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A Study of Senior English Classroom Interaction in Urban Ordinary High Schools

Author: XieXueHua
Tutor: XieZeRong
School: Hunan Normal University
Course: Education
Keywords: classroom interaction English classroom urban ordinary high schools problems measures
CLC: G633.41
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 347
Quote: 2
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Abstract

Classroom interaction is the face-to-face interpersonal interactive activity taking place both between the teachers and the students and among the students themselves. Only through it can classroom teaching be efficient. Therefore an efficient classroom interaction is regarded as the key to the success of classroom teaching. It is far from satisfactory as far as the result of our English teaching, especially in urban ordinary senior high schools ( compared with urban key senior high schools ), which is concerned by the author’s investigation. The reasons for it are of many types, which involve the factors on teachers, students, learning environment and the current evaluation methods. Most of senior English teachers in China have long been influenced by traditional teaching ideas. They still adopt teacher-centered and text-centered classroom teaching methods. Students are just passive receivers. Senior English classroom teaching is low in efficiency and students’ overall skills can not be fully developed and improved. How to change this current situation and promote classroom teaching efficiency by improving classroom interaction becomes very urgent to English teachers at present. This thesis aims to solve the current problems existing in senior English interaction classroom in urban ordinary high school (UOHS) guided by the four theories ( Widdowson’ s communicative approach theory, Long’ s interaction theory, Swain’s output theory and Piaget’ s constructivism theory), and then improve classroom teaching efficiency.The author conducted an investigation on 100 students and 20 English teachers from two urban ordinary high schools in Changsha through questionnaire and classroom observation, and then combined the author’s teaching experience to find out some common problems existing in UOHS. The results are as follows: First, traditional teaching ideas, academic level and classroom teaching style; Second, English foundation, motivation for learning English and personalities; Third, non-English teaching environment, big-class teaching; Fourth, the current evaluation methods.In view of existing problems, the author put forward the following hypothesized measures from the angles of English teachers, students, English learning environment and evaluation system: 1) Changing their roles and update teaching ideas, create teacher-student democracy relationship and combine supportive teacher talk and classroom interaction; 2) Paying attention to students’ personalities, help them overcome language anxiety and create positive companion interaction influence; 3) Creating a relaxing and positive classroom interaction atmosphere, organize proper heterogeneous cooperative learning group; 4) Creating proper evaluation methods.To test whether the measures above are practical and valid in improving and promoting senior English classroom interaction in UOHS, a teaching experiment was made on 82 students from two parallel classes in Yuelu Experimental School of Foreign Languages in Changsha (that is, No.28 Middle School of Changsha). It aimed to find out students’ English learning situation and what effects classroom interaction teaching had on students’ English learning through pretest, posttest and a questionnaire. The experiment lasted a term. After the experiment, the author collected and analyzed the data by adopting SPSS software. The data showed the results of pretest and posttest made a big difference in the experimental class, while made no difference in the controlled class. In addition, the investigation indicated that students’ English learning situation and attitudes had changed much more than that before the experiment.From the results of the experiment, conclusions can be drawn. Classroom interaction guided by the hypothesized measures above is very beneficial to language learning. It can promote students’ overall language skills and develop students’ non-linguistic competence; It can greatly improve the current language environment and optimize the current classroom interaction, which in turn will encourage students to learn more actively and effectively.

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CLC: > Culture, science,education, sports > Education > Secondary education > Subjects teaching methods, teaching aids > Foreign language > English
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