of English teaching is indispensable. ,

4.4 Respecting subjectivity of students’ fully

Beyond all doubt, students are the main part of learning. In the process of teaching, teachers should encourage students to exert their subjective initiative to stimulate students" initiative and enthusiasm to the greatest extent, so that students can become masters of learning. Junior high school students are active, expressive. They should be encouraged in English learning. In this case, teachers can adopt the lead-in method such as speech before class lead-in, minutes show before class, drama performance or free talk into new class. Therefore, for some units requiring a large amount of background knowledge, we should make arrangements in advance to find relevant information through various ways. Then, teachers can select some appropriate background materials to stimulate students" interest. In the part “Welcome to the unit”, 8A Unit 4 A day out, several world scenic spot such as America White House, Eiffel Tower, and Sydney Opera are mentioned. Students can be expected to introduce one of them exhaustively or give a general introduction of the whole. At this rate, students are led into the context naturally. (Liu 28-29) Furthermore, in the part of 9A Unit3 “Teenage problems “, at the beginning of the class, we can enjoy a video clip, which is a famous TV play,” A Love for Separation” It’s about three grade 9 students and their families. Because of the upcoming entrance examination of high school, the children are under great pressure and have may many physical and psychological problems. The relationship between parents and children become tense .So after watching it, the teacher can ask students what’s the girl’s problem might be? And what’s your main problem in this period? Under this circumstance, students are bewitched by the plot and are willing to share his ideas. It is beneficial to cultivating their sharp minds. Unquestionably, their subjectivity can be realized. So teachers must take students as the main part of classroom teaching, and give full play to students" subjective initiative in the process of independent learning, and enhance their comprehensive quality, which is also the practical need of further social development and teaching reform in China. (Liu 44-69)

4.5 Building high-quality teaching staff

English teachers in junior high school must love teaching English. Have high responsibility for teaching and learning, and care for their students. Any teacher must be full of responsibility which can win the respect and students. Second, English teachers must have solid language quality. Knowledge of grammar, pragmatics and cultural background and abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing outweigh most things. Finally, junior middle school English teachers must strengthen teaching skills. Teaching skills are mainly teachers’ ability to design and organize classroom teaching activities. It is the teacher who manages the class. For example, encouraged by the national education reform, situational teaching has been greatly encouraged in the field of education. Situational teaching can create a real communicative environment for students by creating situations, arousing students" interest in learning, providing students with special emotional experience, helping students understand and construct knowledge through participation in teaching. Socrates does not directly impart knowledge, but creates a problem situation for learners by asking questions at different levels, so as to trigger learners" independent thinking, enable learners to explore independently and approach the truth step by step. There are many ways of situational teaching, such as bringing students into the nature and moving familiar scenes of life to the classroom; using relevant pictures as the whole teaching background to promote students" imagination; using beautiful background music to cultivate students" temperament, creating language situations by appropriate language description, thus forming a guidance for students" cognitive activities and enhancing their sensory effects. No matter what method is used, only high-quality teachers can effectively use teaching methods to output effective classes. In the current junior middle school English teaching process, teachers have some immature understanding of English teaching due to the limited level of English teaching and the influence of traditional teaching concepts. The level of language application, culture and teaching of these teachers is very limited, so they can’t grasp the new teaching ideas well and can’t achieve the goal of improving knowledge and ability together in the specific teaching practice. Therefore, In order to give full play to the advantages of situational teaching, teachers need to constantly explore new methods in future practice. Teachers should spare no effort to reform teaching contents and renew their cultural knowledge to satisfy the needs of the developing curriculum standards. Only high-quality teachers can create high-quality and fruitful classroom.

5. Conclusion

In short, effective countermeasures of lead-in in junior high middle school English teaching are numerous. We’ve talked about factors contributing to these problems and some resolution strategies. As we all know, the marvelous lead-in has a significant impact on the quality of teaching. Good introduction and English teaching cannot be achieved in one day. In the process of forming a good classroom, teachers must adjust different teaching methods and renew new teaching ideas. It’s never easy to make it without great efforts. Indeed, in recent years, China"s basic education has developed rapidly, but it is unavoidable that there is still a long way to go for the reform of education system and the construction of teachers" team in our country. I believe that the multiplier lead-in outcomes can be accomplished through our tireless efforts.

Works Cited

 Arends, R. (2000)Learning to Teach(The Fifth Edition).New York: The McGraw-Hill
companies, Inc,(1998).
Slavin, R. Educational Psychology [M].Beijing: Peking University Press, (2004).

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