An Empirical Study On English Classroom Lead-in In Senior Middle School

The New English Curricula (2001) considered inspiring and cultivating students’ interest in learning English as the basic task of English teaching. One of the best method to inspire and cultivate students’interest in learning English is lead-in.Lead-in could activate classroom atmosphere, attract students’attention, inspire students’learning interest and motivation and prepare students into the learning state quickly. Otherwise, lead-in could also present the difficult points and important points. It could also bridge the old knowledge and the new. Short as it is in the whole teaching process, it plays such a crucial role that could not be neglected. However, in many schools especially in senior middle schools, to cope with the College Entrance Examination, students have heavy study pressure and teachers could not understand the role of lead-in accurately, thinking that lead-in has nothing to do with the improvement of students’learning effect, thus they do not design lead-in in their teaching. Some teachers designed lead-in, but the lead-ins used are the only several simple and fixed modes, lacking of being heuristic and interesting, novelty and flexibility. Such lead-ins do little to improve the teaching effect.To make lead-in work the best, the author did a research to prove the significance of lead-in on improving teaching effect, explore affecting factors of lead-in and the qualities that English teacher should possess.This thesis is based on the study made by the previous researchers, from the definition of lead-in, the functions and purposes of lead-in, the principles of lead-in to the theoretical basis of lead-in, such as Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Ausubel’s advance organizer and so on. The author also presents related researches both at home and abroad, and finds out their inefficiency:most of the previous researches are staying on the surface of summarizing previous experience rather than empirical study. The author made an empirical study to explore the answers to the research questions. The author chose the teachers and students of Senior2in Zhengzhou No.106Senior Middle School in Henan Province by means of pre-test, post-test, questionnaires and interview.Before the experiment, the author chose40students in both the experimental class and the control class respectively as the participants to conduct the pre-test. During the process of the experiment, the author applied the lead-ins designed elaborately in the experimental class while the traditional lead-ins in the control class. After the experiment, the author conducted the post-test to the two samples and used the SPSS.19.0software to analyze the data collected form the pre-test and post-test. At the end of the experiment, the author handed out80questionnaires to students and10questionnaires to teachers to analyze lead-in by calculating the percentage. In addition, the author invited10students from each class to have the interview and took notes of their answers. Combining the quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, the author received the results of the research and discussed the data collected.According to the study, students’accepted lead-ins are multimedia lead-in(videos, music and pictures), storytelling lead-in(story and case), role-playing lead-in and situational lead-in. The factors affecting lead-in are:lead-in lacks pertinence, novelty, being interesting and being heuristic; the length of lead-in and the emphasis on the role of students in the lead-in part. To design students’accepted lead-in, English teachers should have professional knowledge, the ability to relate students’life with the teaching materials, wonderful and unique teaching methods and enrich knowledge reserves.The author made a study on80students and10teachers, and the quantity has met the requirement of empirical study, but the participants and the data collected are limited, so the results of the research may not represent the whole group of students in senior middle school. In addition, owing to the development of the author’s level and students’ interest and quality, the consistent results in this study may not be gotten in the future research. The depth of this thesis is also limited; therefore, there are many aspects of lead-in in English teaching for future researchers to study.