Examination-oriented education penetrates into various aspects in English teaching in senior middle school, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Nowadays, China exist situation of "deaf and dumb English". Because of pressure on the college entrance examination, they focus on examination skills but ignore the practice ability of English.
1. 2. 1 Teacher-centered classroom
Confucianism has profoundly permeated the discourse of education in China for thousands of years regardless of political ideologies. Traditional Chinese classrooms are predominantly teacher-centered. Teaching and learning are rigidly structured with virtually no flexibility for teachers and students to negotiate. The following characteristics are common.
• Students are treated as passive learners as they are viewed as recipients of knowledge.
• Teaching and learning rely heavily on two key resources: teacher and textbook.
• Learning experiences are confined to a classroom context.
• Examination controls teaching and learning process and outcome.
Traditional English teaching and learning in China has the following features: teacher-centered, textbook-dependent and grammar-orientated. The language teacher has sole authority in the classroom who should not be questioned, interrupted, or challenged. Textbooks are sacredly treated as an embodiment of knowledge, wisdom and truth.[5] Thus, learning text by heart was a common practice. The teaching concentrates on analysis of morphological and syntactic units in isolation with little reference to authentic language and its social contexts. It is learning about English, or meta-linguistic awareness. Usually tests can make students very nervous-they are so structured, with pencil and paper only, and time is strictly limited. The existing classroom teaching mainly focuses on enhance the development of the students by book-learning, its functions mainly lie in forming students’ cognitive competence and quality as knowledge-learning subjective.
1. 2. 2 Traditional test approach
In the past traditional Grammar-Translation method used to take a predominating position in English teaching. Those who stubbornly support Grammar-Translation method reckon it the most important of all to focus on the learning of foreign language grammar. In their opinion, grammar acquisition not only contributes to understanding but also to “intelligence upgrading”, thus enhancing the logical thinking capability. However, Grammar-Translation method excessively relies on the native language, hence exerting artificial interference of the native language on the target language.[6] Besides, it pays little attention to the teaching of listening and speaking in the practical teaching process, which, on the very contrary, produces an adverse effect on the cultivation of the communicative capability of the students in using the target language, thus more often than not, classroom teaching turns out to be something as dry as dust.
Traditional English test method is generated on the basis of Grammar-Translation method, which leaves behind its effects ubiquitously seen in respect of the guidelines of setting a test or examination paper, type design, specific contents, etc. Therefore, traditional test method tends towards grammatical rules, morphological variation and word usages, usually with emphasis of testing grammar, words, reading comprehension and translation. Yet, this kind of “Dumb English” test generally takes the form of written test, seldom in the form of oral test. The commonly used test types contain reading comprehension, grammar, words and compositions, etc. It goes without saying this kind of test method lacks in reliability, subjectivity and scientificity, thus rending it rather difficult to collect and process relevant data by means of statistical method in education.
Table 1 Allocation of the usual traditional question types
Type
Vocabulary Grammar Reading Comprehension Composition with an Assigned Topic Others
Percentage 25% 15% 35% 15
10%
Analyzing from the above table, we can easily see that, on the one hand, this kind of test method lays excessive stress on memorization of vocabulary and grammatical items by rote; on the other hand, it emphasizes reading and writing. We can say it is a total bust. However, it clearly demonstrates that it is set in the backdrop of the exam-oriented education rather than the quality-oriented education which accentuates interactive teaching and flexible question types in exam, not just focusing on the score of the exam but the practical capability in applying what they have learned into practice.
1. 3 Problems of examination-oriented education
Education is the way to the success, the wrong and mistakes will appear by proper examination and the learner’s study can be improved. [7] While, the examination-oriented education do the harm to the learners. The whole knowledge and technology which are required to be mastered can not be included. All these problems are unilateral and dull. Learner’s actual abilities have been ignored in whole but not for the people in western education institutes. In some countries, such as America and England, the examinations are not held so frequently as those in China or Japan, or others oriental countries. Teachers and parents care the actual ability of the youth much. People can do the things they like and develop the interests freely. For example, Bill Gates of Microsoft co did not enter any university, while he created the Microsoft and changed the life of many people. 转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
共8页: 上一页 [1] [2] 3 [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] 下一页
网摘收藏:
当前位置:
载入中...
-> 在百度中搜索：
-> 在Google中搜索：