A Research on Middle School Students’English Reading Obstacles and Strategies

English reading,a key procedure of English learning and teaching in middle school,is an essential way of getting information from the globe and communicating with others.Therefore,efficient comprehension on reading materials will directly serve for accepting the information.And it is extremely important for middle school students to acquire certain reading ability.At present,great attention has been paid to the course of reading in the instruction of English by the Chinese Education Department.But middle school students’read ing ability is still much lower than the target they should reach because of a set of existing obstacles that prevent them from being effective English readers.What are these obstacles? How to break them down? This paper will first point out and then analyze the obstacles that af fect middle school students’reading ability from two aspects:linguistic obstacles(obstacles of lexicon,grammar and background knowl edge) and non-linguistic obstacles(obstacles of psychology,interest,skill,and habit).After demonstrating different obstacles,the paper also come up with some corresponding strategies in the hope of helping middle school students to be effective English readers.     

Brief Survey of the Communicative Approach and the Strategy of Improving the Students’ Communicative Competence

With the rapid development of economy and improvement position of English as an international language in our country,English teaching draw a lot of attention nowadays.In traditional English teaching,it's the teachers who manipulate everything in class,where students are seen as receivers of knowledge.Therefore,it lacks cooperation between teachers and students.Students have no opportunity to apply what they have learnt in class to practical communications.In this teachers-centered class,students are not able to bring themselves into full play,which explains the low quality of English teaching in some schools and students fail to communicate with others after many years' learning.Based on the theory of Communicative Approach,the paper analyses its advantages and existing problems in application and proposes some strategy of improving students'Communicative Competence.     

On Strategies to Motivate College Students in English Class

Students in their early 20s are energetic,focusing on something they are really into.Unfortunately,English is not one of their interests.Some students may have face problems to speak up.This article aims at analyzing the roots of students’keeping silent in class and coming up with practical ways to make the students realize how important and interesting English can be,to create harmonious atmosphere for everyone to feel at ease and free to speak up anytime in the class,to combine evaluation with students’performance in classroom activities and to differentiate the students according to their different features,assigning them different activities to fulfill.     

Dealing with English Majors＇ Difficulties with Dictation in Chinese Universities

Dictation is a complicated process of decoding information and reorganizing mean- ing of an utterance and it has long been used to measure students＇ language profi- ciency and help them to develop accuracy in listening and writing. However, many English majors have poor performance in dictation of TEM-4. The paper tries to dis- cuss the fundamental factors that prevent students from obtaining a relatively high score in dictation and suggests some ways to deal with the problems.     

A Study of English Learning Strategies Employed by the Rural Junior School Students in Anhui Province

In order to find out whether the English learning strategies specified in the Requirements have been used by the junior middle school students whose English studies are guided by the current Syllabus,how frequently they make use of them,and whether there are any disparities between the specifications of the Requirements and the current conditions of the students using English learning strategies,the author of this thesis attempt to find out the answers to three questions:1) How is the general condition of the students using the learning strategies and what problems exist? 2) Are there any differences with statistical significance in using English learning strategies between male and female students? 3) Are there any differences with statistical significance in using learning strategies between successful and unsuccessful students?     

A Study of Non-English Majors’Errors in English Writing

Researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have long held the interest towards the teaching of college English writing. Their research topics, range from how to improve college students’ability to write with English as their second language, to how to correct their wrong expressions in their writing. This article mainly aims at exploring college students’ various writing errors and mistakes,trying to provide some hints for college students and teachers about English writing. Such studies are abundant.     

Teaching Methodology and Skills

In my project,I am going to deal with teachingmethodology and skills.I would like to explore somemethods in teaching English as a foreign language inChina,because teaching methods are very importantin my view.In my English classes,I think differentmethods are better for different students.Aims of My ProjectThe aims of my project will be to find someefficient ways to make the students interested inlearning the language,to make them keep up theinterest and master effective ways of learningEn…     

教你正确用(九) 答读者来信(英文)

I have been writing this column for quite a few months and have received many letters from you. Some of you asked questions,and some of you just simply wrote to say hello,not only to me but also to DD.I appreciate the kind words and good wishes from all of you,and DD too.From here on,I'll periodically print some of your letters in this column to discuss your questions as well as writing skills with our readers.l hope you' ll enjoy this exercise.     

How to Help Slow-learning Students

Now English is widely used all over the world.So learing English well is very important.But I find that some of the student aren’t interested in English.To them,learing English is a boring task..Some data show that 45% of the students in middle school have much difficulty in English learning.Therefore,it’s necessary to do research on SLS so that English teaching can serve all the students and fulfil the teaching programme completely.     

Helping Students to Internalize the Grammar Rules Through Communicative Activities

English grammar tends to be treated as a kind of knowledge explained and transmitted at tertiary level in China.Students engage in memorizing grammar rules,but they are unable to use them correctly and appropriately when speaking and writing.This article attempts to help students to make use of the rules through meaningful practice in grammar class.It is based on communicative approach and of a kind of eclecticism.The activities mentioned provide students with some opportunities to interact in classroom and use knowledge of English grammar in social contexts in which communication takes place and through which the rules will be internalized accordingly.     

