On the English Teaching of Listening and Speaking in Middle School in China
Abstract：In middle school, most students feel that it is very difficult for them to listen to English and speak English. As we know, the teachers always spend a lot of time in practicing written English, such as the words, grammar, and so on, which leads to a serious problem for the students#39; future study. The aim of learning English is to communicate with others, and oral English is becoming more and more important, so at the beginning stage, the teachers should pay more attention to listening and speaking. As long as the students have a good base in middle schools, they will save a lot of time and be more interested in learning English. This paper first introduces the problems in listening and speaking teaching in middle school, and then gives some suggestion about the solutions, such as group-work method and two-way communication. Both of them are very beneficial for the students.
Key words：English teaching in middle school; listening; speaking
摘要：在中学，大部分的学生发现听说方面非常难。就我们所知，老师们通常花大量的时间在书面英语上，如，单词，语法等等。实际上这种情形将在以后的学习中成为一个比较严重的问题。学英语的目的主要是交流, 而当今口语的重要性显得日益突出，因此，在英语学习的入门阶段，老师应当更加关注学生听说能力的发展。只有在中学阶段打下良好的基础，才能使学生们在日后的学习中节省许多的时间，也将大大提高学习英语的兴趣。这篇文章主要介绍了英语听说教学方面所存在的一些问题及解决这些问题的基本方法。如小组活动教学，功能教学法的应用，它们都是在理论与实践方面被证实是行之有效的，对学生的帮助很大。
关键词：中学英语教学;听;说
Introduction
Nowadays, English is becoming more and more important after China entered the WTO, which can encourage us to study English well. To study a foreign language, we should master four abilities: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Generally speaking, communication is the main aim of learning a foreign language, and we know that most students have less difficulty in reading and writing. From this point, we should pay more attention to listening and speaking. In fact, in China, a lot of students spend a great number of time in learning English, but they still feel that they can not understand well what they have heard and can not speak fluently. This is partially because of our examination system, and partially of teaching method. As we know, as long as the students get a high mark and they can enter into a good school. So we just focus on the grammar. In the past several years, the government realized the seriousness of Examination – oriented education and did a lot to change the situation. The teaching outline has been informed. In the text books, there are a lot of activities involving listening and speaking, including pair work and group work. In the examination the part of listening comprehension has been added, and it is more difficult. At home and abroad, there are many experts studying the methods of teaching, and the main method is Functional method, which has been used almost all over the world. Here I would like to introduce some useful methods to help students to improve their listening and speaking and raise their interest.
In middle school, most students have great difficulties in listening because they can not pronounce correctly and have no good methods to practice listening and they lack relevant knowledge about the foreign countries#39; cultures.
In fact, listening comprehension is an essential part of communication and basic to second language learning. In any standard foreign language test, listening comprehension usually occupies a considerable proportion. Yet, to the students who learn English in situations where English is not the language of the country and where opportunities for hearing English outside the classroom are few, it is usually extremely difficult for them to comprehend English spoken to them. Many students, usually influenced by some traditional habits, are accustomed to putting what they are hearing into their native language in order to get the original meaning. As a result, when trying to understand one sentence, and then they will miss the next one. So when a conversation or a passage is over, they almost know nothing and are totally at a loss what to do about the exercises they are required to do. In order to develop their listening skills, some teachers just give them plenty of graded practice and hope that they will work out for themselves the most efficient way of coping with it. Unfortunately, it only proves to be a time-consuming but inefficient way and they can hardly arrive at the most satisfactory solution of their own accord. When they repeatedly meet with setbacks, they come to the conclusion that listening comprehension is only the eagle#39;s nest and it is an impassable chasm. Some even lose their confidence. Actually, the improvement of listening comprehension can be gained by good methods.