论文总字数：32366字

摘 要

小学是英语学习的起始阶段。相应地，导入是一堂英语课的起始阶段。常言道“良好的开端是成功的一半”。 本文针对小学英语课堂导入中普遍存在的问题，通过谈话采访的方法，对白鹭湖小学10名教师进行了调查。结果表明从总体上看，小学英语课堂中导入环节比较薄弱，存在许多亟待解决的问题。本文以建构主义学习理论和人本主义学习理论指导，研究了课堂导入中存在的问题，并且探讨了有效导入的策略。笔者希望正确地应用导入帮助提高学生学习成绩，增强学生学习自信心,激发学生的学习兴趣，为以后英语学习打下良好基础。

关键词：小学英语；导入；问题；策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Investigation and Analysis of Lead-in in Primary School English Class 3

3.1 Investigation 3

3.2 Analysis of Lead-in in Primary School English Class 5

4. Strategies of Improving Lead-in in Primary School English Class 9

4.1 Focusing on teaching objectives 9

4.2 Setting different ways of lead-in 10

4.3 Reducing the time of lead-in 12

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

Lead-in is a behavioral way in which teachers organize students to prepare for psychology and knowledge before class and guide students into learning at the beginning of a new teaching content or activity. Under the situation of strongly pushing forward quality education and the lack of natural and real language learning environment for English language learners in China, raising students’ independent study ability is particularly important. In English teaching, the lead-in section which is the important link of classroom teaching has vital functions of drawing students’ attention and stirring up their interests during their study. Meanwhile, lead-in has a far-reaching impact in teachers’ professional development as well as student’s language learning. Therefore, teachers have to apply diverse ways of lead-in.

However, in primary school English class, problems are still shown in the lead-in section. In order to improve the effect of lead-in in primary school English class, teachers need to spend time finding a breakthrough. During the process of design and implementation of lead-in, the pertinence, novelty and the flexibility of it should be ensured. Through the regular review and consolidation of lead-in, it can help the students to repeatedly use the knowledge and skills about their learning language, and finally grasp the knowledge firmly, in order to make up for the lack of natural and real language learning environment and the phenomenon of students’ forgetting.

2. Literature Review

Before the teacher begins to teach, the teacher needs a short time to stabilize the students and lead them to learn new knowledge, which is called lead-in. Lead-in is a kind of teaching behavior in which teachers use the method of setting up corresponding situations when entering the new class to arouse students’ undefined attention, stimulate their interest in learning, clarify their learning goals, form learning motivation, and establish links between knowledge. Lead-in is one of the major teaching skills that primary school English teachers must put emphasis on. Improving the effect of lead-in has a far-reaching impact on the professional development of teachers as well as the actual effect of students’ language learning.

Many writings about the design of lead-in were proposed in 1970s and 1980s. Tessa Woodward in her work and Penny Ur and Andrew Wright in their book revealed that, when teachers study new cultural background knowledge, they should encourage students to use creative thinking to think about the problems. In 1980s, Roger Gower and Steve Walters began to study how to guide the course and put forward many teaching methods in “Stating the lesson”. They have made outstanding contributions to the development of modern teaching, in which the way of lead-in should promote the socialization of classroom activities became extremely famous. In other words, teachers cannot leave behind the language environment when teaching English. Teachers can choose family, friends, and favorite holidays that students are familiar with or interested in real social life. Penny Ur and Andrew Wright through years of researches have summed up and published more than 130 simple methods of pre-class English introduction. Many scholars and teachers at home and abroad have conducted experiments on them and proved that these 130 methods are effective. Suchomlinsky believes that" the starting point of teaching is to stimulate students’ interest and desire in learning." Therefore, stimulating students to be interested in learning, mobilizing students’ optimism for study, and making students have a strong desire to find problems and solve problems are really important. Piaget also said that" all intellectual work depend on interest."

In China, many scholars, such as Zhang Yaoxin, he has elaborated the art of organization and management in classroom teaching and described thirty-three ways of lead-in in his book “Organization and Management of classroom Teaching”, including leading in by questions, purposes, old knowledge and so on.

Scanning the works and articles about lead-in, we find that most scholars focus on the importance of lead-in directly or indirectly. However, we find most parts are always theories. As for primary school students, few concerns are shown to their practical learning.

