A Study On Exemplification In Middle School English Teaching

In order to improve the quality of classroom teaching of English and of language input in classroom teaching in particular, teachers usually adopt a variety of teaching methods and techniques to achieve the teaching goals, among which exemplification is a most common technique used by teachers. Exemplification in middle school English teaching aims at facilitating language comprehension, developing further cognition and promoting classroom interaction. Typical examples can help to stimulate students to think actively, and gradually foster a creative competence. Exemplification can simplify the problems students meet, link perceptual knowledge with conceptual knowledge effectively and thus make the learning of English easy and interesting. To teachers, it is a kind of teaching skill and to students, a kind of learning strategy. As a result, exemplification is so popular that it can be found in the whole course of teaching.However, when examing the status quo of the English classroom teaching, we regret to find that traditional classroom teaching pays little attention to how and when to use examples. The past decades have found that linguists and educators have put out numerous articles and works on language teaching, which are helpful both in theoretical instructions and practical teaching. Yet there are few articles on the topic of exemplification. So the thesis is an explicit study on exemplification in English teaching in schools.This thesis results from consulting documents, classroom observation, interview, analysis of other teachers' teaching plans and referring to the notes of preparations for teaching etc. It is consists of seven parts. The first part comes as an introduction. Part II sets forth the relation between exemplification and middle school English teaching, with a focus on the definition of exemplification as well as its function. By referring to the relevant studies, the thesis discusses the value of all the precious studies in Part III. Part IV &V divide exemplification into different types according to its purposes and ways of presentation, and point out the various problems that exist in the course of exemplification. Effective exemplification in English teaching is discussed in Part VI, the core of this thesis, where it was demonstrated that efficient exemplification should follow the following:·Examples should reflect what the learners really need, or the lacks and necessities.·The content of the examples should be valuable from the aspect of language ,and display the characteristic of the English language.·Examples should be of interest, and reflect concerns for the students feeling and attitude so that they can be highly motivated and, therefore, learn more actively and independently.·Exemplification should be stimulating, and leave something for the students to think so that they can develop their own learning strategies as well as creative competence.·Sources of examples should be vast and varied.Further more, it was suggested that certain principles for exemplification should be observed, in other words, exemplification must be · instructive;· cognitive and affective;· scientific;· enlightening;· student-related.The seventh part is a conclusion.Evolving from the exemplification of concept, function, significance and types etc. focusing on the actual situation in middle schools, this paper addresses ways and principles of how to exemplify in classroom English teaching. It may be of helps to English teaching, material development and dictionary making.