On improving students’ speaking ability(2)

3.3 Mental barrier
An American psychologist has had an experiment among three thousand people like this: what do you worry about most? There are all kinds of answers, such as death, dump, loss of relatives, diseases, etc. But to our surprised, about forty percent of people think that what people worry about and frighten most is to speak before people. From this experiment, we know that some uncomfortable feeling will happen in mother tongue to communicate. And the uncomfortable feeling will be more serious in the second language. Most students will have some mental barrier or psychological barrier during the speaking training or the speaking communication, and we often find that the students will amplify well in warm-up in class. However, in real occasion, they will only have a look at the other people without any word even if they meet the same situation as that in class. Maybe they also want to speak to other freely. Just because of lack of the confidence, they can’t speak well, and they would rather watch other’s communication. In their opinions, they should speak English purely and fluently and there are no grammatical mistakes even to wonderful stage when people communicate. Then the communication will be continued pridely, or others maybe laugh at them. In English class, this aspect is often appeared. Some students worry about their pronunciation and intonation, so they will only say “I’m sorry” as the answers to the teachers’ questions. All these will influence the improvement of speaking ability. Their speaking ability increasingly becomes worse under the lack of training so long time.
Of course, the above mentioned is not the only factors to obstruct the improvement of speaking ability. And there are some other factors to influence the speaking ability. For example, the communicating people, (some good friends will be good communicating people), the communicating topics (some interesting topics will promote their communication well), the communicating surroundings (if it is possible, it will be the best surrounding to be put in the English-speaking countries) etc. Because there are so many factors obstructing the students’ speaking ability, some good ways to improve their speaking ability should be found during the process of English teaching and to help them overcome these obstructs. Then their speaking ability will be trained and improved favorably during the process of English learning.

4. Essential methods for improving students’ speaking ability.
4.1 Create a good language surrounding to arouse the students’ enthusiasm for English learning.
4.1.1 A“real”environment of English learning is of great help.
The traditional grammar-translation teaching method played a definite role in middle school teaching over the past decades, but this method of learning English through Chinese translation in class has not entirely catered for the new situation of learning a foreign language. We should bring the students to a full realization of the fact that learning English always through Chinese translation certainly does not help them improve their skills of using English. But we haven’t a good language surrounding to speak English all the time, which has always big problem for our Chinese English learners. And we know that teaching in class is the basic form of English teaching. Firstly, the English in his class should be on the basis of the students’ understanding easily. Don’t let the students have the room to express in Chinese. And the teachers should help them learn to think in English and encourage them to answer the questions in English. To the beginners of learning English, they often don’t dare to answer the teachers’ questions in English because of some reasons. So the teachers should encourage them with patience and let them give up the shy minds. And the teachers should conduct their lessons in English as much as possible, so as to force the students to get used to listening speaking and thinking in English. Before a new lesson, teachers can create some situations for the students to respond to them and then to paraphrase a few sentences or to retell a story etc. On the other hand, for their answers, the teachers should give them proper estimate and let them have a successful feeling of getting knowledge. Then they will be glad to speak it more and more. Thus the students feel in a real environment of English like those native learners. Actually in such a lively atmosphere, the students have been motivated to convey their ideas in English. Of course, it is quite clear that the students ’ ability of speaking must be well and effectively trained. In my classroom, there are many piece of paper with “English corners” on the wall. Before class, I often let them see some English film in order to feel western conditions and customs and attract their interest for English learning.

4.1.2 The students ' high interest for English learning is needed.
As we all know, “the aims for English teaching is to train the students how to use the language, yet this kind of ability will more quickly be developed on condition that the students are greatly engaged in the English language and immersed in an atmosphere of using the language ”6In accordance with the theory, an English teacher is required to observe the communication principles to make the whole class full of communication. To some extent, the students ’attention and interest are aroused and in the meantime, the students’ speaking is effectively practiced. As a learner of English in the classroom, if he shows great interest in English learning, of course, he should listen to the teacher carefully, follow his teacher step by step, fix all his attention on what the teacher is saying and try his best to catch on. Then he is active to take part in activities; he is willing to communicate with others to show off. Little by little, his speaking ability will be definitely improved. On the contrary, the student who has no interest in learning English will be unwilling to listen to the teacher and communicate with others, then, gradually, he will be a “stranger” to English. Just as what Mr. Li Yang says that if you want to speak fluent and pure English, you must speak English loudly and crazily and change the muscle on Chinese face into that on western face .So in order to improve the students’ speaking ability, teachers should stimulate students’ enthusiasm for English learning .Let them speak it as much as they can happily.
4.1.3 Some measures for arousing students’ interest
a、Three-minutes speech before class .At the beginning of a class, students are often asked to come to the blackboard to give the others a duty report.
b、Give more chances to the students to do pairs work ,making up their own dialogue.
c、Make full use of audio-visual aids to create situations .
d、Carry out some activities, such as: Speaking/reading competition, Chinese forbidden, English corner, etc.