In light of the previous researches and the major theories in lead-in, interviews on teachers in primary school are carried out. This paper tries to study the problems and explores the appropriate lead-in strategies for primary school English teaching to enhance student’s learning performance.

3. Investigation and Analysis of Lead-in in Primary School English Class

3.1 Investigation

3.1.1 Objects

This interview and detailed analysis of lead-in was made 1) to investigate whether teachers understand the importance of lead-in; 2）to observe the students’ status in lead-in section; 3) to analyze the problems of lead-in; 4) to make out whether lead-in has a far-reaching impact on students learning English.

3.1.2 Subjects

Ten teachers in Egret Lake Primary School were the subjects for this investigation. They have worked in primary school more than one year.

3.1.3 Methods, Materials and Stages

The investigation project was interviews containing three questions:1)Do you have a lead-in section at the beginning of each class? 2) How long you will spend conducting the lead-in section? 3) Do you put the emphasis on students’ status in the class when you conduct the lead-in section?

Before the interview, I made full preparation: I selected the interviewees, determined the appointment of the interview, defined the purpose of the interview, listed the interview points, wrote the interview outline, talked with them in simple and unadorned language during the interview, and made them naturally give me true answers. After the interview, I sorted out the content of the interviews and analyzed the interviews results.

The investigation started on 5^thApril, 2019 and ended on the same day. Then the collection of interviews was completed and statistics from them were counted.

3.1.4 Results

The data collected from this investigation show that the teachers’ awareness of lead-in is far from being entirely developed.

First of all, I interviewed ten English teachers in primary school about the lead-in in classroom teaching and recorded it in detail. I selected three typical notes from the record. The statistical results showed that one of the ten teachers did not have a lead-in section, accounting for 10 % of the total number of the interviewees. Five teachers said that there would be a lead-in link in teaching, accounting for 50 % of all interviews. Four more teachers expressed their uncertainty. However, there must be a design of the lead-in link in the open class, but the usual and normal class will seldom have the lead-in, sometimes not. This accounts for 40 % of the people interviewed. From the analysis of the results, we can see that some teachers can recognize the importance of lead-in and use it. Such a classroom must be active. However, some teachers are still unsure of lead-in, accounting for 50 %. This shows that no use of lead-in to attract students’ undefined attention will make the class dull and boring to the study of students.

Secondly, I interviewed and recorded the issue of lead-in time, and select 4 interview cases to explain. Six of the ten teachers interviewed said the lead-in section was simple. It costs 1-2 minutes or beyond three minutes, accounting for 60 % of the interviewees. Two teachers said they would lead in within three minutes, accounting for 20 % of the total number of interviewees. One of the teachers said there would be no lead-in which means there is no time to cost, accounting for 10 % of the total number of interviewees. Finally, a teacher said that in the review lead-in or game lead-in and other interactive lead-in, the time with students will be longer, usually more than five minutes. It accounts for 10 % of the people interviewed. From the analysis of interview records, some teachers on the issue of lead-in time is not accurate. However, teachers should pay attention to control the lead-in time, generally within three minutes or the best five minutes. From the interview results, only 60 % of the teachers’ lead-in time is reasonable and effective.

Finally, I conducted an interview to record the importance of student status in the process of lead-in. Among the ten English teachers interviewed, six teachers put emphasis on students’ status in the lead-in section. It accounts for 60 % of the total number of interviewees. Two teachers think that teachers should teach students knowledge in the books and they ignore the status of students. It accounts for 20% of the total number of interviewees. The other 2 teachers think that the subjective status of students has some relationships between the teaching material and the teaching content. It accounts for 20% of the total number of interviewees. Through the analysis of interview data, it is concluded that 60% of teachers will guide students to actively take part in the process of lead-in. 20% of teachers will reasonably design the lead-in section with the teaching contents of this class. 20% of teachers will hurriedly lead in the new teaching content. They think that too much activity in the classroom will influence the progress of their teaching content.

3.2 Analysis of Lead-in in Primary School English Class

3.2.1 Theoretical basis

3.2.1.1 Constructivism learning theory

Its representatives are Piaget, Vikorski, Kornberg and so on. Constructivism learning theory has a far-reaching impact on the teaching reform of every discipline. Constructivism learning theory can guide English teaching mainly in the following aspects: learning cognition: Constructionists believe that knowledge is not the only-accurate representation of reality and objective law. It is only an explanation of the world, or an assumption of problem-solving, which is not necessarily correct and definite. But guesswork, falsified. The world exists objectively, but because of the different experiences of each person, the meaning and understanding of the formation to the world are not always the same.

