SLT-based English Teaching Used In Primary School Class

Situational teaching is a teaching method that is based on situated learning theory (SLT).In the corresponding phase of teaching, in accordance with the teaching objectives andcontent, teachers introduce or create a situation (real or simulated) closely relevant to the realcontext of application, and teach with dialogues, questions, music, games or the other kinds ofactivities in order to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning, and to arouse their emotionalexperience. Students are thus guided to take the initiative to explore, to learn new knowledgeand skills in a relaxed teaching atmosphere, and then to apply the knowledge and skills inpractice, so as to achieve the best results of teaching and learning.By studying the research of SLT applied in English class in primary schools at homeand abroad, the author finds that deficiencies exist in the relevant research on teachingconsiderations for students of different levels.The main teaching mode in Chinese schools, in general, is the "whole class" teachingpattern, with the primary feature of a large number of students, all of different learning levels.The teachers usually fail to pay attention to or notice the students’ individual differences, andinstruct a "one size fits all" teaching method, which takes unified aims, mandated progressand equal difficulty for varied students. Thus it gradually undermines, to certain extent,students’ enthusiasm and initiative, and fails to obtain the expected result for every student.Based on the SLT, the thesis focuses on the language acquisition process of two studentsof different levels in a primary school, and explores both the value of situated learningmethods in primary school English classes and its effects on students of different levels. Itaims to answer the following questions:(1) Will the SLT-based English teaching in primaryschool classes increase the learning enthusiasm of the different level students?(2) Will theSLT-based English teaching be effective in improving the English learning effects ofthe different level students?By means of classroom observation, this study videotaped30pupils in a primary schoolprogram of45classes in TaiAn. Under the guidance of SLT, the author divided the Englishteaching process into three stages and used the primary school English classroom observationscale for observing and recording classroom behaviors of the two students. Both quantitativeand qualitative analysis methods were used to analyze and summarize the two students’classroom participation on three stages. In addition, the researcher also analyzed theperformance of the two students in each stage by using recorded test results, and interviewsfrom the foreign teacher at the end of the course. The research results show that the SLT-based primary school English teaching classeshave effectively improved both disadvantaged student and advantaged students’ Englishlearning enthusiasm. Besides, it can improve English learning effect of the two kinds ofstudents. For the disadvantaged student, the improvement lies in the basic knowledge ofEnglish, and for the advantaged student, however, the obvious improvement is in his practicalapplication ability of the language.From the results, the following implications have been proposed: first, the SLT-basedEnglish class is efficient for primary students. Second, the participation has direct correlationwith gains which leads to a motive power to learn. SLT-based English class is bringingstudents’ active emotional experience into the teaching process, which can directly improvestudents’ motivation to learn. Finally the researcher puts forward some suggestions for China’sforeign language teaching.