e、Play games .E.g. Pass the message, make more sentences as quickly as possible.
f、Modify Li Yang’s crazily speaking English .
4.2 Help the students lay a solid base of English phonetics.
If there is something wrong with a student 's pronunciation, then, obviously, he can't understand what's on in the communication. And increasingly it will influence the student's confidence of communication. So teacher of English should help students lay a solid base of English phonetics, which includes accurate pronunciation, good intonation, sound linking, plosive and strong and weak forms .It is proved that students with good pronunciation and intonation have obvious advantages in speaking just as a writer's opinions can be obtained by reading between the lines, a speaker ’s intention can be revealed from the intonation and tunes he uses. For example, the students of one of my classes aren’t often vigorous when I ask them to read after me, they often read slowly. Then I read loudly, and then the students read louder, too. What’s more, it is also proved that good pronunciation and tunes not only help himself develop the confidence of English learning, but also help others surrounding him try to improve their speaking ability. As the youth have a strong presented expect and most of them hope that they can have fluent and pure English then become the focus and the admiring people to the public, which make them have a better confidence in their life.
5.3 Give more chances to the students to develop their speaking ability as well as the other three skills (listening, reading and writing)
In class, the students should be given more time to speak and they can't be regarded just as audiences, which will not have a good teaching effect and the student's speaking ability also can't be trained .The teachers should let the students take part in the class. In JFFC textbooks, there are many interesting dialogues and stories. So the teachers should let the students act the dialogue out or make another dialogue with their own words as possible as they can. And there’re many riddles and chants in the textbooks. So the teachers can take the formation of competition to let the students imitate and follow the tape and see who is the winner. Next, the teachers can also arrange for the students to retell the stories, which they are more interested in. And the students also estimate their favorite ball players. In a word, the teacher can take all kinds of activities to encourage them to speak. Meanwhile, the four skills should be regarded as a whole, which influence with each other and promote mutually. To speak more, they are demanded to listen more first. For example, let the students listen to the original tape and English songs and let them imitate pure English pronunciations constantly. When their pronunciation is pure increasingly, their speaking ability will be improved comprehensively. Then, the student should write more. Writing can help the students consolidate the knowledge and strengthen their ability of understanding and memories. Last, the students should read more. Reading can help to form a good sense of language and know the western conditions and customs, then widen their knowledge. Also, reading can help them know more vocabularies and more native English. After all, semantics is consisted of words. The more words they know, the wider and easier they communicate. For example, there are two classes having been trained for two years for reading. The speaking of the students in those two classes is obvious better than other students in our English corner. So accumulating the students’ vocabulary is very necessary.

4.4 Accumulate the students' vocabulary in order to speak well
During the speaking English, the communication often is interrupted by a word, which the students don't know. So the vocabulary is obviously important. So during the teaching English, besides letting the students remember the words they've learned. What more important is to teach the way which how to remember more words, After learning the rule of spelling and pronunciation, the students should be encouraged to read and remember the words in their own way and master the links between the words, and then improve the effect of remembering words. The teachers also should encourage the students that when they do some reading, they should guess the words' meaning according to the context. At the same time, it is also important to improve the ability to look up the words in the dictionary. If a student is rich in his vocabulary, then it must be helpful for his speaking ability. What’s more, a large vocabulary is quite good for students to summarize a text. So after teaching a text, students are often asked to retell it in their own words, for speaking communication largely depends on the quality of one's organization and summation. We can say that the words are the building materials of language. There will be no buildings if there are no materials. What’s more, the rich vocabulary also has an influence on the reading, translation, the writing and the listening. We can say that the rich vocabulary is the basis of speaking English well.
4.5 Enlarge the students' background knowledge.
Language is an important carriage of culture. There are close links between them, when you learn language, you must know some knowledge about culture, and then you can understand and express some meaning correctly. So the new syllabus presents a new demand that know the world correctly and strengthen the understanding to English countries' culture. According to it, the teacher should both grasp the textbook as usual and know the culture of English countries reflected in the textbook carefully during their English teaching. When the students can do it after the teachers, they can get the basic knowledge and communicating ability by the training of listening, speaking, reading and writing. For example, in our textbook, the sentence "Can you help me?” can be answered with "Yes, certainly, sure, surely and of course." But these answers have different meanings. The answer of yes is comparably impolite, while certainly is more polite. Sure or surely are often used in American English. And of course has the meaning of a little fool. So when you communicate with the elder people, you must pay more attention to use of course. From the above, we know that it's more important to use the proper language on different occasion, besides teaching the students the words and sentences. So it's necessary to know the background knowledge about culture of English countries. If the students know it more, then obstruct their speaking ability less. And it will promote the speaking communication then push the speaking ability further development.

Above all are only parts of the ways. Their own hard work and studying ways also can't be ignored.

5. Conclusion.
It is quite clear that speaking is very important to both the teachers of English in middle schools and their students. As a teacher of English, we should flexibly carry out the five-step teaching approach to improve the quality of 45-minute class, get a way to explore new and effective teaching methods and to take an active part in English teaching innovation. At the same time, as students of English, they should be aware of the importance of cultivating their speaking ability in their daily studies.
In conclusion, like building a house, learning English takes some time, so don't be impatient. Remember, Rome was not built in a day. With the help of the teachers, as long as students command a good knowledge of English grammar, and do more oral and listening practice, the speaking ability of students is surely to be greatly improved.

Notes:

① Kean Qiu:“The English language,”The World of English,Sep,1996,P28
② Language And Culture,P4
③ Teaching syllabus for Middle School,P2
④ Teaching syllabus for Middle Schoo,P9
⑤ Modern Linguistics,P17
⑥ Yuan Boping,Foreign language Teaching And Research,July,2003,P261

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