In the ways of learning, Constructivism theory learning emphasizes on the interaction and cooperation of learners. Learners should positively take part in the learning process. This puts forward the requirement for learners to complete the learning task through the interactive means of conversational negotiation. Teachers teach knowledge and give guidance to the students. Also, teachers put forward requirements for teaching, teachers should correctly understand the main position of students, encourage and guide them to think positively, and participate in classroom activities. Teachers should help and guide them, instead of simply teaching content in the traditional way.

3.2.1.2 Humanism learning theory

Humanism is a school of psychology that rose in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Maslow and Rogers are the main representatives who gave rise to the development of humanism learning theory. The basic view of humanistic psychology is to put the emphasis on students’ undefined autonomous learning. It holds that learners should be the core in the process of learning. It is necessary to encourage learners to think actively, construct the meaning of knowledge independently, and try to learn self-regulated learning. Humanism, on the one hand, emphasizes the subjective status of learners, on the other hand, it also attaches importance to the leading role of teachers. The two interact and promote each other. Humanism also stresses self-realization. It believes that there are personality differences due to the difference of people’ undefined knowledge level, interests, habits, receptivity and so on. This enlightens teachers to teach according to their aptitude, to create a free and open learning environment for students, to meet the needs of personality development, and to promote their own development. Humanistic learning theory pays more attention to the relationship between teachers and students. It believes that teachers and students should form a good and harmonious relationship between teachers and students. This is good to the expression and development of students’ undefined personality.

Humanistic learning theory has a famous basic hypothesis: every normal person is like a seed, as long as the right environment can be given, it will take root, grow up and bloom and bear fruit. In this theory, everyone is compared to a seed. The seed will grow in the right environment and mature to bloom and fruit. Also, human development is the same. Everyone has a desire for self-realization., and learning is the way to achieve self-development. Therefore, the enlightenment of this hypothesis to learners is to create a benificial and open learning atmosphere for learners, to respect the learners to understand the world in their own way, to perceive things in the world, and to form an individual’s undefined unique understanding and values of the world. Humanistic learning theory holds that human learning is not only the accumulation of knowledge memory and experience, but also the process of forming a sound personality, forming its own unique character and discovering its own characteristics.

As to the viewpoint of teaching design in humanistic learning theory, humanism learning theory emphasizes the development of personality in terms of teaching objectives. Therefore, teachers should respect students’ undefined self-development in the process of teaching, provide a good environment for their development, and help students achieve self-realization. In addition, humanism also pay attention to the creative development of human beings. This enlightens the teacher to encourage the student to innovate.

Humanistic learning theory also emphasizes on students’ undefined direct experience in teaching content. Rogers believes that learners can not only be influenced by the environment. Learners can initiate their own learning wishes and appeal to their own learning contents freely, so that learning can really become their own learning. Therefore, the enlightenment to teachers is that in the aspect of things in teaching, teachers should create a real learning environment related to the teaching curriculum, stimulate the learners’ undefined intrinsic learning motivation, promote their active learning, and truly become the master of learning.

In the traditional education and teaching, "teaching" is emphasized, that is, the teacher teaches the students to learn something they consider as the important point. Students’ undefined study relies entirely on the teachers’ teaching. Humanism emphasizes the "free development" of students. The emphasis on education and teaching should be the result of both teachers’ undefined and students’ undefined endeavor. Teachers should teach students knowledge in the book, but they should also teach students how to learn. Rogers put forward the idea of letting students develop freely. He explained "freedom" by saying that freedom is not an external giving, but an internal quality that individual’s undefined understanding of himself is a process of display which makes one dare to dabble in the unknown and the uncertainty of the field, the courage to make their own choice. The teaching process should create a safe psychological environment for students as Rogers advocated, so that students can release themselves and develop freely in this environment. And free development is the condition and guaranteed to realize personal value. Teachers should recognize this and provide a free and easy learning atmosphere for learners. Learn to accept differences and encourage students to develop their personalities. What’s more, teachers help students to adapt to external ability and understanding.

