摘要
长期以来,我国的英语教学课堂一直由教师主宰。教师传授知识,而学生只是被动地接受知识。结果学生学了好几年英语,打下了良好的语言基础,而交际能力仍很薄弱,“哑巴英语”现象很普遍。另外,这些年来大家对如何改进教材,如何改进教学法来满足学生的要求也毫无兴趣,形成了“一本教材一统天下”的格局。随着中国在2001年加入了世贸组织,融入全球化经济,我们和世界的交往越来越广泛,英语作为国际通用语在中国社会越来越显示其重要性,培养复合型、应用型人才是时代的呼唤。针对这种情况,大学英语教学改革迫在眉睫。为了弥补学生交际能力的不足,1999年《新编大学英语》应运而生。
人们普遍认为,大学生通过参与各种交际活动能够学好英语。《新编大学英语》系列教材意识到现存的问题,根据《大学英语教学大纲》(修订版)的要求,基于中国的英语教学现实,倡导一种全新的“学生为中心的主题教学”模式,培养学生独立学习的能力,目的是让学生通过参与各种活动达到最终能够自如的应用语言的能力。该教材试图从新的角度来阐述教与学的关系,指出了我国英语教学发展的趋势。该教材提供了大量的阅读材料,题材广泛,以促进学生语言的输出能力的培养。然而,通过三年的使用,我校师生感到这套教材没能达到预期的效果。因此本文通过问卷调查和收集学生四级考试成绩两种形式,剖析该教材的具体实施情况以及学生对教材的反应和学习效果。作者发现该教材偏重语言交际的流利性,摈弃语法教学,忽视了语言的准确性,忽略了学生认知能力的开发,从而导致学生语言基础知识的更加薄弱,交际能力也未得到提高。这种矫枉过正的做法也同样不可取。作者认为大学英语教学要考虑学生的认知能力,否则语言的流利性、准确性和深度无法平衡,从长远来看,将对学生英语学习造成危害。如何提高输入的质量,如何培养学生的语言输出能力是本文的重点和难点。最后作者针对教材不足提出一些修改建议。
作者开始介绍了《新编大学英语》编写指导思想、理论依据和特点,从各个方面对新教材的优点和存在的问题进行了探讨。作者发现该教材缺乏语言能力的培养,语法练习是一个空白。不仅如此,它一方面强调语言的流利性,另
八 硕士学住论文
w MASTER”S TffeSIS
一方面却缺乏如何达到流利性所需要的技能的培养。其选材既“泛而不精”,
也未遵循“循序渐进”的原则,这使得学生们无法跟踪他们的语言发展状况。
事实上,随着大学生的不断扩召,他们中大多数虽然学过基本的语法知识,有
一定的语言基础,但在应用中仍然对此模棱两可,混淆不清。对大学生来讲,
认知能力在语言学习中扮演着重要角色。因此为了能将注意力分配到“形式”
上来,确保语言能力的全面发展,选材要精,以便学生建立“凸显观”与“注
意观”。作者认为学生有效的参加交际活动会在很大程度上挖掘他们的认知能
力,因此作者回顾了认知法的理论基础,介绍了信息加工理论,以及由此产生
的“任务型”教学法。正如 Brumfit ( 984 sl)所说,语言的流利性与准确性
并不是对立的,而是互补的;同时语言的流利性还应考虑其深度。鉴于成人
在交际过程中侧重意义而忽略形式,作者探讨了“学生为中心的任务型”课堂
教学模式,通过设置各种不同的任务让学生朝着某一特定目标(准确性、流利
性或深度)发展。作者认为提高某个新语言现象出现的频率以及它的显眼度,
在不同的阶段强调不同的重点,提出不同的要求,以便学生合理配置有限的
注意力,将交际的自然性与语言形式结合起来,因此,除了安排语言规则的学
习,还应加强语块的练习。而这一切取决于选材。精选精读教材,兼顾内容
的循序渐进才能满足学生不同阶段不同认知能力的需求。另外,增加听、读,
写技能的训练才能减轻学生语言加工时的负荷,使学生在理解意义的基础上将
更多的注意力集中到“准确”,才能确保学生做出更准确的、更流利的及更深
刻的表达。“任务型”教学模式能满足新大纲的要求,满足个体差异,满足学
习的程序化要求,最终使他们达到语言形式和内容的平衡,确保他们语言的系
统的、持续的发展。作者指出在大力倡导培养交际能力的今天,如果对交际能
力没有全面正确的理解,从而轻视语言能力的培养,则不可能培养出高水平的
交际能力。大学英语教学的对象是非英语专业学生,打下扎实的语窘基础是发
展交际能力的前提,我们不能拔苗助长。作者认为该教材只有充分开发利用学
生的认知能力,将交际法和认知法结合起来才能使学生有效地参与课堂活动,
从根本上提高我们的教学水平,从而真正适应社会发展和经济建设的需要。
For many years, traditional approaches to English teaching in classrooms has been dominated by the teacher, with the teacher imparting knowledge all the time, while students being passive recipients. In consequence, the shortcomings have become apparent. After learning English for a few years, students have good linguistic competence, but are lacking in communicative competence. "Dumb English " is a good case in point. What's more, there is little enthusiasm in improving teaching material or methodology to meet students' requirement. Another more recent impetus is our entry to WTO in 2001. With our integration into global economy, the demand for talented people
with both professional knowledge and excellent language abilities is getting stronger and stronger. English, as an international language, becomes increasingly significant, and training interdisciplinary and application-oriented talent of foreign languages has been called for in our times. Therefore, it is urgent that reforms should be conducted in the classroom to make up this deficiency.
