This research paper concentrates on the development of the students’ potentialities in English teaching. With the help of psychology and modern teaching theories, the paper takes up new view on English teaching. To support this point of view, the paper develops into five parts: The first part is the introduction; The second part deals with several interactive factors which are associated with the students’ potentialities; The third part presents some effective teaching strategies including discussion and pairwork and groupwork in English teaching, which can help to develop students’ potentialities; The fourth part focuses on the points that the teacher ought to change the students’ idea on English teaching through their efforts; The fifth part is the conclusion. It stresses that the development of the students’ potentialities must be developed with all these efforts.
Key words: potentialities, motivation, group work, strategies , pair work
On Developing the Students’ Potentialities in English Teaching
Introduction
As is known to all, it is a century full of competitions now, and the competitions are getting more and more heated with the introduction of High-tech, and the entry of WTO. The faster our country develops, the more urgent and demanding for our English teaching, so the teacher ought to change the idea and strategy from the exam-oriented education to the quality-oriented education in order to meet the need of modern education and the society. We also know that the basic task of the quality education is to cause the students’ basic quality to be developed fully and harmoniously. According to the educational policy and the principles of the youths’ body soul and basic demands of the English teaching, the teacher should keep in mind that the purpose of studying English is to improve the students’ ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing besides widening and strengthening the students’ knowledge. So it is demanded that the teachers have to arouse the students’ enthusiasm of studying English and try to develop their potentialities of English study and improve their ability of using knowledge in order to lay a good foundation for further studying and life –long study after they leave school.
Someone may ask what the capability is. It is a kind of psychological traits which can affect the efficiency of actions and cause the task to be done smoothly. It is formed and developed in the practical actions and it also lies in the concrete ones. what can we do to develop the potentialities according to the idea of capability? It is shown that the potentialities are in the close connection with other factors. Now the following is some suggestions.
ⅠCorresponding factors to develop the students’ potentialities
A: The importance of motivation in English teaching and learning
As an educator, the teacher ought to attract the students’ attention and take initiative position firstly. The various theoretical perspectives on motivation that we have discussed so far have been mainly concerned with what students bring to the learning situation, and how different tasks affect a student’s motivation. However, the realities of language learning in schools is that learning tasks are generally introduced by another person, most often the teacher. Two main factors can be seen as contributing to the students’ motivation to participate in these activities.
The first is the personality or nature of the teacher introducing the activity. All students are likely to be influenced by their personal feelings about their teacher, and therefore, the interactions that occur between them and their teachers will undoubtedly affect the students’ motivation to learn.
The second is the way in which the teacher presents the activities and works with the student during the completion of that activity. If the teachers want students to become absorbed in the task they set them, it is important to provide an appropriate challenge as well as helping the students to plan appropriate strategies to meet these challenges. Thus the role of the teachers is important at all stages of teaching process.
On the other hand, the key problem is how to strengthen the training of the students’ reading and writing as well as solving the problem on listening and speaking. So the teachers can’t only teach the students as the book says . They should adopt some effective strategies to attract the students and make sure that the students feel English language interesting gradually.
How should teaches act to motivate students best? It has already been stressed that this must involve more than notions of arousing interest. In order to set powerful motivating conditions, teachers should speak excellent English and try to become the admirers of the students, then make their intentions clear to make sure that these are understood. Apart from this, the teachers are supposed to explain clearly how performing such activities will be helpful elsewhere. At last, the teachers should help students take control of their own learning and see their own learning goals, and then there must be a greater chance that the students will be motivated to learn. At the same time, they need to be aware of the importance of helping the students to develop an internal sense of control as well as feelings of effectiveness in their abilities to carry out any kind of learning tasks. The simplest way to show this point is the following two ways :① The key of the English teaching is that the teacher should make the students understand everything with ease. At first, try to use the regular in-class teaching language, and what’s more, the teachers’ voice should be very gentle, close and clear. As we can see, a student who is very poor at English might change his/her learning habit just because of his/her English teacher’s behaviors.
