A Study of Primary English Teaching in Given Rural Areas in Sichuan四川部分地区小学英语教学研究.doc

本科毕业论文中文题目：四川部分地区小学英语教学研究 外文题目: A Study of Primary English Teaching in Given Rural Areas in Sichuan 院 系 英语学院 专 业 英语（语言文学） 年 级 2009级 学 号 学生姓名 指导教师 结稿日期 2013年5月7日 四川部分地区小学英语教学研究摘要：小学英语课程的普遍开设，旨在让学生学习外语的黄金时期接受正规的训练，为以后的进一步学习打下良好的基础。但是大多数的农村学校是在师资和教学资源匮乏的情况下开设的英语课，这就使得农村小学的英语教学出现了一些问题。如果着眼于全国农村地区，研究难度将会很大。因此，本论文的研究范围已缩小至四川部分地区，针对其小学英教学进行研究。本文首先介绍开设小学英语课程的前提和相关的政策依据；其次，运用心理学以及语言学相关理论分析阐述开设小学英语课程的合理性；再次，结合调查结果分析四川地区小学英语教学问题以及其原因；最后，针对问题提出切实可行的教学策略。调查表明，对于大部分学生而言，小学英语学习实质上是一种负担。关键词：小学英语教学；教学问题；原因；教学策略Primary English Teaching in Given Rural Areas in SichuanAbstract The intention of offering English course in primary schools is to make students receive regular training in the optimal period, and lay a better basis in English learning. But most rural schools start English courses in the absence of teachers and teaching resources, which results in some problems in English teaching in rural primary schools. It is difficult for me to do researches in the whole country, so I just limit the area to Sichuan, and focus on the primary English teaching in given rural areas. Firstly, this article gives an introduction of the preconditions and related strategies for offering English courses to primary students; secondly, it explains the reasonability by the theories in psychology and linguistics; thirdly, based on the survey findings, it analyzes the English teaching problems in Sichuan; lastly, it provides some practical solutions to the problems. The researched done by the writer shows that, for most primary students, learning English is a burden. Key words: primary English teaching; teaching problems; causes; teaching strategyAcknowledgementsFirst and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Professor Zhou Ting, my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my writing teachers, Professor Zhang Congcheng and Zhang Hong, who led me into the world of writing. I am also greatly indebted to the professors and teachers at the Department of English: Ms. Du Hua, Yang Zhiting and Feng Xu, who have great effects on me in the past two years.Third, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. And they have shared with me my worries, frustrations and hopefully my ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this thesis.Last, I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.Contents中文摘要iAbstractiiAcknowledgementsiiiIntroduction1I. Theories for Primary English Teaching4A.Theories in Psychology4B.Theories in Linguistics5II. Research in Primary Schools Teaching7A.Research Approach and Paper Design8B.Analysis of the Problem and Causes81.Students Lack of Interests92.Little Interaction in Classes10a. Lack of Experience11b. Big Scale of Classes123. Single Form of Teaching Approach134. Single Form of Teaching Evaluation17III. Countermeasures and Suggestions18A.Measures Taken by Schools and Teachers181.Greater Focus on Teachers Training and Academic Research192.More Emphasis on English Course203.More Attention to Develop Appropriate Teaching Materials21B.Measures Taken by the Government221.Regulating Students Number of the Class222.Varying the Teaching Evaluation Policy233.Financial Aid24Conclusion26Notes28Bibliography30Appendix33Primary English Teaching in Given Rural Areas in SichuanIntroductionWith the development of technology and frequent communication, the global village has come into being. And bilingual even multilingual communication becomes more and more important. Nowadays, English has become a global language. There is a common view that one is not qualified if he cannot manage English. Just as David Crystal marked in his book, English as a Global Language, that “English is a global language, whether people like it or not, speaking in English or learning it is an unwilling choice”.1 English seems to be a very important part in our daily life. It is one of the most wildly used languages just behind Chinese. And more than 1/2 newspapers and scientific publications are published in English, and 3/4 radio stations broadcast in English.Besides, the international communication in trade, economy and culture has turned into more and more frequent. Facing the rapid change in daily life, and the fast development in technology, it is quiet necessary for one to be equipped with profound knowledge, and foreign language. To some extent, managing English means taking an opportunity to development. Back to the early 20th century, it witnessed the research on the primary English teaching in foreign countries. From then on, the innovation in primary language teaching has caught the attention of the European Economic Community. Later in China, however, the innovation in primary language teaching took place, with smaller scale and less systematic study. It was a single fire that we offered primary English courses in some areas in the 20th century, with limited study in some related fields such as classroom teaching. With the development of the society, it seems more and more important to offer foreign language teaching especially English. In this situation, English pervasion went ahead like wildfire.After the Fifth Plenary Session of the 15th Congress of CPC and the Third National Education Conference, National Ministry of Education, on the basis of summarizing Chinese primary English classes experience by regarding offering primary English classes as the key to implementing the basic education curriculum reform in the 21st century and with the purpose to implement the strategic guiding ideology of “Three Orientations”, introduced the exposure draft of “English Curriculum Criteria” and “The Ministry of Education on Promoting Primary English Curriculum Guidance”, saying that from the autumn of 2001, English courses were gradually set up in primary schools of cities and towns; in the autumn of 2002, the location of township primary schools gradually offered English courses; English is taught from grade three at primary schools.As the important part of educational curriculum, primary teaching in English should be worthy of our attention. China is a large agriculture country with 50.32% rural population among the whole population, according to the population census in 2010. Therefore, we need to attach much more importance to primary English teaching in rural areas. However, the status of most rural areas in our country is different from the developed areas to the underdeveloped areas in many aspects such as the time of opening English classes, the scale, the grade, the textbook and the teacher. According to what has been known, many rural primary schools have not offered English classes as a result of unavailable conditions. And some problems exist in some schools who have offered this course. Thus it is extremely important to study the primary English teaching in rural areas. Although many theories in psychology and linguistics show that