4. Project Objective and Project Hypothesis
This part of my study was conducted during 7th March 2011-13th March 2011. This research objective is to improve my students’ interests in attending English lessons and motivating them to use English more efficiently in class.
It is hypothesized that learners’ interests can be increased through various better- organized classroom activities.
5. Project Design
5.1 Make up Groups
In order to guarantee that most of the students would be highly involved into the English learning, I decided to make up groups. In my class there were 40 students, so I divided them into 8 groups. When I did the work, I followed two principles: First, Members of each group were composed of the students of different English levels so that good students could help those who had lagged behind. Second, each group was made up of the students of different personalities in order to exert the specialties of every student and fill up with each other’s deficiencies.
Through the investigations, I found there were two main problems for them to learn English in English class. One was that they thought there was little pleasure to learn English in English class. The other was that they had no good practicing environment to learn English in class. When they met difficulties in review and preparation, they couldn’t get any help in time. Through analysis, I thought I would like to give speech to the purpose of learning English, and then the most effective way was that I should use various kinds of activities and organize my English class well. I was also conscious that the students were all 8 or 9 years old and they were all English learning beginners, so they had strong, mutual dependence. If students were divided into small groups, not only all the problems above would be solved but also they would learn English voluntarily. Moreover, I could cultivate their spirit of cooperation and achieve unity among students by making them learn from each other and help each other.
5.2 Using cards and multimedia teaching
In order to make it sure that the students could learn the knowledge better, I
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provided them with the cards and multimedia teaching. The students of 8 or 9 years old are usually curious. They hope to learn English in intuitional and funny way. So they are not satisfied with boring teaching. 5.3 Play Some Funny Games.
In order to consolidate the knowledge they just learnt, I provided them with fun games. The students of 8 or 9 years old are usually lively; they like to guess, to ask why, to play funny games, to contest. They hope to consolidate English learning through playing games. So I designed some funny games for them, like “loud and low voice”, “clap and read”, “fast reaction”, “little teacher” and so on, I also designed the scoring way to arouse students' interesting in learning English. 5.4 Set situation and make up role play
The students of 8 or 9 years old are usually full of imagination, they like performing and imitating. They have strong desire of making up dialogue by themselves. They hope to express themselves from topics, but their English knowledge is limited. Some of them can speak a lot, but some of them can only speak a little English. So some of them are shy and some are openhanded. In order to solve the problem, I ask them to act by group; they have free to set situation according to their experiences in real-life. I encourage them to enjoy imagination and try different role playing, for example they can use props, use various body language and tone to express the roles they played. During the dialogue, students can use the knowledge that they have learnt, not only they can practice the new but also can consolidate the old contents. I thought it was very useful for helping the students to expand their trains of thought and practice more. 5.5 Check and give appraisement
In class, I was not only a leader but also a referee which I would judge which group can get scores and which can reduce scores if they violate the rules of the game. I will listen carefully and point out their mistakes after they finished performance. And of course, I will praise and encourage them whether their answer are right or not, because at least they want to have a try. That’s enough. 5.6 Activity design (To See Appendix 2)
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6. Full-Scaled Implementation of the Project &Teaching logs
My hypothesis is that learners’ interests can be increased by teacher’s better- organized activities. Moreover, the assignment, the activities I used should be near to life and be familiar to students, so that they have a real purpose to communicate. I designed various kinds of activities which are employed in four weeks. And these activities are reported as follows.
Week1 (March 14 –March 20)
Content: Unit 3 what’s your name? , Book 3, Primary School English
Purpose: In this unit, students will learn the new words “name” and the new sentence pattern “What’s your/my/its name?” “My name/Your name/Its name is…...”.
Teaching Aids: hand puppets Procedure:
Step1: Greetings & Revision (2 minutes)
Before class, I will draw the scoring windows and blackboard writing. 1. Greetings
T: Good morning, students. Ss: Good morning, teacher. 2. Revision “Nice to meet you”
I walk nearly to Ss and shake hands when I say “Nice to meet you, Wang Xiao bin.” “Nice to meet you, Zhou Mingming”, “Nice to meet you, Yuan Yuan”, Ss should answer me “Nice to meet you too, Miss Zhang”.
After I do it to all students, I will ask “what’s my name?” so that I can draw forth the new contents.
Scores: If Ss can shake hands and make dialogue with me, he/she can get one point by themselves.
Step2: New words & sentences (20 minutes)
1. Express the meanings of new words with cards and gestures
T: “What’s my name? You call me --------”, I have long intonation and point at
myself to tip the students.
Ss: Miss Zhang.
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T: Yes, Great! My name is ╳╳╳.
2. Strengthen the meanings of the words and sentences
In order to strengthen impression before new contents starting, I will repeat
“what’s your name” and “my name is… ”.
a) I take out two puppets, one is a boy and one is a girl mysteriously and acts
out by myself.
B: Nice to meet you!
G: Nice to meet you too! What’s your name? B: My name is Frank. What’s your name? G: My name is Lily.
B&G: Let’s make good friends.
b) Check whether Ss understand the meanings of “name”, “what’s your
name”.
T: “What’s your name?” First I stand by student whose English is good
and ask her /his “what’s your name?”(Usually he/she can answer it like “Li Jiang”), next I will ask all students fast. 3. Play games to practice new words and sentences
I prepared some funny games for them to master the new knowledge. Of course, they should try to remember the new words and sentence pattern. a) Set a game named “loud & low voice” to practice words
“name/cake/cup/cap”.
The rules: when I say “name” loudly, Ss must say it lowly, when I say it
lowly, Ss must say it loud. I can deliberately set traps to let them
misunderstand I say loudly or lowly, So can make students more relaxed to learn. If who make mistakes or fall into the trap, who will sing a song for “punishment”, on the contrary, students will get points for rewards. b) Set a game named “clap and read” to practice sentences “what’s your/my/its name”.
First I divided the sentence “what’s your name” into three parts, “name----your name-------what’s your name”, then I say “name”, students must clap once, I say “your name”, they clap twice, I say “what’s your name”,
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they clap three times, converse, I clap and they say. During the game I can make traps to let students misjudge to improve the fun of the teaching and let the classroom atmosphere more active.
Scores: who is the fastest, who can get one point; who falls into my trips, who must sing a song.
Step3: Set a situation and make role play (20 minutes)
1. In order to improve the students' learning initiative and enthusiasm, and to let
them actively participate in class study, I ask students to express what they have learnt whatever new or old knowledge according to performance.
2. I divided the 40 students into 8 groups and give them 5 minutes to prepare, they can set a situation from their life and assign roles, then I ask them to act it out in front of the classroom, I encourage them to use new contents they have learnt and also use all knowledge they know. Each group can get 3 points whatever they do it best or just so-so.
Step4: appraisement and homework (3 minutes)
1. clap for students because they are best in teacher’s mind, say “you did a good job”, “you have a unity.”
2. Homework: ask students to take their family photo to the next class.
Week2 (March 21—March 27)
Content: Unit 5 Who is he? , Book 3, Primary School English Purpose:
In
this
unit,
students
will
learn
the
new
words
\the new sentence pattern “Who is he/she?”. If time is enough, I will expand words “grandfather/grandmother/uncle/aunt”.
Teaching Aids: photos, recorder Procedure:
Step1: Greetings & Revision (2 minutes)
Before class, I will draw the scoring windows and blackboard writing. 1. Greetings
T: Nice to meet you. Ss: Nice to meet you too.
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