3.2.2 Problems

In primary school English teaching, there are various problems of lead-in. The major problems are that teachers often ignore the importance of lead-in. They just finish the lead-in section as a part of the class, but not the footing stone for students to learn English well. What’s more, Even they realize the significance of lead-in, for convenience, they also use the mechanical ways to display this section, especially stereotyped methods. In addition, most teachers have no idea of time. They finish the lead-in section only in one minute or even in ten minutes. In the primary school English class, there are many problems. It does harm to teacher, and also to the students who are at the beginning of learning English. These major problems are discussed below with some typical examples.

3.2.2.1 Unclear purposes

The teachers generally design the lead-in, no matter what content the students study, what the students’ undefined emotional state is, and no matter what the teaching goal of the class is, they all use the first few minutes at the beginning of the class to blindly introduce it. This kind of classroom lead-in is just a mere formality and is of little help to students’ undefined English learning. Aimless lead-in is ineffective. Some teachers are not clear about the students’ undefined original level of knowledge with the content that they communicate with the students during the act of lead-in, or the contents are far beyond the students’ undefined existing level, which leads to the anxiety of the students as soon as they have the class, affecting their learning interests and emotions. Some teachers’ undefined lead-in and teaching content are seriously disjointed. Even some teachers design the lead-in part only in order to make the class teaching completed, which is not conducive to the completion of classroom teaching tasks.

3.2.2.2 Stereotyped methods

At the point of present situation, most teachers tend to use the lead-in to review the content they taught in last class, and always use this static way. Students will worry about the dictation, read and recite before English class, so that they will be anxious about English learning and have the emotion of being fear of English.

Teachers usually design the lead-in part when preparing lessons, but the real classroom situation is unpredictable. Only when the lead-in is based on the students’ undefined reality, can it truly reflect the value of preparing for the new course. Therefore, in order to overcome the current dull problems, teachers need to have a sense of contingency, actively prepare before class, and implement lead-in flexibly in the classroom at the same time.

3.2.2.3 Extremely long time

The time of lead-in should not be too long. The role of the lead-in in the class is to inspire the students’ undefined relevant background knowledge. In addition, to increase the students’ undefined interest in something new and to prepare for the class. Therefore, the time occupied by the lead-in in a class should not be too long, if it is too long, it will make the time of the new content decrease, the time of the lead-in is obviously inappropriate. Some teachers spend too much time on lead-in introducing new topics, 1/4 of the class has passed, but teachers are still talking about marginal topics with their students. There are many reasons, for example, some teachers’ repeatedly talk occupied a lot of time, some because teachers worry about the activation of old knowledge and the review is not enough, so they will put more emphasis on reviewing. However, if the lead-in part takes too much time, it will affect the implementation process of the whole class, and ultimately affect the effective completion of the teaching tasks.

4. Strategies of Improving Lead-in in Primary School English Class

4.1 Focusing on teaching objectives

Teachers need to carry out the lead-in part with the actual teaching objectives, and closely focus on the specific teaching objectives, based on the students’ undefined reality, pay attention to the effectiveness of lead-in, target the process of design and implementation of the lead-in part. The contents of lead-in should serve the teaching content. The teacher should not only serve for the purpose of lead-in when designing the lead-in part, the activity or language should also serve to elicit new knowledge, so the goal of the lead-in should be clear. Some teachers introduce activities while there is a lot of unnecessary waste, resulting in the inefficiency of learning. For some difficult topics, teachers can introduce these topics directly. It sometimes may be much more effective.

According to the real situation of students in class, teachers need to show their educational wit by observing the situation to adapt to the situation, construct concrete learning contents and introduce the lead-in flexibly. The content of lead-in should have some connections with the students’ life, make students have words to talk and want to talk. It can stimulate students’ undefined interest in new knowledge. The ways of lead-in should be various, and the lead-in should be reasonable arranged. Take the characteristics of primary school students into account and introduce them in a flexible way so as not to make children become tired and distracting.