② The teacher might as well make sure that the students have got a good habit of learning English, letting them control their own study. The specific way requires the students should preview the content that they are going to learn-text, dialogue, and some new words and expressions. As a result, it would be better and easier for them to be familiar with the teaching and learning surroundings, even they may be able to analyse the text, dialogue and new words and expressions which have different meanings in different situations. To some extent, the students may enjoy the beautiful text, or “take the bath” in the foreign culture from the text. Here is an example to confirm this idea: when the teacher teaches the students the word line, making sure the students are familiar with its spelling and pronunciation, the teacher then writes some sentences on the slide show =
1.There is something wrong with the line.
2. A different type of car comes along the line.
3. The road was lined with mulberry trees.
4.You must remember the lines of the dialogue.
5.Standing in front of the straight lines of soldiers.
Now it’s the students’ turn to guess the meaning of the word line in different sentences. After checking the answer, the teacher should give a high praise for their excellent job, and say that words must live in the certain situations. In this way, the students are taught to realize that it is the regularity of English. The teacher should try to encourage the students to master this regularity, which is a good way to study English well. So they can pay much more attention to the regularity little by little. Finally they can achieve the goal of the English study. Apart from this, the students will be sure of themselves that they can understand the teacher, they can understand English, and they have the ability to study English well. All these are really important ones.
Another measure that teacher can take is to instruct the student to learn in more effective ways. As we all know, any kind of study can’t be broken away from the memory. Memory can be divided into mechanical memory and comprehensible memory. When the students study the vocabulary, they only use the mechanical memory. It will be forgotten very easily. So the teacher ought to lead them to learn the knowledge according to the comprehensible memory. Try to let the students recognize that there is no possibility of their remembering the new words very well if they remember the new words without any connections. Especially when your vocabulary is increasing little by little. So the teacher might as well teach the students like this: Correct the students’ pronunciation. (Because the proper pronunciation has an effect on the spelling, the more exactly they can pronounce the words, the easier they may feel to remember them.). You can lead them to read a lot and spell a lot with the cards of syllable, and then correct their pronunciations and classify them at the same time. Make the students improve their own ability of reading and spelling according to the cause of research. And it can consolidate the vocabulary by making phrases and sentences orally. For example, the verb study, just practise it continuously:
I am studying/You are studying/ We are studying together. With this kind of practice, the students can not only strengthen the pattern drills they have learnt and practise the students’ spoken English, but also improve their sensitivity of thinking. If the students can follow the teacher and insist on studying English in this way, their potentialities will be developed day by day.
B: The implementing role of teachers played in English teaching and learning
The teacher must be able to arouse the students’ active feelings and remove or restrain their inactive feeling. The students’ feeling should be brought under scientific control, and their mood information and reaction should be put into the control that the teachers have carefully made.
The teacher must try to make the students show great interest in learning English. It can make the students in high spirits and have competence to develop their interest in English. Not only can the students’ interest in English be transferred into the motive for learning, but also it can develop the students’ potentialities and intelligence, so their study can be promoted. On the contrary, some students have lost their interest in their work, learning English would become an unpleasant thing or a burden to them. Owing to this, the teacher must have the ability to create the atmosphere or situation where the students will be active in English teaching to make sure that the students can have the chances to use English more, and they can get happiness from using it. For example, when the students have extracurricular activities, the teacher can ask some students in classⅠto classⅡ. Ask them to talk something on how to study English and the skills of remembering the new words in English orally. The students in class I are so active that the teacher can not only arouse the students in class I but also enhance the atmosphere of study in classⅡ.
Apart form this, the teacher should make use of spare time to go outside. Suppose the teacher together with the students visits the old building. Pay attention to the situation (facing the south) and the time when it was built (during the Qing dynasty). Then the teacher can tell them something about it. According to it (form their own observation to deep thought of writing), the teacher not only help to improve the students’ ability of analysing and understanding, but also the students’ writing level can be improved. In addition to this, the teacher can encourage the students to make scene dialogue, to ask the students on duty to report the weather conditions, and to encourage them to make pen-friends with the students of English speaking countries and so on. All above just shows that the students’ interests are very easy to arouse if you take some measures to create the proper situations.
C: The treatment of the students’ errors
The teacher ought to pay more attention to the feedback of the students and treat their errors properly. Having finished a lesson, the teacher is sure to make the proper homework to the students, including spoken English practice, exercises and writing. The most important thing is that the teacher should solve the problems that may come about in class. Don’t let it be or allow students to step out of the classroom with any questions, however, how the teacher corrects the mistakes and solves them is a kind of art as well. The students are sure to make the same mistakes more or less.