offering English is reasonable and helpful for students, it is a burden for primary students. In this article, a research has been done, which focuses on problems existing in schools in the rural areas. On the basis of doing the research and analyzing answers of interviews and the data of questionnaires, it is expected that the school, the teacher and the government would give a hand to the English teaching in primary schools of rural areas.I. Theories for Primary English TeachingThe study in education has been carried out for centuries by the great educationists, such as E. H. Lenneberg and W. Penfield. As a result, many famous educational theories have been marked. With the development of our society and the need to reform primary education, school education has to be expanded. For example, English teaching in primary schools is a kind of new field in primary teaching from 2001. Such a change in primary education is the result of not only the development of our time, but also the theories in psychology and linguistics. A. Theories in PsychologyPsychology is a determined factor in the development progress of a child. So if we want to study the English teaching in primary schools, whose objects are children, psychology must be one important element needed to be considered. Psychologists think that the best time for children to learn a language is around 8 years old, because at this time, the mother tongue on language learning has less interference, and they can avoid simple translation during the learning. A research in Cornell University says that “in adults, the two languages were stored in separate parts of the Brocas area”.2 It is a region of the brain controlling motor skills of the mouth and tongue; in bilingual children, the two languages were stored together.  In other words, your brain has shut out foreign sounds from your “English room,” while your childs has not. In foreign countries, the “critical period hypothesis” is one basis of the research on age difference in foreign language learning.3 Long time ago, people intuitively think that childhood is the best period for one to learn language whether it is mother tongue or foreign language. This phenomenon leads a neuropsychologist, Penfield to hold a view that “children are more superior to adults in learn second language because their brain are more flexible”.4 They can learn language easily because their cortex is more plastic than is true of older learners. Childrens language learning is related to brain development. Besides, psychologists also think that motivation is “the direct cause and inner power” of ones behavior.5 Peoples all kinds of actions and behaviors are caused by motivation. And it can not only cause actions, make people concentrated, but make people keep concentrated on what they are doing until they finish it.In a word, offering English classes for primary students is reasonable and scientific for it has been approved by many psychologists. B. Theories in LinguisticsA theory, called language acquisition, in linguistics states that every child can acquire his first language during the age of two to six years old, with the interaction with his living environment. But most learners think language acquisition has its critical period that is from nine to thirteen years old. If learners are older, it becomes difficult for them to learn the second language. Some children can acquire two languages at the same time, but it is the rare case. Most children learn the second language after the first language acquisition. And this learning mostly happens in some formal places, such as classrooms, with success or failure. Such action is called language learning, which is different from language acquisition. And some learners also think that language learning is limited by the sensitive stage within thirteen years old. If children learn a foreign language after thirteen years old, it seems a little difficult to learn. This idea has been proved by a psycholinguist, Leneberg E.H., who develops this theory, and presents a famous theory, the “critical period hypothesis”. He points out that “the ability to acquire language is biologically linked to age”.6 The hypothesis claims that there is an ideal "window" of time to acquire language in a linguistically rich environment, after which further language acquisition becomes much more difficult and effortful. In other words, the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli. If language input doesn't occur until after this time, the individual will never achieve a full command of language. Some cases like wolf-child can explain this.Besides，according to the study made by Miller, it seems that “the children before entering puberty have a kind of transformation mechanism”.7 If their language centre in the left brain is destroyed, it will transfer to the right brain. But they need to learn language again. But after entering puberty, it turns hard to recover the language ability. For example, a girl, named Genie, living in Los angeles, America, is isolated from language before 12 years old. Since then she begins to learn language. When she is 18, she just can say short sentences, with minimum grammatical ability. This example is able to prove the division of work in two brains. Children do not use English as frequently as Chinese, so it seems difficult for them to acquire it naturally. And acquiring it in classes becomes the most common way. If children miss the critical period, it will be hard to make up the losses. Therefore, offering English classes in primary schools corresponds with the law of their language learning and their cognition. However, offering English courses for primary students coexists with problems in some ways.II. Research in Primary Schools TeachingAt the end of 1960s, the English classes in primary schools had been offered, and it stopped for some reasons. However, with the increase of communication between countries and the push of the international English information in 1990s, English classes turns to be more and more important in primary education. The scale of primary English teaching becomes larger and larger, and more and more areas open English classes, especially in the coast and urban areas. The standard of English teaching has been improved much, and much experience in classes teaching, after-classes activities, and students interest cultivation has been accumulated. But there are some problems in current English teaching in primary schools in rural areas. For example, some experience in primary English teaching, in the first place, needs to be reviewed since English classes have been opened. Secondly, English teaching in primary schools needs more excellent teachers and more various teaching materials to enrich English teaching. Primary education is the basic education, which is the key to improving the national quality and the national mental and material civilization, and wh