First, the important position and role of written expression ability
Theoretically, the English Curriculum Standard points out: "The tasks of English curriculum in the basic education stage are: to stimulate and cultivate students' interest in learning English, so that students can establish self-confidence, develop good study habits, and form effective learning strategies, autonomous learning ability and cooperative spirit; Enable students to master certain basic English knowledge and listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, and form a certain comprehensive language application ability. "The overall goal of English course in basic education stage is to cultivate students' comprehensive language use ability. The formation of this ability is based on the all-round development of language skills, language knowledge, emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness. Thus, language knowledge and language skills are the basis of comprehensive language use ability. Language skills include listening, speaking, reading and writing. These four skills complement and promote each other in language learning and communication. Students should form comprehensive language application ability through a large number of special and comprehensive language practice activities. To sum up, the spirit and concept of the new curriculum require that the written surface expression ability is the starting point and foundation for beginners to learn English, and also the destination and foothold of English language learning.
From a practical point of view, the purpose of language learning lies in application, and the embodiment of language ability is also reflected in the process of application. Judging from the arrangement of new textbooks, great attention is paid to the training of written expression ability, and almost every unit has written content, but different grades have different requirements. For example, the standard experimental textbook "Come on" of compulsory education curriculum is the first volume of the seventh grade. Unit 3 Self-examination is the last part of this unit. Its requirement is: In pairs, write down the letters your partner said with a colored pen. The last part of the official article Unit 1 self-check: two classes are introduced in the following card. Unit 2 Self. The last part of the check: Look at the picture and write the dialogue. From the examination point of view, the last question in every English exam is a written test. This is true for unit exams, mid-term exams and final exams. Especially in 2007, the written expression changed from one to two, and the score increased from 10 to 15.
Therefore, we can think that the ability of written expression plays a very important role in the process of English learning, and it is the embodiment of a person's comprehensive language use ability. English learners must attach great importance to its consolidation and improvement. Especially for junior high school students, improving written expression ability is not only the requirement of the new curriculum standard, but also a solid foundation for English learners' future study and lifelong learning.
Second, the real situation and reasons of written expression ability
Since written expression ability is so important, what is the current written expression ability of students? According to the author's teaching practice for eight years in a row, students' written expression ability is quite backward at present, and only 20% of students in each class can really complete written expression as required; 30% can complete most of the requirements; 40% can't write as required. In addition, 10% students hardly write. What is the reason for this lag?
The reasons why students' written expression ability lags behind are both students' factors and teachers' factors. From the students' point of view, there are both psychological factors and relatively low real ability.
1 Students' psychological factors are manifested in the following two aspects:
1), fear:
Many students are afraid at the sight of writing and writing English compositions. They think that my own Chinese composition is incoherent and messy, and my English study is average, so I can barely understand the text. Then how can I write an English composition? I'm really afraid of writing English composition. Such fears arise before writing or even thinking. The more fear, the more confused thinking; The more confused, the more fearful. In the long run, these students will develop "English writing fear syndrome". This kind of fear seriously inhibits English learners' English thinking, especially for English beginners, which will certainly hinder the process of English learning and limit the improvement of English written expression ability.
2), lazy psychology
Laziness is a stumbling block on the way forward. With it, the pace of human progress will slow down; With it, people's motivation to move forward is getting weaker and weaker. Some students, they do have such lazy ideas. Every time the teacher assigns a written expression homework, they are lazy to finish it on time, and some of them will never finish it. It is precisely because of this psychological problem that a considerable number of students hardly do the usual written expression training questions in reality. During the exam, either copy a paragraph of reading comprehension, or simply don't write a word and wait for a blank sheet of paper. This laziness makes these students lose the motivation to learn English and miss the best opportunity to improve their written expression ability.
The reasons why students' written expression ability lags behind are not only psychological factors, but also practical ability factors Because students' practical ability determines their learning state and learning effect. Practical ability consists of students' basic knowledge, thinking habits and Chinese knowledge. Therefore, to understand students' practical ability, we must analyze it from the above three aspects.
2. Students' practical ability is shown in the following three aspects.
1), the basic knowledge is not solid.
In some students' writing, eight words in one sentence 10 are wrong, and phrase collocation is also arrogant, and the bull's head is not right. For example, a student wrote this sentence: I bought an English book for my sister yesterday. There are nine words in this sentence, and there are as many as six mistakes: ①. The subject uses the nominative "I" instead of the accusative "I"; ② The past tense of ②. Buyed is bought, not bought; ③ Replace "a" with the indefinite article an before "English"; 4. Buy and for collocate to form buy sth. Give someone instead of buying something. To sb. 5. Adjective subject pronouns (mine, ours, yours, his, hers and theirs) are used before nouns, not nominal subject pronouns (mine, ours, his, hers and theirs); 6. The English word "yesterday" is spelled as "yesterday" instead of "yesterday". Then the correct expression of this sentence is that I bought an English book for my sister yesterday. There are six mistakes in nine words in this sentence, which is enough to show that students' basic knowledge is quite poor;
2) The expression habit does not conform to the characteristics of English language.
