复述课文——提高英语口语水平的确切方法(2)

　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, pide 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, As a teacher, he should try make more chances and encourage students to practice a lot. The more they practice, the better they will do.