A Study On The Necessity Of Vague Language In Junior High Spoken English Teaching From The Perspective Of Classroom Ecology

For most learners of English as an additional language, Junior High School provides an elementary stage of systematic cognition of language system, therefore, it is crucial to focus more on cultivating learners’ interests and comprehensive language competence. As curriculum reform continues to progress, classroom teaching environment has attracted greater attention. Classroom ecology discusses the relationships between various environmental factors and the realization of individual value by considering classroom teaching within an ecological framework, with the ultimate aim of building a harmonious, interactive classroom environment. This thesis employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore imbalanced classroom phenomenon with the guidance of ecology, education ecology and classroom ecology. Questionnaires, classroom observations and face-face interviews are employed in a survey and the following questions are put forward:(1) What are the methods of building environmental interactions?(2)What are the imbalanced phenomenon existing in junior high school spoken English teaching?(3)How these problems violate principles of classroom ecology and hinder students’ sustainable learning process? According to the research among seven junior high schools in Huludao, problems such as mechanical repetitions, single activities and inefficient techniques aimed at student engagement occur in the process of teaching. Moreover, present spoken English teaching emphasizes on language accuracy, structures and grammar rules that violate principles of overall-balance, openness and interactive principals in classroom ecology and so are likely to cause classroom anxiety due to students’ low interests in learning. Comparing with language accuracy, language vagueness is one of the intrinsic attributes of language and an integral part of communicative activities. The appropriate use of vague language can not only stimulate student participation, but also teaches essential functions that guarantee the smooth progress of communicative activities.Therefore, this paper attempts to explore new ideas and methods of spoken English teaching through the use of vague language. It touches upon how the adaptation of language vagueness for ecological spoken English teaching can promote a harmonious ecological classroom environment and develop learners’ communicative competence. By using SPSS software to process data and by comparing pre-test and post-test results, this thesis finds that using vague language as part of a teaching style improves learners’ spoken competence effectively, which proves the positive role of language vagueness in classroom ecology.In conclusion, the combination of vague language and classroom ecology challenges the imbalanced model of development in previous teaching and creates an ecological learning environment to enhance learners’ confidence and competence in exploration, which in turn provides a new perspective for further study in both a theoretical and practical sense.