The Creation Of The Environment For English Acquisition In Junior Middle Schools

In recent years, more and more linguistic researchers start to care about the importance of language environment for developing the language abilities and efficiency. Students can hardly have chances to develop their foreign language abilities in natural linguistic environment. Poor and unprofitable linguistic environment restricts the development of language abilities. In term of acquisition, it is also one of the pivotal factors that influence and accelerate language acquisition. In 1975, N. Naiman points out that FL environment is of great importance, not only for developing the students' communicative competence, but also for speeding up the process of foreign language acquisition. The SECFCECSMS enacted recently also emphasizes the importance of English linguistic environment.However, up to now, researches on English environment in western and eastern countries have tended to focus on the definitions, classifications,usages and factors. As to the environment for acquisition, much attention has been paid to the teachers' inputs, affective adjustments and some other aspects on observation, designing, direction, stimulation and help to the students' learning process. Furthermore, these researches have been conducted in FL environment and what they have investigated are teacher-centered classrooms. In China, there have been only a few studies on certain aspects of English environment for acquisition. Only a few empirical studies on English Acquisition environment in junior middle schools have been carried out;and even there are no teaching models related to the English acquisition environment.The first study included in the thesis is the investigation and analysis of the characteristics and present situation of the environment for English Acquisition. The investigation includes three aspects: (1) factors of social linguistic environment;(2) student factors;(3) teacher factors. Themethods applied in the study are the transcription analysis and questionnaires. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results show that the environment for English Acquisition in junior middle school has the following problems:(1) The physical linguistic environment, the linguistic environment, the cognitive environment and the affective environment in junior middle schools are unfavorable for promoting the students' English acquisition, fostering the students' communicative abilities and enhancing the teaching efficiency.(2) Teachers mostly pay attention to the creation of environment in classrooms, but lose sight of the outside class. They hardly connect organically the three stages of the creation: creation before class, creation in class and creation after class.(3) Teachers mostly consider the creation from the scope of their owns, but overlook the roles of the student factors and factors of social linguistic environment.Based on the cognitive theories > the SLA theories, constructivist learning. theories > humanistic approaches and autonomous learning theories, the author constructs the Omni-bearing and Stereoscopic Teaching Model according to the analysis of the present situation. The model includes the following seven aspects: (1) definition of the model;(2) three factors of the model;(3) three stages of the model;(4) eight steps of the model;(5) goals of the model;(6) four fundamental principles of the model;(7) learning strategies of the model.The model aims to create the environment for English Acquisition and develop the students' communicative competence. It emphasizes the students' self-creation, teachers' active creation and teacher-students' joint creation on the environment for English Acquisition. It includes three stages of the creation: creation before class, creation in class and creation after class, which are proceeded from the textbook through understanding, consolidation and application. The procedures of thismodel can be considered as the following eight steps: paving > stimulation demonstration engagement conclusion assessment application and extension. In the process of teaching, the basic principles of the Omni-bearing and Stereoscopic Teaching Model should be followed: (1) the principle of students-centered and teacher-led teaching style;(2) the principle of utilizing the task-based teaching methods;(3) the principle of fostering the students' communicative competence;(4) the principle of implementation of language skills. At the same time, teachers should guide the students to use the main learning strategies like cooperative learning strategies, role-playing learning strategies, and self-evaluating learning strategies.This model has trie omni-bearing and stereoscopic characteristics. The study of this model provides a new angle of view for the studying of English teaching models. It transfers the focus of study from teachers to the whole of students > teachers and the society, from learning to acquisition, form classrooms to the outside class. It makes the language input, intake and output fused, transforms the linguistic knowledge to linguistic, skills and develops the students' communicative competence. At the same time, the construction of this model enriches the cognitive theories, the SLA theories and psychological theories, fosters the teachers' teaching abilities and develops their teaching levels. It also provides a new way of thinking and a new teaching model for solving the problem of low efficiency.