A Study on Improving Middle School Students’Oral Ability

My name is Liu Chun Yan. I graduated from Lanzhou Foreign Languages Vocational Colleagues July， 2007. I majored in English Education when I was in college. I spent most of time learning English and got a lot of knowledge from my major. Luckily， my dream came true in October， 2007. I became a middle school teacher. From then on， I have worked for Ma Ying School as an English teacher in Ma Ying Country. I teach the students who are in Class Two and Four at Grade Seven in this term. Unluckily， most of students are shy and afraid of speaking English in classroom. So how to improve their spoken English becomes a problem which should be solved as soon as possible. My problem is how to improve their speaking ability.

The teacher side

* I speak English very quickly and sometimes I give some instructions unclearly.

* Maybe I dont frequently read in front of them so that they cant speak English well.

* I am lack of designing oral practice for them after class.

* In order to improve test marks， I usually teach them grammar and analyze passages， the students only need to remember or write notes down， but they do not do a lot of oral practice in class.

* I do not pay attention to using dialogues in the textbook， so they are poor in oral practice.

The students side：

* My students couldnt dare to speak English. Most of students might be frightened to add something new or offer different answers because other students laughed at their mistakes. Some good students thought that they dont prepare well enough to speak. If they dont speak fluently and accurately.

The teaching equipment：

* My school is in poor condition and cant afford modern equipment to my teaching. I just used a tape recorder which didnt have good quality and students at the back of classroom couldnt hear the listening material clearly.

I should help the students realize that learning is a collaborative endeavor and not a competitive one. They can learn from each other and help each other， especially in speaking， as it is not a skill they can practice on their own.

If students spoken English ability is expected to be developed， various oral activities must be done. Besides， practice must be enough.

Activity 1

This activity is based on middle School English Book 1， Unit 4“Where is my backpack？”

Purpose： to practice how to ask question and answer in English.

Instructions： Students learn the words and patterns of describing and asking for things. Then they work in groups to act out the dialogues in classroom.

Procedures：

Step 1： I present some things of backpack， pencil， book， ruler， chair， desk， drawer and so on and asks students to review their names.

Step 2： I put these objects on different places and ask students where these objects are. Then I ask students to talk about the position by introducing the prepositions， such as in， on， under etc.

Step 3： I make a conversation with one of the students to present the new drills below：

T： Where is your pencil？

S： My pencil is in the drawer.

T： where is your backpack？

S： It is on the desk。

T： where is your ruler？

S： It is under the chair.

Step 4： I invite some students to come to the platform， and put the objects in the different places according to my orders.

Step 5： Five groups are invited to perform in front of class.

Step 6： I summarize what we have mainly learned in class and reminds them of what they should focus on.

Step 7： Homework： Recite this period words by your heart.

Conclusion

From this project Ive learned that students oral interest can be improved by varied teaching activities and techniques. In the future， I will try to use more interesting teaching ways to help students speak English. I believe I can make lots of students like to practice oral English.

References：

[1]Gu Yueguo，2005，English Language Teaching Methodology，Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

【作者簡介】刘春燕，甘肃省陇南市武都区马营初级中学。