4.2 Setting different ways of lead-in

Different classes have different ways of lead-in, the class of teaching new knowledge pays more attention to the relationship between the former and present. What’s more, we should pay attention to the link between the preceding and the following, and take care of the front and back. When it comes to the class of reviewing, it focuses on the analysis and comparisons, much more emphases are put on summing up, forming knowledge system and improving English ability. Therefore, we should use different ways of lead-in and take the advantages of the lead-in part in primary school English class. It breaks through the traditional ideas, innovates the way of English lead-in, pursues the new and interesting methods and focuses on the transformative application of different ways of lead-in. It can give students a fresh and refreshing feeling, effectively avoid students’ undefined audiovisual fatigue, attract students’ undefined attention quickly, stimulate students’ undefined desire for knowledge, and improve the effect of the lead-in in English class.

4.2.1 Leading in by old knowledge

Modern cognitive psychology holds the view that the process of students’ undefined learning is the process of connecting former with present ideas. Learning without the influence of the original cognitive structure does not exist. If there is no old knowledge as the basis, students’ undefined new knowledge will be impossible to talk about. The main purpose of introducing new knowledge through organizing students to review the old knowledge is to help students activate the original knowledge background and the relevant life experience and to prepare effectively for the learning of new knowledge.

4.2.2 Leading in by games

Games often occur in children’s undefined daily learning and life. In every stage of their undefined growth and development, they can develop in physical, mental and some social aspects. According to the teaching content, teachers should carefully design various forms of games, which can activate students’ undefined existing knowledge and skills, stimulate their undefined intrinsic learning motivation, and make students unconsciously integrate into the new class. At the same time, teachers and students can also experience the happiness of the game and achieve good relationships. The design and development of the game should be closely related to what we want to teach and the rules of the game should be easy, so that students can think about some problems themselves in the process of the game.

4.2.3 Leading in by free talks

We can lead in by talking freely. Context is an important basis for the effective use of language and utterance. It can help students understand the content and the form of language intuitively and effectively, and stimulate their interests in learning English if we put the students in the context of our designed lead-in. There are a lot of texts and dialogues in primary school English textbooks, such as shopping, telephone calls, asking for directions, etc. These topics and scenes are relevant to the reality of students and they are all short in length. It is beneficial for students to use their knowledge and apply them to deal with problems in reality. In the design of teaching, teachers and students can vividly reproduce the teaching contents through activities and tasks of communicating, so that students can perceive the meaning, usage and function of the new language materials in a certain context. The teacher can let the students have a dialogue in groups of two or the monitor can put forward the topic, then the students can convey their views to each other freely, or they can report in groups, or they can do it by the way of competition. The content is unlimited, and the topic can be weather, time, date, daily activities, news, or topics which students are interested in.

4.2.4 Leading in by singing songs

Organizing the students to sing songs which are related to the teaching theme before the presentation of the new class can make them feel relaxed and joyful, and guide the students into a happy mood. There are rich contents, beautiful rhythm and harmonious melody in English songs, which can activate and mobilize students’ undefined thinking and imagination, making students think actively under the stimulation of music, and acquiring knowledge in the process of singing and performing songs. Teachers can let students sing English songs before learning new knowledge, which suits the theme of language teaching and the teaching environment. It can not only make the students enjoy their senses, but also improve their pronunciation. They can also prepare for their in-depth understanding of the textbook.

4.3 Reducing the time of lead-in

The most appropriate time for lead-in is usually 3 to 5 minutes. The design of the language of the lead-in should be concise and accurate, which can be completed in a short time and improve the efficiency of classroom teaching to the maximum extent. It will make students enter the better state of classroom teaching in the fastest time and create a relaxed classroom atmosphere.

5. Conclusion

The thesis analyses the problems in lead-in in primary school English class, the advantages and disadvantages of the lead-in play a key role in the learning effect of the whole class.

The thesis provides evidence for the idea that lead-in has a far-reaching impact on teachers’ professional development as well as student’s language learning. So English teaching in current primary school is inseparable from the lead-in section.

However, there still exists many problems as I mentioned above. Unclear purposes, stereotyped methods and the control of the time are obvious problems which are shown in the lead-in section. Although many teachers have summed up a lot of lead-in methods through a lot of teaching practice, there is no definite method of "guiding lessons" yet.

As to how to improve the lead-in section in primary school English class, the thesis suggests three aspects of how to lead in—by old knowledge, songs and free talk. In this way, primary school students can really be interested in learning such a foreign language, understand how to learn English, and finally help teachers achieve the goal of a successful lead-in.

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