论英文歌曲在小学英语课堂教学中的运用

论文总字数：30640字

摘 要

作为一种国际语言，英语在我国教育教学中占据重要地位,加之《新课程标准》的颁布与实施，小学英语教学理应引起重视。与此同时，小学英语教学领域也存在诸多问题，其中，怎样使教学更加有效，并且让孩子们带着浓厚的兴趣去学英语，是我们英语教师目前面临的极具挑战性的问题。实践证明，在小学英语课堂教学中运用英文歌曲可以有效促进学生的英语学习。本文从心理学和生理学理论出发，分析了小学英语课堂中英文歌曲的运用的优势，并讨论如何将英语歌曲运用到日常课堂中去。最后，本论文分析该教学方式的局限性，以期为英文歌曲在实际课堂中的应用提供一定的参考。

关键词：英文歌曲；兴趣；教学方法

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 The theoretical basis for using songs 3

2.2 Research status at home and abroad 4

3. Advantages of English Songs in Class 6

3.1 Stimulating enthusiasm of learning English 6

3.2 Cultivating students’ language sense 6

3.3 Enlarging students’ listening vocabulary 7

3.4 Knowing more about the customs of foreign countries 7

4. The Application of English Songs in Class 8

4.1 Pre-class: the selection of English songs 8

4.2 While-class: listening and speaking skills training 8

4.3 Post-class: expanding teaching 10

5. The Limitation of the Application of English Songs 11

5.1 The limitation of the application 11

5.2 The implication of the application 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

As we all know, English is one of the major international lingua franca in the world, English-speaking population accounting for a quarter around the world. Most East Asian countries teach English, which as a foreign language, with a book-centered, teacher-centered, an emphasis on rote learning and grammar-translation method. For the most part, Chinese students acquire knowledge as something to be imparted by teachers rather than acquired by learners according to which students become accustomed to engaging in rote learning. Owing to such a teacher-centered method, students prefer receiving knowledge to interpreting it. There is no denying that people, currently, communicate in English across the world in many fields: economy and trade, business document, government exchange, academic papers, transportation and tourism and so forth. As things stand, today, with the rapid development of industrialization and globalization throughout the world, communication and cooperation, culturally or economically, between nations are getting deeper and closer. In this regard, on no account can we ignore the value of English.

The new “English Curriculum Standards (experiment draft)” promulgated by the Ministry of Education also made it clear about objectives and requirements of English Songs in EFL Class of Primary School: students should be able to sing 15-20 simple English songs and ballads in the third or forth grade; students should be able to perform 30-40 simple ballads or poems and sing 30-40 English songs in the fifth or sixth grade.

English songs, as a supplementary means, have injected new vitality in EFL class of primary school since 1970. Currently, English teaching community has increasingly recognized the great value in using English songs. As a newly-born language teaching method, English songs can activate students’ interests, enhance their involvement and improve the teaching quality. Be that as it may, teaching with English songs does not go to extremes. It is a new mixture of direct method and grammar-translation method. Thereby, it could be applied in modern English foreign language teaching skillfully as a supplementary tool.

There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter one is the introduction of the research. Chapter two is the literature review where relative theories of application of English songs are displayed. Chapter three discusses the advantages of English Songs in class. Chapter four discusses how to apply English songs in EFL class in detail. Chapter five analyzes the limitation and implication of the study. Chapter six is the conclusion of the thesis to summarize major findings.

1. Literature Review

In this part,the author will present the theoretical basis for using songs and research status of such a teaching method at home and abroad.

2.1 The theoretical basis for using songs

2.1.1 The multiple intelligences theory

Dr. Howard Earl Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University, articulated eight criteria for a behavior to be considered an intelligence in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. (Howard 1983) These intelligences are: “potential for brain isolation by brain damage, place in evolutionary history, presence of core operations, susceptibility to encoding (symbolic expression), a distinct developmental progression, the existence of savants, prodigies and other exceptional people, and support from experimental psychology and psychometric findings”.(Ye 5) His multiple intelligences theory argued that traditional measures of intelligence failed to take cognitive and interpersonal abilities into account, which are equally important in learning and personal development, not to mention professional success.

Intelligence, he argued, should be a measure of one’s ability to solve the problem. In addition, he believed human way of thinking and way of learning about the world is diversified; also, he pointed out that human smart structure was composed of eight kinds of independent elements.

According to Howard Gardner’s theory, using English songs in EFL class can activate classroom atmosphere and make learning easy and effective.

Tim Murphey also advocated pop music in EFL class to engage in language skills. By analysing the lyrics of many popular songs, Tim Murphey found most of the lyrics are characterized by: repeating words, basic grammatical structure and communicative language. All of them were easy to understand (Murphey 1992). Therefore, the prospect of music in EFL class is very real.