Why is the Use of Films in the ESL Literature Class a Good Idea?

In the 15th century,Johannes Gutenberg introduced mechanical movable type printing to Europe,causing an explo sion of knowledge that changed the world.This new way of printing enabled the masses to be exposed to works of literature that would have been inaccessible to them previously.The rapid development of technology in the 21st century presents educators with similar opportunities to expose an ever-widening circle of students to previously inaccessible works of literature.Although controversial with some,the use of films in the ESL literature classroom is one such opportunity.This paper aims to show that the use of films in the ESL literature classroom is a good idea because it is inexpensive,effective in developing listening,speaking,reading and writing skills,exposes students to authentic cultural information,helps students to absorb English,and develops the habit of reading for pleasure.Finally,some tips on the effective use of film in the ESL literature classroom are given.     

Classroom Observation on Developing Students’Competence in SEIB

China’s entry to WTO and China’s 2008 Olympic Games have widely opened the door to the outside world.Tal ents with business knowledge and excellent oral English are urgently needed.For students in English major,we give the course of Spoken English for International Business(SEIB) to improve their abilities in SEIB.The author aims to use the methods like classroom observation,interview,questionnaire survey to observe and compare two classes and two teachers to explore the rela tions between students’competence development and teachers’with different levels and teaching practice,and to gain some enlightenment on students’competence developing in SEIB from the study.     

以默想的方式练习口语(英语)

The title is contradictory but it holds water. We, English teachers or students, are all used to the common saying about oral English training: to practise in and out of class with your teachers and fellow students, to make dialogues or conversations according to some made-up situations, or to communicate with foreigners or English-speaking people (including those who know English as well as you). I think, these are certainly good ways to go.     

Multi Layer Teaching Methods for Oral Engish

Some people are suspicious of oral English learning for they have been accustomed to the old traditional classroom training. This paper discusses some new teaching techniques in oral class, which breaks the traditional teaching methods. If teachers are aware of the advantages of these new methods and put them into practice, then we can create a lively and natural atmosphere so that the students will lose their inhibition and learn English happily. The main point of this paper is that the best teaching method can produce the best effect and it should be a combination of some flexible and various approaches rather than only one single teaching method as well as the cooperation of teacher and students.     

Exploration and Practice of Improving College Students’ Speaking Competence through Group Discussion

The aim of English teaching is not only to make the students learn new words and grammar, answer multiple-choice questions to get good scores, but also to enhance the students’abilities of the integrated application of English, speaking and listening in particular. The ultimate goal of learning English is to use English to communicate with others in the future jobs and real life. However, the non-English majors have great trouble speaking English in class and in real life. Such ways as Socratic dialogues, cause analysis and questionnaire are used to investigate the reasons. In order to improve speaking ability, group discussion is used in class. In consequence, the students have more interest, motivation, courage and confidence in speaking English. Meanwhile, they have also established the concept of using what they learned in class, in practical work and real life.     

Reading, Intensive or Extensive?

Introduction One of the most striking things about teaching in China is that considering the tremendous intrinsic motivation of so many learners and the lengths to which they are prepared to go to try to learn English, their level in some areas (for example, speaking and listening)is often surprisingly low. What can be held mainly responsible for the comparatively low level and slow development of Chinese students in English learning is the traditional teaching method of intensive reading. Chinese readers     

Create Effective Activities for Students to Learn English Literature

Rather than only learning English grammar and some other language knowledge about English,learning English litera ture is another effective way for students to learn English since they can not only learn the native English by reading some English literature but also get familiar with different cultures and background knowledge of English countries.As an English teacher,the main job in the literature class is to design effective activities for students in order to let them comprehend texts that they read and improve their critical thinking.This paper is tend to discuss some activities,including pre-reading,reading and post-reading ac tivities,which was used in my literature class and how they help the students learn English and improve their critical thinking.     

Cultivating Students' Cultural Awareness in Foreign Language Teaching

Many foreign language teachers are often wondering why their students cannot avoid some mistakes in their writing assignment and oral presentations though the grammatical rules and phrases are quite familiar to them. On the other hand students also complain about the boredom of learning English."What is the use of learning English besides taking exams?"they often ask. In this paper the author is going to discuss language learning and teaching from the cultural perspective. By discussing the importance of culture teaching, the author intends to help both the teachers and the students to get out of their bewilderment. Some useful suggestions will be shared at the end of the paper, aiming to offer some practical and concrete guidance to both the students and my co-workers.     

A Discursive Psychology Approach to English Learning Experiences Narrative: What’s Behind the Failures?

This article takes a discursive psychology approach to the analysis of Non-English major students’ English learning experience narrative. The students took part in my survey are those just say goodbye to the high school and are freshmen in college now. The English learning experience narrative is in a form of diary. Through the students themselves’ own point of views in recounting their English learning experiences, I want to find the reality hidden behind their failures in learning English. And hope this can give the most teachers who work for public English education in colleges or even universities some inspiration about teaching.     

悠闲英语（五十五）Mathemat ical English 数解英文

I have been writing this column for several years now and have received a lot of letters from the readers. They asked all kinds of questions, from English grammar, to what DD eats everyday, to how to find a job after graduation from college, to how to make kids interested in studying English But,