As the educational psychologists show correction helps students to clarify their understanding of the meaning and construction of language. It is a vital part of the teacher’s role, but precisely because it involves pointing out people’s mistakes, they have to be careful when correcting since, if the teachers do it in an insensitive way, they can upset the students and dent their confidence. What is appropriate for one student may be quite wrong for another one. So the teacher might as well take some suitable measures to correct the students’ errors. For example, when the students are retelling a story according to the text they learnt, they may make some mistakes because of their nervousness or carelessness. To such kind of mistakes, the teacher ought to be lenient, and not to intercept them which is only to increase their nervousness . Some errors are made because of their unskillfulness. To such kind of mistakes, the teacher can give them a hint and let them correct it themselves, and then praise them in time. Other mistakes must be corrected, such as the grammatical errors and the ones which are not suitable for expressing habit. Here is an example that can show students being corrected during the practice phrase of the study session on comparatives.
Li Ming: Trains are safer planes.
Teacher: Safer planes? (with surprised questioning intonation)
Li Ming: Oh …….Trains are safer than planes.
Teacher: Good, Li Ming, next word “comfortable”..Han Mei, can you?
Han Mei: Trains more comfortable, planes are.
Teacher: Hmm. Can you help Han Mei, Li Lei?
Li Lei: Trains are more comfortable than planes.
Teacher: Thank you, Han Mei?
In this example the teacher points out that something was wrong by echoing what Li Ming said with a questioning intonation and he immediately corrected himself. Han Mei was not able to do this, so the teacher got Li Lei to help her. As a result of that correcting method, the students can be encouraged to answer some questions actively. So the teachers need to listen out for mistakes, identify the problem and put it right in the most efficient and tactful way. It is just as important to praise students for their success as it is to correct them when they fail. Teachers can show their satisfaction, encouraging words and noises (“good” “well done” “fantastic” etc.) when students are doing really well.
Ⅱ The effective teaching strategies adopted in English teaching to develop the students’ potentialities
During the course of English teaching, the teacher should change the dull English into creative one, so it is beneficial to the students’ interest in learning to change the teaching methods continuously thus to develop their potentialities. That is to say, according to the purpose of English teaching, the teachers ought to pay attention to develop the students’ potentialities by using many kinds of teaching methods.
You will have no appetite if you eat a certain kind of delicious food every day. The same way, the students will become tired of your teaching if you use same teaching methods every class, even if it is completely perfect. So we often say there are some methods for teaching but there are no fixed ones. The teachers have to use various kinds of teaching forms to make their teaching task fulfilled, for example, story telling, showing slides, listening to the tapes, having interesting competitions and role plays, and singing English songs. All these forms can help to make our lecture interesting and lively, and they can also attract the students. Here are some examples to confirm this conclusion:
A: Discussion: That is the best way to arouse the students’ inspire to speak in the heated discussion, nobody even the most timid students can show their opinion without hesitation. The teacher should choose reasonable topics for the students to discuss. For example, when the teacher teaches “Body language” and “Charlie Chaplin”, the students show great interests in it. So the teacher offers them more time to discuss body language and Charlie Chaplin, who has been considered to be the greatest and funniest actor in the history of the film in English. It is demanded that each should have their own thesis together with their imitative into actions. The students talk about something from the body language to the differences between the western and the eastern knowledge together with the customs, and the music and the film which they like best. Some students also introduce the popular songs, the singers, the films and the film stars in China or foreign countries.
In order to fit for the students’ psychology and according to the educational principles which encourage them to take part in it, and also according to the teaching the teachers can let them understand that studying English is not to speak with foreigners, but to treat it as a kind of science (a language science). We should learn it with a scientific attitude. Once the students’ interests of studying English are aroused, the problem that English is difficult to teach will be solved easily. And the potentialities of the students’ will be developed easily.
B: Pairwork and Groupwork
1. In big classes, it is difficult for the teacher to make contact with the students at the back of the classroom and it is difficult for the students to receive individual attention. It may seem impossible to organize dynamic and creative teaching and learning session. Frequently, big classes mean that it is not easy to have students walking around or changing pairs etc. In that case, there are things that teachers can do, among which pairwork and groupwork are the next point we are gong to discuss:
Pairwork and groupwork have become increasingly popular in language teaching, in which the students perform a learning task through small group interaction. In big class, pairwork and groupwork play important part as they maximize students’ participation. So the students in a class who are divided into five groups get five times as many opportunities to talk as in full-class organization. Then how can we make full use of pairwork and groupwork to foster the students’ independence and potentialities?
