The Application Of The Communicative Approach To Middle School Oral English Class

In this thesis, the author first introduces the current situation in middle school oral English teaching. Then the author points out some problems of current oral English teaching, and proposes that in order to solve these problems we should adopt the communicative approach. The author introduces the communicative approach from the following 9 points: the emergence of the communicative approach, features of the Communicative Approach(CA), frinciples of the communicative approach, objectives of the communicative approach, Strength and limitations of communicative language teaching, activities within communicative approach, learner and teacher roles, materials, and procedures.The application of CA in oral English teaching is very important. In communicative language teaching, class activities that simulate real-life situations help build pragmatic, cultural, linguistic components of foreign language competence in an integrated manner. A constant aim for the language teacher should be to relate the language being taught to the students' own environment and reality as much as possible. This should be done not only through isolated activities within the syllabus but also through a series of integrated inner-related activities which easily motivate the students' interest because of their connection with the students' every day life. Teachers should give contexts, roles, and tasks that they conceivably could face some day, such as helping a foreign visitor on the street or serving as a translator for a U.S. company. Communicative Competence involves the ability to react mentally as well as verbally in such situation. In my theis, I would present some communicative activities such as guessing games, exchanging information, semi-controlled debate and role play. These communicative activities can create a natural English speaking environment in class and establish a real communicative context to stimulate student's interests in learning oral English. We should adopt them in our oral English class. I am teaching two classes in my school. To prove the effect of the communicative approach, I adopt the communicative approach in one class, and I adopt the traditional approach in the other class. In the first, I had a test on these two class, to test the student's oral English score, the scores of these two classes are the same; but three months later, the situation is different, the score of the experimental class is higher than the score of the other class.So, Communicative approach is an approach developed with the increasing needs of communicative competence. As an English teacher, I think it is very useful to adopt the communicative approach in our oral English teaching. It can improve the student's communicative competence, and I would like to argue that the best way to develop the students' oral ability is: make the students talk, then let them talk, and listen to them talking.