2.1.2 The physiological theory

Neurophysiology studies have shown that the right hemisphere of human brain controls the imaginative thinking. It is the central nerve of processing superficial imagery, specific image thinking, divergent thinking, central intuition thinking. The right hemisphere is an emotional music brain (xue 57). Listening to music can not only cultivate sentiments, cause the happiness to the students, stimulate the right brain, but also activate the left brain which controls the human language to make it exciting, and at the same time, make the right brain exciting. Consequently, it can make the students’ oral English more smooth and natural.

2.2 Research status at home and abroad

2.2.1 Foreign research status

There has long been a thought that music and linguistics are two closely related systems. This thought can date back to ancient Greece and it has been further developed during the period of the enlightenment in eighteenth century. From the perspective of linguistics, the adaptation of music to linguistic study is not only an essential achievement generated from music theory but also a subject which can be applied to the research of “Transformational Grammars” proposed by Chomesky. Music helps people discover general rules of language form another realm. (Chomesky 1998)

Jackendoff discusses human’s “capacity for music” and its relationship to the human capacity for language. He believes that music has structure as well as grammar (a means by which sounds are combined into structures). When a listener hears music in an idiom he or she is familiar with, “the music is not merely heard as a stream of sounds; rather, the listener constructs an unconscious understanding of the music and is able to understand pieces of music never heard previously”. Jackendoff also reveales what cognitive structures or “mental representations” this understanding consists of in the listener’s mind, “how a listener comes to acquire the musical grammar necessary to understand a particular musical idiom, what innate resources in the human mind make this acquisition possible and, finally, what parts of the human music capacity are governed by general cognitive functions and what parts result from specialized functions geared specifically for music”.(Jackendoff and Lerdahl 1983). “Fonseca Mora has pointed that Musicality of language would affect the students’ English pronunciation and even the whole process of English acquisition, and therefore we need to use the rhythm method in the process of English teaching promotion” (Fonseca 146). Gatbonton and Segalowitz have pointed that we must put the students in the real communication environment in order to use the appropriate target language (Gatbonton and Segalowitz 473).

2.2.2 Domestic research status

The domestic studies of acquiring language through music songs are gaining more and more attention.

Fu Daochun, Hu Rong, Zhu Weifang have began to conduct systematic research on teaching behaviors since 1990 and their studies on the structure of that have achieved remarkable success. Fu Daochun published two renown books in 1993, Teachers’ Organization Behaviors and Teachers’ Skills and Strategies. The former reveals the dominant characteristics of teachers with regard to their organization of teaching activities, while the latter analyzes teachers’ strategies and techniques. He also became the first person in China to do macrocosmic research on teaching behaviors.

The research of Hu Rong shows that listening to music can help promoting in-put, internalization and acquisition of targeted language while singing songs can help strengthening music apprehension, enhancing rhythm sensation and promoting the comprehensive study process of phonetic, grammar, syntax, vocabulary.

Zhu Weifang once wrote in her article The English Songs and the Higher Vocational English Teaching, in Foreign Language Study in 2006, She said “When I enter in higher vocational colleges to be a teacher, I regularly apply English songs to classroom teaching. It not only makes the atmosphere exciting which leads the student to increase interest in English learning, but also teaches through lively activities, which leads the students to improve the study enthusiasm on the basis of strong study interest. At last, the expected teaching effect is arrived.”(Zhu 130) A lot of teacher has carried out such a lot of teaching experiment. And most middle school English teachers have tried to integrate English songs in English teaching.

3. Advantages of English Songs in Class

There are productive roles of application of English songs，which shown in the following paper.

3.1 Stimulating enthusiasm of learning English

Music is a no-boundary language which can move audience than any other forms of art. English songs, with their lyrical joy and elegant rhythm have long been cherished by teenagers, especially some classical ones. Experience have proved that English songs can stimulate students’ enthusiasm and initiation effectively. Moreover, they are also the most available language resources which can be acquired out of class. For sure, it is also their most voluntary resources. Listening and singing of English songs can stimulate students’ learning enthusiasm and motivate their inspiration to study. It is an effective tool that many students are used to express their emotion, an effective media which can be used to ease students’ psychological pressure and also, a beneficiary gift which many teachers can applied to exploit a given situation for all possible favorable factors for students’ benefit.

3.2 Cultivating students’ language sense

Frequent listening of English music can improve students’ language sense effectively. Language sense is an ability through which people can feel language directly and fast. The normal application of language sense is the generation of correct intuition once in contact of language work: while reading , those who with good language sense can not only catch the true information that language revealed acutely but also get the implication hidden behind the lines and in context. Language sense is the most significant part in any language. For example, Chinese is our mother tongue and when we hear or notice one Chinese sentence, what first come into our mind is not its sentence structure but the feelings of if it can be apprehend thoroughly or be read fluently——Wherever we are, daily talking or during examination, we are all doing like this. As a matter of fact, it is an effective method which in turn constitutes our language sense in terms of mother tongue.

