A Review Of Contextualized Foreign Language Teaching And Learning In The U.S.A. And Its Enlightenments

The foreign language teaching and learning has been improved greatly in China.However, there are still so many problems such as the poor efficiency and ineffectiveness of teaching and learning by contrast with a lot of investment of capital,time and energy in it, that is to say, it failed to meet the needs of foreign language teaching practice. The current round of reforms to the English curriculum aim to end the following practices: over-emphasizing the transmission and explanation of knowledge about grammar and vocabulary, and neglecting to develop students’ ability to use language for real.In their place, the reforms aim to establish a curriculum that develops students’ comprehensive language competence; centers on individual differences of learners;motivates students and relevant it to their life experiences and cognitive level;involves students in experiential, practical, participatory and cooperative learning;develops students’ positive attitudes, thinking skills, practical abilities, cultural awareness and autonomy through the language learning process.American teachers also confront similar problems in the 1980 s, but they have tried to make reforms and great achievements have been made. Their theories and practices may have some reference to China’s reform of foreign language teaching and learning at present. With this calculation, the author makes a probe into the development of Contextual Teaching and Learning(CTL) for foreign language in the U.S.A. and summarizes the fruit of its research in this field to find the gap and use the foreign experience as a beneficial reference to China’s practice of teaching and learning.Contextualized teaching and learning is a conception of teaching and learning that helps teachers relate subject matter content to real world situations and motivates students to make connections between knowledge and its applications to their lives asfamily members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning requires.Based on the theories of constructivism, humanism and cognitive science, a comprehensive understanding of contextual teaching and learning is illustrated by analyzing definitions, components, characteristics, and principles. CTL gives students opportunities to find meaning and personal significance in academic lessons by actually connecting schoolwork with their daily lives and interests. As students strive to attain learning goals, they draw upon their previous experiences and build upon existing knowledge. The point of the connection is to interest and challenge students that they see meaning in their lessons and are therefore motivated to attain demanding academic objectives.Looking into the application of CTL in foreign language teaching and learning, it is easy to find that CTL is not just another blip on the screen of ephemeral classroom practices, but offers a pathway to academic excellence all students can follow. CTL,as a new idea in foreign language teaching and learning, its success and popularity comes from the rational analysis and application of a comprehensive framework of context in the learning, understanding and use of language. With the principles of interdependence, differentiation and self-organization, the teaching methods guided by CTL covers the following eight components: making meaningful connections,doing significant work, self-regulated learning, and collaborating, critical and creative thinking, nurturing the individual, reaching high standards, and using authentic assessments. All these methods share the similarity or focal feature in language teaching and learning, that is connection. It means that we should learn a language not separately, but in context. CTL aims to enhance student learning by connecting academic content to the context of their personal knowledge, experiences, and interests. In the classroom teaching, CTL means teacher should present the student real contexts inside the classroom.The reference to CTL is meant to underscore the teaching and learning process,and facilitate foreign language learning effectively in settings within and beyond theclassroom context. Therefore, contextualized hierarchical English teaching should come into being to make up for the deficiency of traditional teaching methods, respect the individual differences of students, and offer all students equal learning opportunities, letting the students get more development suitable for their own and provide a more suitable learning strategies for their own.The objective of contextualized hierarchical English teaching is to raise students’ comprehending abilities in using English. The development of the comprehending ability is based on the development of linguistic skills, linguistic knowledge, affection,learning strategies and the sense of culture. Therefore, the diversity of students should be considered, and teachers should address the multiple intelligences of students.What’s more, for the teaching contents, the language items should be contextualized,and authentic teaching materials should be compiled and written. Teaching and learning English in Authentic context is beneficial not only to students’ learning enthusiasm in English learning, but also to large quantities of comprehensible linguistic input and output as well as the development of sense of culture. It will facilitate students’ active learning and teachers will refresh their ideas on teaching and learning and achieve their goals that they have expected. At last, assessment should refer to students’ prior language competence, and teacher can evaluate a student’s application of knowledge and complex thinking, by using authentic assessment.