When using pairwork and groupwork in big class, it is important to make instructions clear, and to make the students give a good feedback to the teacher. Apart from this, the teacher should take seating arrangement as a consideration to make the class vivid. We can use various form ranging from separate tables, orderly rows, and other form. Owing to these seating form, the teacher can organize a lot of activities such as discussion role-play debate, stories-telling etc. In a word, it will be easier to make the whole class vivid and lively.
2. Pairwork and groupwork will help to provoke quiet students into talking. When they are together with one or perhaps two or three other students, they are not under so much pressure as they are if asked to speak in front of the whole class. So getting students to act out dialogues is one way of encouraging quiet students. Many teachers have found that quiet students speak more freely when they are playing a role --- when they do not have to be themselves in other words. One of most effective ways of pairwork is role-play, in which students are asked to imagine that they are in different situations and act accordingly. Give an example: When learning the text, “Diamond Necklace”. The teacher doesn’t just lead the students to practise the dialogue but makes up a play for them to act, and asks every one to take part in it and practise it like actors and actresses. He may design four scenes together with some pictures and some music. The teacher and students regard the blackboard as the screen and prepare some stage properly. They will all be very happy to take part in it and achieve good result.
The teacher may also tell them to play roles like being guests at a party or travel agents answering customer questions, and then the teacher gives the students feedback. Meanwhile, the students can show their own opinion on others’ performance. At the same time the students can be encouraged to learn from each other to gain their improvement.
All above can draw a conclusion that a teacher should grasp the psychology of students’, and try to change our teaching method with the varieties of the students’ psychological features. So the students’ potentialities must be developed smoothly.
Ⅲ The necessity to change the students’ idea on English teaching
The teacher should try their best to change the students’ old idea about learning English. And try to introduce proper feedback that can be given by means of praise, by any relevant comment or action or by silence.
A: The analysis of the students’ old idea and the resolutions
In order to change the present situation of English teaching and learning, and foster the potentialities of the students to the furthest extent in language learning, the teachers should do their best to change the students’ idea. It seems that English is very strange to the students and they do not know what they learn English for. The students know Chinese and Math are important and practical to them, because they will need these elementary subjects no matter what they will do later on. But, as to English, they just have a vague understanding. The only reason for them to learn is to get higher score in the entrance exam that they can get chances to go to universities or colleges. As far as this is concerned, the teacher should help students make clear that English is not only a kind of knowledge but also a tool with the globalization of the world. The entry to WTO, the bid of 2008 Olympic Games and some other interactions with other countries abroad need English. This should be the motivation of English learning.
The teachers can also order some newspaper like English Weekend, English Learning, English World etc. for them to get in touch with these kinds of simple English material. Anything will be better solved after arousing their enthusiasm and correcting their purpose. In a word, the teacher should try their best to create the harmonious situation for the students to study English.
B: The application of rewards and punishments
The application of rewards and punishments, namely, positive and negative comments are often considered to be excellent for the students who are underachieving or reluctant. It should be emphasized here that the potentially negative effects of rewards and praise are more likely to occur when initial interest in an activity is high and when extrinsic motivators are superfluous and unnecessary. They are less likely to occur when rewards are seen as “bonuses” rather than “bribes’, when they convey clear and accurate messages about high competence at an activity in which there is a natural relationship between performance on a task and positive, rewarding outcomes.
Ⅳ Conclusion:
As is known to all, good teachers are able to use different ways for different activities. While they do this, they will monitor which is more successful and why, so that they can always seek to be more effective. If the teachers are full of energy, enthusiasm, patience and responsibility, they can do anything well, which is the same with the students. But the problem is where enthusiasm and responsibility come from. They come from successful experience, from the various forms of managing teaching and learning, from the all-round knowledge you have, and from the best understanding of the students’ feature. All these can help students esteem themselves properly, thus, the students can realize that they have enough potentialities to learn and study. It is the fact that the teacher should keep them in mind all the time. So let’s do it hand in hand with the students, being their teacher, being their friends to find the ability from them, lend them our hands with our praise and recognitions.
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