浅析以学生为中心的初中英语课堂教学

论文总字数：31738字

摘 要

现如今传统教学面临挑战,以教师为中心的教学模式取代了以学生为中心的教学模式。随着建构主义和人本主义理论的发展,人们越来越重视学生的自主学习。提高初中英语教学效果，激发并保持学生学习兴趣尤为关键。以学生为中心的教学模式将学生的需要和兴趣放在第一位置，注重培养学生的语言交际能力。本文以建构主义为理论依据,重点探讨了以"学生为中心"的课堂交互活动中教师的中介作用以及实现中介作用的具体方法,对新的教育理念下教师的角色转变进行了阐释.

关键词：以学生为中心教学；以教师为中心教学；建构主义；人本主义；教学方法

Contents

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………..….1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………….....2

3. Current situation of English Class Teaching in Secondary School.....................3

3.1The difficulties of student-centered English class teaching.....................................4

3.2The necessity of student-centered English class teaching......................................5

3.3The comparison between student-centered and teacher-centered teaching............6

4. Applications of Student-centered approach to English Class..............................8

• 1. Guide students to do self-study..............................................................................8.

4.1.1 Write detailed lesson plans....................................................................................8

4.1.2 Teach good note-taking skills................................................................................9

4.1.3 Keep students motivated......................................................................................10

• 1. Carry out interactive teaching approach...............................................................10
  2. Have role-playing performance.............................................................................12

1. Conclusion............................................................................................................13

Works Cited................................................................................................................14

1. Introduction

Traditionally, in English class, teacher is the center and students follow teachers’ mind. Basically, it is teacher-centered, which is contrast to the view of student-centered. Actually, the center of teaching activities doesn’t focus on teaching but learning. With the development of society, learning has become necessary for human to survive. Education is not only the basic condition of employment, but the necessary for reemployment. Therefore, in the modern educational system, student is the center of learning consciously.

Before a hundred year, different approaches to language teaching have been applied along with a great deal of controversial comment. From these comments, a great view can be put up. Whether good or bad a teaching approach cannot be judge absolutely. Every method has its special purpose and achieved the intended result. The Grammar-Translation Method, the Community Language Teaching, the Natural approach, and the Communicative language teaching have all contributed potentially useful ideas to English Teaching (Davies,2000:195 ).

In china, actually, teacher is usually put at the center of teaching. In fact, English teaching has a long history. In the 17^th century, Comenius has created the teacher-centered teaching structure. For hundreds of years, teacher-centered theory has been developed and completed. However, when it comes to 20^th century, with the gradually rise of humanism psychology which emphasize human nature, student-centered theory has been put forward. Besides, Chomsky’s linguistics and Jerome Seymour Bruner’s cognitive approach also complete the student-centered theory. Chomsky maintained that language is not a form of behavior. On the contrary, it is an intricate rule-based system. Bruner ever said that interest is the best stimulus for learning(Pi Liansheng,2007:56). So, in the modern society, student-centered theory has been put emphasis on the curriculum teaching. Teachers and students should change their language ideas, that is, from teacher-centered to student-centered.

Student-centered approach asks people pay more attention to the students’ interests in the process of education.

2 Literature Review

Class teaching model is an approach through which teacher intends to promote students. In the National English Curriculum, the models includes the grammar-translation method、the direct method、the audio-lingual method、the cognitive approach、the communicative approach、task-based language teaching and so on. The grammar-translation method began to be the basic procedures in foreign language teaching from the 16^th century and became the principal method of teaching modern languages in schools in the mid-19^th century, which emphasizes the teaching of the second language grammar. So, this method is applied with the teacher-centered theory. When it comes to the 20^th century, with the development of linguistics and psychology, the cognitive approach has graduated. It is based on the belief that language learning is a process which is not simply the forming of habits.

