The Design of Humanistic Activities in Middle School English Class.doc

The Design of Humanistic Activities in Middle School English Class中学英语课堂人本活动的设计Abstract: Humanistic activities are designed on the basis of Humanistic Education Thought, Carl Rogerss Humanistic View, Constructivism Theory, The Affective Filter Hypothesis and Democratic Education Thought. When designing humanistic activities in middle school English class, seven principles should be strictly stuck to. According to the principles, the practical strategies of the design of humanistic activities are presented, including how to choose contents of activities, set situations of activities, organize activities and discuss in the activities.Key words: The Design of Humanistic Activities；Core；Principles；Practical Strategies摘要： 人本主义教育思想、罗杰斯的人本主义观、建构主义、情感过滤假说以及民主教育思想是人本活动设计的理论依据。在设计中学英语课堂人本活动的时候，应该严格遵守活动设计七原则。根据这七条原则，实施人本活动设计策略，即选择活动内容、创设活动情景、组织活动和展开活动讨论。关键词： 人本活动设计；主体；原则；实施策略1 Introduction:In traditional teaching, teachers task is to explain the text, while students task is to take notes, do exercises and have tests. Moreover, both the forms and contents of traditional teaching are dull and unattractive. Therefore, students abilities of language application are bad. Whats worse, the traditional teaching makes students lose their interest in studies. In modern education, teachers are no longer the masters, while students are the core of class teaching. Whats more, humanistic activities are introduced into class teaching. The well-designed humanistic activities can motivate students interests and desires of learning. Therefore, the design of humanistic activities is an important part in middle school English class. Humanistic activities are designed on the basis of Humanistic Education Thought, Carl Rogers Humanistic View, Constructivism Theory, The Affective Filter Hypothesis and Democratic Education Thought.2 Theoretical Basis2.1 Humanistic Education ThoughtModern Humanistic Educational Thought is an important educational thought in the western countries today, which develops from humanism of the Renaissance. It attaches great importance to human beings values, makes students become the core of education and helps them to pursue the development of personality, humanity and potential. Since 20th centuries, Humanistic Educational Thought has played an important part in western educational conception, objective, content, mode and so on, which also has great impact on Chinas fundamental education, especially on education for all-round development. (沈正元,2002)The objective of Humanistic Educational Thought is to promote the development of human beings personalities. Many humanists believes that the fundamental objective of education is to help human beings develop their individualism, make students realize that they are distinctive human beings and actualize their potential.Humanistic Educational Thought believes that curriculums should combine students studies with their lives and consider “human beings all-round development”as the objective. With respect to the choice of curriculums contents, Humanistic Educational Thought brings forward that curriculum must cater to students interests, capabilities and demands, moreover, have tight relation with their life experience and social state.Humanistic Educational Thought believes teaching must center on students and let them decide what to learn and how to learn. It advocates non-commanding teaching and promote students self-experience. (沈正元,2002)2.2 Carl Rogerss Humanistic ViewRogers maintained that all human beings have a natural desire to learn. He defined two categories of learning: meaningless or cognitive learning and significant or experiential learning (applied knowledge which addresses the needs and wants of the learner). According to Rogers, the role of the teacher is to facilitate experiential learning by: Setting a positive climate for learningClarifying the purposes of the learner(s)Organizing and making available learning resourcesBalancing intellectual and emotional components of learning and sharing feelings and thoughts with learners but not dominating.（Rogers, 1969）As for the personal growth and development of the student, Rogers suggests that:Significant learning takes place when the subject matter is relevant to the personal interests of the student.Learning that is threatening to the self (e.g. new attitudes or perspectives) are more easily assimilated when external threats are at a minimum.Learning proceeds faster when the threat to the self is low.Self-initiated learning is the most lasting and pervasive. （Rogers, 1969）2.3 Constructivism TheoryBasically, constructivism views that knowledge is not about' the world, but rather constitutive' of the world (Sherman, 1995). Knowledge is not a fixed object, which is constructed by an individual through his own experience of that object. Constructivist of learning challenges projects that include students, teachers and experts in the learning community. Its goal is to create learning communities that are more closely related to the collaborative practice of the real world. In an authentic environment, learners assume the responsibilities of their own learning, they have to develop metacognitive abilities to monitor and direct their own learning and performance. When people work collaboratively in an authentic activity, they bring their own framework and perspectives to the activity. They can see a problem from different perspectives, and are able to negotiate and generate meanings and solution through shared understanding. The constructivist paradigm has led us to understand how learning can be facilitated through engaging certain types of constructive activities. This model of learning emphasizes meaning-making through active participation in socially, culturally, historically, and politically situated contexts. A crucial element of active participation is dialog in shared experiences, through which situated collaborative activities, such as modeling, discourse and decision making, are necessary to support the negotiation and creation of meaning and understanding. (Jy wana, Daphne& Lin Hsiao, 1996)In sum, the contemporary constructivist theory of learning acknowledges that individuals are active agents, they engage in their own knowledge construction by integrating new information into their schema, and by associating and representing it into a meaningful way. Constructivists argue that it is impractical for teachers to make all the current decisions and dump the information to students without involving students in the decision process and assessing students' abilities to construct knowledge. In other words, guided instruction is suggested that students are put at the center of learning process, and provided guidance and concrete teaching whenever necessary. Perkins indicates that students may easily get lost in management without any experience to guide them through the information jungle. (Perkins, 1991) This student-centered guided learning environment is considered, however, more appropriate for ill-structured domains or higher-level learning. (Jy wana, Daphne& Lin Hsiao, 1996)2.4 The Affective Filter Hypothesis Krashen sees the learner's emotional state or attitudes as an adjustable filter that freely passes, impedes, or blocks input necessary to acquisition. A low affective filter is