It is commonly thought that college students can learn a foreign language well through participation in communicative activities of all kinds. Out of an awareness of the existing problems and based upon New College English Syllabus and Chinese EFL reality, New College English series emerge. The series attempt to deal with the relationship between teaching and learning from a new angle, and point out the trend in English teaching in China. It adopts a brand-new student-centred topic-based compiling approach, which is intended to develop students'
ability to utilize the language. It furnishes students with immense topics to develop their productive competence. However, certain obstacles do exist in implementing this series of books. Teachers and students who have taken this course book have come away with the uneasy feeling that such an approach does not seem to produce desired results. Teachers find themselves on the horns of a dilemma when confronted with students with antipathetic attitudes toward classroom activities. So
students' performance is collected in CET-4 between 2000 and 2002 in succession, and a questionnaire survey is conducted to collect information about the implementation of this book and students' attitudes towards it. It is revealed that overemphasis on fluency with the neglect of students' cognitive ability has led to various deficiencies. The present writer holds that students' cognitive ability has to be taken into account, or else a balance between fluency, accuracy, and complexity cannot be achieved, which is contagious to their English learning in the long term. Therefore the paper proposes Task-based Approach for its improvement.
The present writer sets out to examine the guiding principles and theoretical basis underlying the book and its specific features including both merits and demerits from various aspects. It is found that this series are lacking in the training of linguistic competence, grammatical exercises are nowhere to be found. It stresses fluency on one hand, but how to obtain macro-skills to achieve fluency has been totally neglected on the other. More significantly, many materials selected are not systematically graded, which makes it impossible for both students and the teacher to keep track of their language development. As a matter of fact, with the increasing enrollment of college students, a great majority still get confused about rules in language and in communication, despite the fact that they have acquired a certain amount of grammatical knowledge in middle school. Materials have to be well-chosen so that salience and noticing can be contrived, and students' attention can be allocated to form to ensure language development. Thereby, the present writer reviews in great depth the theoretical basis of Cognitive Approach, information-processing theory, and Task-based Approach. Brumfit( 1984:51) makes the point that accuracy and fluency are not opposites, but are complementary; and fluency has to be understood in al
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