In 20^th century, Constructivism has developed. Constructivism is developed on the basis of cognitivism. Lt is firstly put forward by Jean Piaget, who articulates mechanisms by which knowledge is internalized by learners.(Zheng Yong amp;Tao Sanfa，2007:76) Constructivism also considers that "learning should not be viewed as a process of getting knowledge passively, but a construction based on learner’s existing knowledge". That is to say, it more emphasizes students’ initiative, practicality, and creative. What’s more, it also raises many new insights and ideas on learning and teaching. Constructivism affects curriculum instructional theory by encouraging discovery learning, hands-on learning, experiential learning, collaborative learning, project-based learning, and task-based learning.

In the early 20th century, Abraham H. Maslow has pointed out Humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology has sometimes been referred to as the "third force" in psychology, different from another two traditional approaches which are psychoanalysis and behaviorism. According to Humanistic psychology, educators developed humanism learning theory which emphasizes learners’ inherent drive. In order to meet individual self-actualization and creativity, educators put forward the student-centered approach.

For years, people have been controlled by the view of behavioral theory. Using techniques that bring students’ behavior under stimulus control is essential for classroom management in a behavioral model. Students will improve their grades when teachers introduce their students to apply strategies for learning as well as teach them specific language skills. Actually, however, many students themselves more like teacher-centered approach, because they find it easier and preferable to depend on their teachers rather than to undertake more responsibilities for their own learning, especially if their educational backgrounds have not prepared them for the new role. (Marilyn,2007:120).

Student-centered teaching, that is, putting students’ interests first, is in contrast to teacher-centered approach. Student-centered approach focuses on each student"s interests, talents, and learning ways, placing the teacher as a facilitator in the teaching process. It also recognizes student voice as center, which differs from many other learning methodologies. Student-centered teaching, contrary to teacher-centered teaching which choose what the students will learn, how the students will learn, and how the students will be assessed on their learning, requires students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning.

1. Current situation of English Class Teaching in Secondary School

Nowadays, English teaching in china has improved a lot, but some problems still exist. How to teach English well is a big problem confused many teachers. It is well known that in Chinese English class, teachers spend more time on students’ grammar and vocabulary. In secondary school, the tradition teaching approaches, which are typically teach-centered, examination-oriented, grammar and vocabulary based, still dominate. In this situation, students can get great grades, but are poor at speaking and communication. These methods of teaching seriously obstruct the development of students’ initiative and creativity.

3.1 The difficulties of student-centered English class teaching

From John Dewey’s view, education was shown to be a process of renewal of the meanings of experience through a process of transmission, partly incidental to the ordinary companionship or intercourse of adults and youth, partly deliberately instituted to effect social continuity. This process was seen to involve control and growth of both the immature individual and the group in which he lives (Dewey,2011:401). That means education is not just a process of teaching. It more emphasizes students’ learning. In many Secondary Schools, the students are sitting silently in their seats, while the teacher is standing in front and pouring wisdom and knowledge into their brains, which is absurd. In this situation, students may feel that learning English can be extremely stressful, bewildering, and anxiety, especially in a classroom setting. In class, teachers take some techniques which may think of as “boring”, “routine”, or “old-fashioned”, which are in fact activities that the students like. Such activities include: dictation, copying portions of text, memorizing text, and chorus reading. In this situation, teachers’ approaches have some problems. Firstly, many teachers take the approach of cramming teaching. In class, teacher continues talking, while the students keep taking notes. This approach brings many disadvantages. Teacher delivers too much knowledge for students to take in. what’s worse, in this situation, it is of difficulty for students to master the essence. Secondly, many schools make focus on exam and take exam oriented education. When students take senior high school entrance examination, there is only written examination, not checking oral expression. If continuing this way, students will be good at grammar, but bad at speaking, which is contrary to the original intention of learning English. Thirdly, when it comes to teacher-centered teaching, some teachers may lack assessment, and make process of class boring.