desirable, since it impedes or blocks less of this necessary input. The hypothesis is built on research in second language acquisition, which has identified three kinds of affective or attitudinal variables related to second language acquisition. (Krashen, 1982) Motivation. (Learners with high motivation generally do better.)Self-confidence. (Learners with self-confidence and a good self-image tend to be more successful.)Anxiety. (Low personal anxiety and low classroom anxiety are more conducive to second language acquisition.)The Affective Filter Hypothesis states that acquirers with a low affective filter seek and receive more input, interact with confidence, and are more receptive to the input they receive. Anxious acquirers have a high affective filter, which prevents acquisition from taking place. It is believed that the affective filter (e.g., fear or embarrassment) rises in early adolescence, and this may account for children's apparent superiority to older acquirers of a second language. (Krashen, 1982) 2.5 Democratic Education ThoughtDemocratic education aims to develop real democracy through active participation by all those involved in classrooms and educational institutions. In democratic education, students have the power to make decisions about their learning, because power is shared rather than appropriated in advance by a minority of people. (Walters, 2003) Its main principles are as follows:Students and teachers share decision-making in a democratic self-governmentThe school focuses on the learners and their unique learning styles and strengths, minimizing general compulsory learningSocial/emotional development is as important as academic requirements3 The Design of Humanistic Activities 3.1 The design of humanistic activities should stick to the following seven principles:a. Accept students as the core of the teaching activitiesStudents are the core of the teaching activities. Teachers thinking activities cannot replace students. They have their own thought. Therefore, when teachers design humanistic activities, they must consider students actual level of learning and forms of activities which they can accept. Teachers should design students activities selectively in order to motivate their desires of learning, develop their cognitive structure and improve their personalities by humanistic activities.b. InterestStudents are lively and energetic. Therefore, they find it difficult to concentrate on studies. Various interesting humanistic activities enable students to motivate their interests of learning and study more effectively.c. EnlightenmentThe design of humanistic activities must be helpful to improve students abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Moreover, it must be beneficial to enlighten students mind. For one thing, teachers should design creative, interesting and enlightening topic. For another, teachers should foster students confidence and help them to remove obstacles in the activities. d. According to students own situationIn order to design humanistic activities, teachers must not only understand each students characteristic, learning level, receptive ability and learning attitude but also interest, understanding ability, learning foundation and so on. Humanistic activities must be arranged according to students own situation.e. Foster students abilities of English application The objective of activities in English class is to foster students abilities of English application. When designing humanistic activities, teachers must set meaningful language situations, which enable students to practice English and apply it to the real language communication correctly and timely.f. According to actual teaching conditionsThe design of humanistic activities must consider a schools facilities. Teachers should make full use of modern media, such as recorder, video tape recorder, multi-media classroom and so on. If a school does not have such facilities, teacher can use wall charts and stick figures for English teaching and so on. Moreover, teachers can create various forms of humanistic activities by exhibiting their talents for drawing, acting and so on g. Pay attention to design various forms of activitiesStudents will feel tired if teachers apply only one form of activity for a long time. According to practice, English teaching based on colorful humanistic activities has a great effect on students studies. Therefore, teachers should form proper rules and rhythms in English class teaching and design various forms of activities.3.2 Practical strategies:a. Choose the content of activitiesHumanistic activities serve teaching contents, which decides what kind of activities should be adopted in English teaching. Teachers must master the teaching materials, comprehend inherent relation between teaching contents, grasp the key point and difficult point of the text and design humanistic activities according to the crucial point of English teaching.b. Set situations of activitiesSet questionary situations and motivate students desires of learning.In the teaching process, teachers must try their best to set questionary situations. They can ask students enlightening or practical questions according to the text in order to motivate their interests and activate their mind. When teaching “The English Language”, Teachers have students show their watches, and ask, “What can you see on the back of your watch? Why?” Then ask questions according to the text “English isnt spoken by the largest number of people in the world, but why is it the most widely spoken in the world?” Such questions motivate students curiosity and begin a debate. Therefore, the whole class becomes lively.Giving another example, when teachers teach a text about ocean (SEFC2BUn16L62), they can use a terrestrial globe and have a dialogue with students, which is as follows:T: What's this?Ss: It is a globe.T: What color is it?Ss: It is blue.T: Why is it blue?Ss: Because it is covered by water.T: Yes, because 2/3 of the outside is covered by water. Two thirds of the earth surface is covered by water. What is the other name of sea?Ss: Ocean.T: Yes. How many oceans are there on the earth?Ss: Four.T: What are they?Ss: They are(Teacher help students to tell the names of the four oceans.)T: What do you think of oceans?Ss: Big, wideT: Yes, they are vast, what else?Ss: SaltyT: Yes. It is because there are many minerals in the seaIn this humanistic activity, teachers introduce “ surface, salty, vast, minerals” to students and help them to realize the text. By asking and answering questions, teachers help students to express the knowledge they have learned in English. Such kind of humanistic activities not only review the knowledge they have learned but also motivate their interests of learning new knowledge. Moreover, it combines students old knowledge with new one. In middle school English teaching, teachers should set enlightening queationary situations and let students have humanistic activities on their own initiative. Moreover, it provides students with a chance of cooperation and communication.Bring real life into class and shorten the distance between class teaching and real life.Communication is the basic function of language. The objective of English teaching is to develop students abilities of applying English to communication. Exhibiting the real life in class is to