On Improving Middle School Students’ Ability of Speaking English

贾红霞

【Abstract】This paper starts with the introduction of the importance of speaking English for middle school students.Then it introduces several main factors that affect the Chinese middle school students ability of speaking English， which includes the reasons about both the English teachers and middle school students themselves.At last， the paper suggests several ways to improve the middle school students ability of speaking English.

【Key words】the ability of speaking English， middle school students

【摘要】本文首先介绍了中国中学生学习英语口语的重要性。之后从几个方面分析了当前影响初中生英语口语能力的主要因素，其中包括老师的因素和学生自身的因素。最后本文相应的提出了几种提高初中生英语口语能力的方法以提高初中生的英语口语能力。

【关键词】口语能力 中学生

Ⅰ.Introduction

Nowadays， English is widely used all over the word，so English learning is very important for the Chinese people， especially for the Chinese middle school students.The ability of speaking English is important for middle school students， and the current middle schools English teaching advocates more to train middle school students speaking ability， so that they can express their feelings and communicate comprehensively with others.

Ⅱ.Factors that affect the middle school students ability of speaking English

1.Factors about the teacher

1.1 Teachers quality.Some of the English teachers in middle school are newly graduated college students who are young and full of energies， they still lack teaching experiences.Some of their pronunciation are not accurate and their spoken English is very poor which has influenced the development of students speaking abilities.There are also some elder English teachers who have the good pronunciation but mainly focus on teaching the students about grammar， language points and reading， ignoring to train students speaking ability.

1.2 The use of traditional teaching method in middle school.Currently， most of the English teachers in middle school still adopt the Grammar-Translation Approach in their English teaching class which is out-of-date.They first make the students learn the alphabet， pronounce the letters， read a word and make sentence.They also ask students to repeat the words and expressions， then explain vocabulary and language points in the texts.They often focus on teaching the students how to put sentences together to form paragraphs and how to analyze sentence structures in details.

1.3 Unequal chance to speak.In most of the Chinese middle school， there are about 50-60 students attending an English lesson.So， each student has very little time to speak.Some students dominate most of the time to speak and win the teachers like.So every time when the English teacher asks some students to speak， they would like to call some “good students” while other so called “bad students” can only speak very little or have no chance to speak at all.So their speaking ability becomes very poor.

2.Factors about the middle school students in learning

2.1.Psychological barriers.Most of the middle school students lack practice and have low ability of speaking English.So， most of them have a sense of inferiority which results in nervousness and anxiety.Another kind of anxiety is created by the environment， where the students are afraid of being criticized by the teacher and being laughed at by their classmates.

2.2 The lack of vocabulary.Most of the middle school students are shy to open their mouth， for they have only a small vocabulary of speaking English.So while speaking， the communication is often interrupted by a word which the students dont know.

Ⅲ.Ways to improve middle school students ability of speaking English.

1.To improve the English teachers professional quality

The development of the professional qualities is the most important part in the making of a good English teacher.First， the English teachers should be creative and resourceful.They should have a wide range of sturdy rudimentary knowledge and some new ideas， so that the students can learn much knowledge from them.Second， the English teachers should speak clearly and have a high level of spoken English and set a good example to the students.Third， the English teachers should have the good pronunciation and intonation which should be pleasant to the ear and always attract the students attention.

2.To build up confidence

Creating a good and positive environment to maximize learning opportunity is crucial for students to build up their confidence and to develop their communicative ability.Only when the students feel confident， will they participate actively in the activities and tasks the teachers design for them； and only by more participation and more practice can they improve their ability of speaking English.

2.1 To choose the topics which are familiar for the middle school students.Choosing the topics which are familiar for the students are important for the students to build up their confidence， because the students are willing to discuss some topics which are familiar for them.

2.2 To correct mistakes properly.The English teachers should pay attention to the way to rectify students mistakes.When the students make some mistakes during the speaking， the teacher should not criticize or scold them seriously， or the students will lose their confidence and they will become nervous when speaking English.

2.3 To organize some extracurricular English activities.Some extracurricular activities should be carried out for improving students speaking and reducing the students anxiety and increase their confidence.The school can invite some native English speakers as their foreign teachers whose pronunciation are accurate， and their teaching methods are novel and can attract the students attention， and motivate their interests in English learning and speaking.The teacher can also organize the English speaking contest， English evening and English corner for English programs and so on.

3.To enlarge the students vocabulary

The words are the building materials of language.There will be no buildings if there are no materials.The students should be encouraged to enlarge their vocabularies.The teacher should let the students remember the words they have learnt and teach the students the way how to remember more words.The students should be encouraged to read and remember the words and master the links between the words through learning the rules of spelling and pronunciation.It is also important to encourage the students to do some readings.Reading can help them know more vocabularies and more native English.The more words they know the wider and easier they communicate.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

In a word， it is quite clear that speaking is very important for both the English teachers in middle school and the middle school students.the middle school students should be patient in learning English， especially learning speaking English.With the help of the English teachers and do more speaking practice， the middle school students ability of speaking English will be greatly improved.

References：

[1]Anderson， A.（1993） Is communicative approach practical for teaching English in China？ Pros and cons.System 21/ 4：471-480.

[2]Wangqiang.A Course in English Language Teaching.Beijing： Higher Education Press， 2006， p157.

[3]Zhang， Zhengdong， Chen， Zhian and Li， Li （eds） （2001） The Status quo and Development of English Language Teaching.Beijing： Peoples Education Press.