Actually, many teachers want to take student-centered teaching. However, teaching task is too heavy to take student-centered approach. Besides, students have less chance to apply English. When learning a language, taking examinations cannot become the only aim. When teaching English, teachers need to set clearer and more accurate aims.

3.2The necessity of student-centered English class teaching

Student-centered teaching is an approach to education focusing on the students’ interests. It is also meaningful for the design of the curriculum, course content and interactivity of class.

However, in 21^st century, teaching situation has gradually changed. In Secondary School, students seem to recognize that when a teacher stands in front of the classroom and starts the class, not only is their life going to get very boring, the end result will be that there will be more work and tests to fail and more opportunities to end up feeling silly. Unfortunately, not all difficulties have easy solutions. Students come into the classroom with the same purposes and expectations. How could it be otherwise? For many people in China, the dream job is one in which they need to do very little work and get considerable income. The main aim at work for some people is to avoid work. In the society, the young are taught these same values. They even do not understand that education will not occur if they don"t get involved. They don"t understand that their education is both their responsibilities and their rights. The good news, however, is that not all students are so unaware. More and more students are requesting an educational system that is suitable for them. These students are not bored any more. They thirst for learning, and are willing to do whatever it takes to learn. I believe that the student-centered teaching environment enables an educator to deal effectively with all types of students in the same classroom. A student-centered learning environment encourages students to become independent learners and eventually to be in charge of their own education.

Besides, in class, many educators have put out the theory of project-based learning which is considered an alternative to paper-based, rote memorization, teacher-led classrooms. In My Pedagogical Creed, Dewey enumerated his beliefs regarding education: “I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual’s powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions.” (Dewey, 1897:78). So, in class, teaches should pay more attention to the student voice which is giving students the ability to influence learning to include policies, programs, contexts and principles. In essence, the teacher’s goal in the learning process is to guide students to make new interpretations of the learning material, thereby "experiencing" content, stressing Rogers" idea that "significant learning is acquired through doing". Let students practice and learn through the experience, which is the essence of student-centered teaching. When applying the student-centered teaching, teachers can cultivate student study independently. When students enter university and society, they need to learn how to study by themselves. So applying the student-centered teaching has a long term benefit.

3.3 The comparison between student-centered and teacher-centered teaching

In China, teacher is usually the center of foreign language teaching, in the form of class. Actually, the classroom teaching has a long history. In the 17 century, the class teaching system has been pointed out and at that time, teacher-centered teaching structure has been created. Up to the middle of 20^th century, humanism psychology sprung up. “student-centered theory” has been developed. Then, Constructivism and cognitive learning theory support the theoretical basis for student-centered theory. Based on these two theories, it is natural to graduate two teaching models.

Firstly, teacher-centered approach is usually used in the Secondary School. Placing teacher as the center in the class activities is a very important feature of teacher-centered approach. When teacher is the center in class, they could easily control the whole process of teaching. Establishing order in the classroom is important for students’ learning. In a loud and disorganized environment, it is difficult to emerge effective teaching. Traditionally, teachers usually apply the methods of direct instruction and lecture. When teaching some explicit knowledge, teachers can use traditional method which will be more effective. When it comes to student-centered approach, students are put at the center of activities and they can interact with teachers equally. In student-centered class, teachers always apply discovery learning, discussion, and individual instruction. These methods include active learning in which students solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions of their own, discuss, explain, debate, or brainstorm during class. From the teaching experiment, we can also get the result that teacher-centered approach has disadvantage for students to display their personality, develop the intelligence, and broaden the horizons. Confirmed by some rules and regulations, students only recognize some rules of grammar and vocabulary after class. The competence of communication is hardly developed. In the teacher-centered classroom, teachers are the primary source for knowledge.

Teacher-centered approach urge students to take in the knowledge passively. It is good at students to master the some explicit rules or formula. If you want students better understand, teachers need to guide the truth by themselves. For example, when teachers teacher grammar, they can give some example sentences, and let students to discuss and explore the differences. What’s more, students can conclude the rule by themselves. Though this method, students will have a deep memory about this grammar.