In Chinese writing, adverbials of time and place are usually placed at the beginning of a sentence. However, some English sentences are different. There is no special requirement, it always puts the subject at the beginning of the sentence, followed by the predicate. Add corresponding objects, adverbials, etc. As needed. For example, "A strange thing happened to me yesterday." The correct expression is: a strange thing happened to me yesterday. Most students wrote: A strange thing happened to me yesterday. Another example is, "I cried." The correct expression is: my tears came to my eyes. But many students wrote: I shed tears. Expressions like these are typical Chinglish, typical expressions of China people, which are totally out of line with the characteristics of English language. If we don't change the expression habits that don't conform to the English language in time, it will certainly hinder the improvement of students' written expression ability.
3) Lack of logic and coherence in thinking.
In writing, some students can't straighten out their thinking, guide the full text and grasp it as a whole, but want to write there, ramble, make a preface and don't recite words. Thinking lacks logic and coherence. For example, the following passage:
My name is Xiaoming. I'm in Class Five, Grade Nine. I am
Fifteen. I like math and English.
The logical order of this essay is obviously confused: from name to grade, and then from age to favorite subject. This order, whether in Chinese or English, is regarded as lacking in logic and coherence. The correct order should be adjusted as follows: first name, then age, and finally favorite subject. So the original text should be adjusted to:
My name is Xiaoming. I am fifteen years old. I'm in Class Five, Grade Nine. I like math and English.
From the students' point of view, this paper analyzes the reasons why the written expression ability is relatively backward. Let's analyze the root of this phenomenon from the perspective of teachers.
From the teacher's point of view, there are two reasons for this phenomenon.
(1) The task of the course is heavy.
Now, most places have entered the experimental area of curriculum reform and used new textbooks. The biggest feature of the new textbook is its wide range of topics, large amount of information and heavy curriculum tasks. Judging from the actual situation, at present, in most schools, English classes in grades 7 and 8 are 4-5 per week, and only the ninth-grade graduating class has 6 classes. These schools still follow the old curriculum standards. However, the content of each unit in the new textbook is very much. If you teach according to such class hours, then the teaching task will definitely not be completed. In each unit, especially listening training, it will take up a lot of time. Although each unit has the task of writing practice at the end, most teachers let students write by themselves after class without guidance. As for how students write, the result is unknown. The cultivation of students' written expression ability is just a formality, but it has not been really implemented. Therefore, due to the heavy task of the course, teachers ignore the cultivation of students' written expression ability.
(2) The workload of teachers is heavy
English teachers have at least two classes each, and some have three classes. I have morning reading almost every day, I have to correct my formal homework every day, and I have to attend 2-3 evening self-study classes or postpone classes every week. So the teacher's workload is very heavy. In addition, some teachers have to be class teachers, grade leaders, teaching and research leaders, etc. So English teachers are busy all day and have little free time. In every school, English teachers are the busiest. In order to cope with all kinds of inspections in schools, many teachers simply don't put their time and energy into the cultivation of students' written expression ability.
It is precisely because of students' poor mental state, low practical ability, heavy teaching tasks and insufficient attention that their written expression ability lags behind.
However, the status quo belongs to the status quo and the reality belongs to the reality. We can't deal with reality with the status quo, we must change the status quo and adapt to the new reality as soon as possible. What is the new reality? The new reality is that students' written expression ability must be exercised and improved; Must adapt to the new requirements put forward by the new curriculum; We must lay a solid foundation for students' future study and lifelong study. The new reality tells us that it is urgent and the general trend to improve students' written expression ability. In this year's senior high school entrance examination proposition, there is a new change: the written expression is increased from one to two, and the score is increased from 10 to 15. This is enough to see the weight of written expression in the whole English learning process.
Third, effective ways and means to improve the ability of written expression
Since written expression plays an increasingly important role in the whole English learning process, how to improve students' superficial expression ability? Are there any good ways and means? The answer is yes. There must be a more practical way. The following are the effective methods summarized by the author in the teaching of graduating classes for eight consecutive years.
From the perspective of students, we should start from the following three aspects.
1, find the breakthrough point to improve the written expression ability.
Some students clearly know that their writing ability is poor, and they are willing to improve their writing ability with the help of teachers or classmates. However, there is no way to start, and there is no starting point. We know that this breakthrough point is not far away, but just around the corner, in textbooks. Therefore, we should take the following aspects as the starting point to improve the ability of written expression:
(1) Starting from the text in the textbook, students imitate writing first.
The new target textbooks published by People's Education Society are carefully selected and compiled by Chinese and foreign experts and first-line excellent teachers. Therefore, the dialogue or words in this textbook, whether ideological, literary or overall framework, are relatively regular, which is worth learning and learning from our students. Especially for beginners, in learning to write, the text in the textbook provides a representative model. Students must carry out a lot of imitation training in a planned, purposeful, hierarchical and targeted way. Only through long-term repeated practice can students' written expression ability be gradually and steadily improved. For example, Section 3a, Unit 2, Area B, Book 1, Grade 7: Provide four lost and found inspiration models.