In fact, English teaching is also applied to this theory. There is no doubt that our purpose is to help students form a better understanding of sentence structure. However, it also brings obvious shortcoming——Instead of putting the key point on English language itself, students transfer their focus on the learning of grammar as a result of the early exposure before grammar knowledge. Hence the advantages of language sense can not be neglected.

3.3 Enlarging students’ listening vocabulary

We often find that the volume of listening vocabulary students can identify is far less than the volume of reading vocabulary. That is to say, they will feel confused with familiar words and can not recognize those words, especially when the speed is too fast to listen to. There are two reasons for phenomemon. In the first place, listening training is lacking for students. In the second place, students are not able to identify phonemes in English effectively such as elision, liaison, assimilation, strong form and weak form. However, it is publicly known that foregoing phonemes, one such example is elision, appear in English songs with regard to rhythm. Improving the occasion, we can make the best use of Englisn songs for students to correct their wrong pronunciation of the past. Thereby, we achieve our aim of unconsciously learning of phonetic knowledge.

In addition, equally important is that students often can only recognize a few individual words, but can not understand the whole sentences or passages. As a matter of fact, the main obstacle to improve listening level is the volume of listening vocabulary. In this regard, English songs of a variety of topics including friendship, peace, love, life, etc. Students can come into contact with a lot of words, phrases, idioms, and sometimes even the English proverbs. Students may be unfamiliar with oral expression in daily life although they memorize vocabulary in textbooks.

3.4 Knowing more about the customs of foreign countries

The English song is an integral part of the foreign cultures. It contains historical and cultural knowledge of the foreign countries. So the teachers can use the English song as a medium of introduction of cultural knowledge. It is an effective way to stimulate the students’ interest in learning English. And such a vivid way of learning is closer to life and easier to stimulate the students’ enthusiasm in learning and more acceptable for the students. What is more important is that the students can know more about the customs of the foreign countries such as Christmas, Thanksgiving Day and some other festivals in western countries.

1. The Application of English Songs in Class

During this part, the author will present how to use English songs in daily English teaching.

4.1 Pre-class: the selection of English songs

Despite English songs can provide rich and varied resources in EFL classroom, it seems that, the songs, based on lessons are not easily going well. As a consequence, selecting suitable materials seems very important for teachers to achieve one’s wishes.

4.1.1 Songs with the simple but meaningful content

Primary school students’ English level is limited and they do not know much about grammar or vocabulary. Generally speaking, language of the songs should have the moderate difficulty.

Therefore, the lyrics of the songs should be simple but lively and easier understood by students. To sum up, teachers should choose some simple but meaningful songs such as “I can say my ABC”, “Happy New Year”, “Happy Birthday”, “Are You Betty?”, “Apple tree”, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”, “Good morning, Sam” etc (Li 37). These songs are easy to learn and sing. In the memory of childhood, we are bound to remember clearly some nursery rhymes that are full of joy, such as the above-mentioned songs.

4.1.2 Songs with more body language

As primary school English teachers, pleasure and relaxation should be taken into consideration in EFL class. The aim of teaching some simple songs is to affect the students’ intelligence and potentiality, to animate the classroom atmosphere and to develop their language senses. Body language is necessary as children’s body languages are pretty diversified.

There are certain rhythm and pace existing in nursery rhymes and songs. Using body language is an ideal way to gain the essence of English songs while singing them. In this way, it can enhance students’ long-term memory of the lyrics, promote the coordination of their actions, strengthen a sense of rhythm, develop their ability of interpersonal communication. Thus, comparatively more suitable songs for students to apprehend are those expressed with more body language. When it comes to the method of expressing body language and making necessary models, the teachers can also encourage the students to use their right brains to think how to do the movements. In such a way, it can help develop the students’ imagination, and stimulate the students’ creativity. Just as teaching the song “Ten Little Babies”, the teachers can let the students use gestures to perform a specific scenario together, and use their ten fingers as tokens of the numbers counting from one to ten. When the students are familiar with the songs enough, they will be encouraged to sing the songs where the lyrics “Indian babies” will be replaced by “Indian girls”, “Indian boys”, “yellow oranges” and some other lyrics (Li 37). At the same time, the teachers in front of the podium will sing and act the song, and then let the students imitate. Through the mouth singing and body moving, the students will obtain rather simple words in a happy and relaxed mood. Thus, the magic power of English will leave profound effects on the students and their interest in learning hence generates.

4.2 While-class: listening and speaking skills training

Previous teaching practice has shown us that primary students’ oral vocabularies are far less than their listening vocabularies. Based on this prerequisite, increasing students’ volume of “listening input” is the inevitable basis of rising their “oral output”. Moreover, oral practice after listening training in turn plays an essential role in enlarging listening vocabularies as well. Therefore, we combined music listening and oral training together to see what achievements we can achieve.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：30640字