Besides, in traditional class, teachers seldom communicate with their students, and they don’t know how to select the interesting topic to make an active atmosphere. So, in the student-centered class, it is necessary for teachers to adopt some activities to expand students thinking abilities.

Generally speaking, the difference between student-centered approach and teacher-centered approach can be show in the following table.

1. Applications of Student-centered approach to English Class

Teachers, as the controller in the classroom activities and the assessor of accuracy, need to design the curriculum to apply the student-centered approach. Stimulating students’ interests and making them independence are the two main factors to carry out student-centered approach. In order to achieve this purpose, teachers have to take some measures, such as guiding students do self-study, carrying out interactive approach, having role-play performance and so on. What’s more, creating a comparatively free and easy atmosphere is also important and necessary for students to express their ideas.

4.1Guide students do self-study.

In class, teacher looks around only to find that very few students care about what you were teaching? What can we do about students who aren"t getting it? How can we help the students learn rather than try to teach them? Firstly, we should shift students mind. When they were in the primary school, they were always led by their teachers. For a long term, they would depend on their teachers, and think that it is taken for granted. So, in class, teacher should guide students learn by themselves. I will give some suggestions to keep students independent.

4.1.1 Write detailed lesson plans.

If a teacher wants to conduct an excellent class, the first thing he needs to do is to make a detail plan. What to teach and how to teach are the two problem teachers have to solve, because different lessons have their own key points. If this lesson is “welcome to the unit”, teacher needs to pay more attention to communication. Give students more issues to talk with each other. For example, in 7A unit 7, the theme of this lesson is colours. Firstly, let students listen to a song and see some pictures, and then answer some questions about the song and pictures. In this process, teacher can teach some new colour words. Secondly, Work in pairs, ask students to make a short dialogue like this:
　　A: What"s this?/ What are these?           B: It"s a…/ They"re…
　　A: What colour is it?/ What colour are they?  B: It"s…/ They"re…

What’s more, use examples to explain that colour can also represent mood: red means energy; blue means depression; green means vigour.

4.1.2Teach good note-taking skills

Effective note-taking from class is an essential skill for English study. In reading class, teacher may provide students with too many phrases and words on the blackboard. Students usually take down all the phrases and words, but after class, they may be confused by the mixed notes. Five-R note-taking skill is a good chose for students. “Five-R” means “Record, Reduce, Recite, Reflect, and Review”. It includes following steps.

Record: in the listening or reading process, try to remember more meaningful arguments and the concept of class.

Reduce: after class, try to generalize these arguments and concepts in memory column, namely side bar.

Recite: look at the memory column only, and try to perfect the class content

Reflect: write down own ideas and opinions on the cards or text book separately and then compile an outline.

Review: Spend ten minutes every day, and quickly review the notes.

4.1.3 Keep students motivated

The student-centered style is quite motivating for some students. Applying student-centered approach can create a positive environment which can keep students motivated. If the lesson is “welcome to the unit”, it is comparatively easy to motivate students’ interests. Show some pictures or broadcast a movie, which are both good ways of attracting students’ attention. However, if it is a grammar lesson, it is difficult to make the lesson interesting. In this situation, teacher must provide students with some tasks. Taking 7A unit9 for example, this unit grammar asks students grasp the use of “can” and “must”. Firstly, Show some pictures about Yellow Park to the students, and let them learn to make a dialogue in pairs:

　　Can we put the tree in Yellow Park? Yes, we can.No, we can"t.

　　Where can we put it? We can put it...

Then after teaching students the usage of “must” and “can”, teacher can ask students to read an article carefully and finish the exercises. According to the article, let students to decide whether the following sentences have errors.　　

She must wait for the green light. Then she can cross the road. F

　　She must look up and down first. The she can cross the road. F

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