English Teaching In Sports Schools

With the bidding of 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing in China, one can imagine the importance of English in sports schools, as well as in sports field. The students of sports schools are the players of all kinds of sports events; their main subjects are sports. Unlike other middle schools' selective system, sports schools select the students by their sports achievements, not by their academic achievements. The selective marks of sports schools are much lower than those of middle schools, even other vocational schools. The students spend half a day learning academic subjects, the other half day training. In such a limited time it is very difficult for the students to learn the subjects well, let alone English. In addition, the students' English level is so low that they learn English passively and do not have any interest in English.Generally speaking, English is the most headache subject for the teachers and the students in sports schools. For a long time, the teachers have been looking for an appropriate teaching method for the students of sports schools. The study attempts to investigate if oral communicative approach is necessary and important in English teaching to students in sports schools, how to improve the students' oral communicative competence in sports schools, and if the oral communicative approach is suitable for English teaching in sports schools. The experiment lasts for one term, from September 2005 to January 2006. Two classes of the same grade are selected from the researcher's work unit. One class is the comparative class in which the traditional teaching method is used; the other class is the experimental class in which the oral communicative approach is used. The research methods include questionnaires, interviews and the analysis of the examination achievements. The findings are: (1) The oral communicative approach is important and suitable for English teaching in sports schools. (2) Through the development of the oral communicative competence, the students' interest and motivation of learning English have been improved and their achievements have been improved as well.