Better Oral Expression——by retelling texts
Better Oral Expression——by retelling texts重庆财政学校 罗仁家 9月14日 As we all know, the last also the most important aim for us to learn English as a foreign language is to use it freely in all aspects such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. Nowadays, in order to keep the closest pace with the rapid development of our modern society, the students' ability to speak and listen to or understand English has become most essential. So all kinds of textbooks which are marked to help them practice oral English have easily set up a very good market both in middle schools and colleges ,for example, 3Ls,Look ahead, New concept English, Oral workshops and so on. Well, what on earth is the best or most effective way to better our oral English? Especially for middle school students or some college students who don't specialize in English .To my knowledge, retelling what you've learned in the texts is a good and practical way to improve your ability to express in English. Here "retelling" means students use their own understandings to refine or imitate an article which is similar to the text, which is quite different from reciting or repeating some key sentences from the texts, and also different from or by far more than remembering some key or detailed plots. Retelling needs their own imagination, comments, suggestion as well as the fluent oral expression of the main idea, so it is a very hard job, but the best way to practice their spoken English while learning the textbooks. Retelling in the texts learning is very helpful for both teachers and students, let's look at the following. Firstly, it can help teachers to know how their fellow students get on with the text, and further improve or exchange the present teaching methods, bettering the quality of their teaching. Speaking out the main ideas, even commenting on the text and giving some imagination or suggestion is the obvious way to show the students' understandings of the text, and to mark out how they can use English as a language. Secondly, it can improve students' ability of oral expression. Doing like this leads students to abandon the former way of just dealing with test papers, or caring much for their scores only, and it can stimulate their interest to speak out in English. So long as the teachers pay much attention to their brave experience instead of the frequent grammatical mistakes, creating very pleasant atmosphere for them to talk freely and encouraging them to be the hosts or hostesses in class. Thirdly, it's very helpful to train their thinking, inference and logic, that is, after they can speak out the main idea about the text, don't end up, the following step is to give them time and space to imagine or comment on the idea freely. For example, when secondary school students learn the text Breaking down Family Barriers (1),the most satisfactory progress is that they can hold a correct point of view towards their own relationship with parents and give out many pieces of advice to break down family barriers. By retelling the texts, they can get a whole concept about a matter and learn to analysis it dialectically, which will arouse their fervor to think what happens to them often and keep clear and correct opinions. Fourthly, it can embody students' central position in class. Compared with traditional class, (the teachers must be the leaders, and students are positive to make notes or make sentences with some words or phrases mechanically), retelling class is very active and challengeable, the more they join in, the more they'll learn from the class and the more they can improve their oral expression. Of course, it's also a very hard job for teachers to run the lesson like this, here are some references for you. Discussion. This is the most useful way to create the talking atmosphere. After students read through the whole passage, the teacher may enlighten them to draw out a topic to discuss. For example, the text of Breaking down Family Barriers (2) you may say "What should the relationship between children and parents be?" or "as a child, how should you communicate with your parents?"Then divide the whole class into several groups to develop their free and hot discussion, and then encourage them to state out their own ideas about that. Questions, which are very effective to operate their thinking, you may ask some simple or detailed questions about the context. And answers to the questions may bring them a very clear impression on the text. And also the questions may lead them to imagine some situation, which is relative to the text, and give them more material to express in English. For example, " are you missing your parents now?" "Have you ever complained about them?" " Do you believe them?" " Do you and your parents trust and understand each other?" Pictures. Pictures are very good or suitable for middle school students, because they are object and easy to think about and connect in the mind, so the teacher uses some connective and impressive pictures to generalize the main idea, which can surely stir up their desire to speak in class. Paragraphs. lead them to make out the topic idea of each paragraph, and then get the clear thinking of the whole passage. Students may try to enrich or support the topic sentence by using their own imagination. By doing this, they are likely to make up a similar article, which is fresher and more wonderful than the origin. Performance, it can practice their multiple-comprehensive ability. They may make up a short play or a dialogue according to some plots or opinion or main idea of the article to enlighten their thinking, which can increase their interests, deepen their memory and also create very active atmosphere to speak in English freely. Yes, it's easier to say than to do .As an English teacher, you shouldn't be too impatient to wait. You'd do it step by step according to the situation in your class. Just remember one thing, that is, to encourage them more and give them more chances!
