2.3.3 Listen and draw
A whole range of activities can be designed around this way. Make some orders, like “draw a hill on the paper, draw some trees on the hill, draw a bird on the tree, draw a house near the trees, draw a river near the hill……”
The spoken language is one of the important ways to communicate, too. So we should try to develop the students’ ability of speaking.
2.3.4Free talk
Give them five minutes to give a duty report every class. Example: “Hello, everybody. I’m on duty today. Today is Monday, May 15th. Everyone is here today.”
When learn something new, give them some time to talk about the subject.
T: “Today we will learn something about food. Can you tell me something what you knew about food? For example, what kind of food do you know?”
S: “ Coke, hamburger……”
T: “What do you like?”
S: “I like noodles and milk.”
2.3.5“Change the story”
Students work in small groups of 3~5. Each writes a short story or description and then under lines all the verbs in the story. The group together then makes a list of about 20 random verbs. Each group member reads his/her story but pauses at every verb. The group then supplies one of the random verbs into that slot. The results can be funny.”5
3. English Broadcast
Without question, it is difficult of a middle school student to understand the listening material, if he hasn't enough vocabulary and the ability of telling the grammar construction. In my investigation, about 35% of the students with low listening comprehension thing this is because they don't understand or know the knowledge about linguistic，they are not able to tell the means of what they have heard. In another investigation, students were asked to listen to a dialogue of 244 words, in which the words and grammar have already been learned. But 80% of them thought it was too difficult. Then, using the same dialogue as a reading comprehension material, I found only 5% of them thought it was a little difficult, on the other hand the response ability is also another reason.
It is clear that the reading speed of a material also affects. About 43% of the students thought that the material was read too fast and they couldn't follow.
A lot of students have their own listening habits. Some students often try to understand each word or each sentence. They will think hard when they meet some difficult words or sentences, and a great many students could understand the material directly. They often translate the English into Chinese in their heart, thinking that only in this way can the sentence be understood. This is also a reason, trying to understand each word is difficult, and it is not necessary at all. You should catch the most important points.
Then how to improve the students' listening skill? Listen more is very important.
We can spend 20 or 30 minutes at noon everyday in broadcasting some news, stories or articles, which measure up to the standards of the students on campus broadcast. That will make the students listen more. And if broadcast some news about the singer stars or movie stars, like ZhouJielun or F.I.R, the students will be happy and interesting. And ask them to take notes while listening and to tell the main idea of what they have just listened.