The Application Of The Pictures In English Class Of Middle School

The picture which has been used as a teaching aid has existed for a long time in our daily teaching process. Although we use it frequently, the documents about the systematic research of it are limited, especially its usage in English class of middle school. In view of this situation, this paper attempts to do some research to elaborate how the picture affects the English class teaching and how to use pictures to make the teaching more effective.Pictures are regarded as the teaching aids. This phenomenon originally appeared in Direct Method. Direct Method was a way to teach language for the beginner. The principle of this method is using language to teach language, which can reduce the effect from the first language-the mother tongue. Direct Method applies the special character of object to stimulate the learner. Changing this stimulation into interest for learning language is one of the main ways in Direct Method. The picture is chosen to be this object, because the picture itself has enough advantages to attract people's attention. As a teaching aid, pictures actually originated from Direct Method, but the method which let it give full play is Audio-visual Approach rather than Direct Method. Audio-visual Approach is good at making use of the teaching aid to create teaching scene. Audio-visual Approach utilizes every type of picture to generate a suitable teaching scene, thus makes the language learner feel the learning atmosphere. Audio-visual Approach brings every positive factor into language teaching, impelling the learner to feel language with all parts of his sense organ. So we can say that in the process of transferring picture into a teaching aid, Direct Method can be thought of as natural parents and Audio-visual Approach can be thought of as foster parents. Both methods are created for the language beginners. So it's necessary to apply these two methods in the junior and middle school. And the most convenient way to apply these two methods is to use pictures.In the present English teaching in China, the teaching content in junior school is too limited to elaborate the merit of picture. The paper is specially aimed at the research of picture in the English class of middle school. As mentioned above, the systematic research of picture usage is finite. In many books, they referred to it with aids to object teaching. It is just a small paragraph or a small chapter in the book which talks over the teaching methods. And there are some articles that discuss how to use picture in English class teaching, but these articles seem too partial. They only suggest how to use one type of picture in one of English teaching points. In these books and articles, there is almost no detailed classification of pictures. As far as this problem is concerned, the paper summarizes the related documents. Combining the summary with teaching experience, the present writer classifies pictures into three types in English class teaching: picture card, chart and abbreviated drawing. As the teaching aids in English class of middle school, these three types of picture take effect not only on the effective teaching but also on training student's abilities. Picture as a teaching aid can help the student heighten their interest in English. At the same time, it can help the student develop their abilities such as observation, imagination, memory and expression. On the basis of each type of picture, the paper explains which kind of ability it can develop and how each type of picture can be specifically applied in the English class. To make this paper more practical, all examples in the paper is from the English textbook of middle school. In addition, the paper refers to many points for attention which can help teacher avoid some unnecessary mistakes in picture teaching. These points for attention can also provide the teacher with some skills to use each type of the picture aid in English class more effectively.In brief, the purpose of writing this paper is to make the picture, a valuable teaching aid, more practical in English class of middle school. It can make the teacher understand how important and necessary it is in English class teaching, and how to use it more suitably and effectively.