小议将儿童文学引入大学英语课堂

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作者简介:郑琳靖(1976―),女,陕西乾县人,讲师,研究方向:英语语言文学及商务英语教学.

摘 要:儿童文学,作为普通文学的一个分支,不仅为儿童的语言学习提供了优秀的学习与欣赏资源,并且,在成人二语习得中,可以考虑作为真实的教学材料来使用.该课题讨论了将儿童文学作为英语语言教学材料引入到大学英语课堂的使用价值以及在课堂中怎样有效的设计并使用儿童文学材料.研究该课题将有助于语言教师进一步的了解儿童文学在大学英语课堂中的使用价值.

关 键 词 :儿童文学;大学英语课堂;语言学习

Abstract: Children's literature, an important branch of literature, is not only good material for children to study language and appreciate, but can be considered as authentic teaching material for adult ESL Language learners. This paper discusses the values of using children's literature in college classroom as teaching material and the activities of how to effectively use such material in a class. These activities can help ESL teachers he an insight into the values of children's literature in college classrooms.

Key words: Children's literature; College English Classroom, Language learning

I.Introduction

Literature is the most beautiful form of language and is regarded as ‘the art of language' (Shi Mingyan, 2008). Children's Literature, one of the important literature branches and often hing captivating story lines, universal appeal and addressing mature themes and topics as well, is written using simpler words and sentences for the young reader and usually incorporates some lessons with a moral undertone or theme. Since the 1960s, more and more schools in countries where English is learned as the mother tongue he realised the importance of literature material as authentic language recourses and tried to use literature works as reading materials in language teaching. In the past 20 years, language teachers he been increasingly using a lot of literature materials in language teaching as well as analysing and studying the importance and functions from different points of view, from the functions of literature materials to the specific ways to use them in language teaching. Most of the studies are centered on general literature material for the adult reader. However, children's literature, which Brown (2004) described as,“a pretty important part of English language literature as a body of work”, has been little discussed or minimally used by language teachers. Few references show the use of children's literature in college classroom as ESL language learning material. In this paper, two main points are covered; one being the values of using children's literature and the other teaching activities of how to effectively use children's literature as teaching material in an ESL college classroom. II.Literature Review

小议将儿童文学引入大学英语课堂参考属性评定
有关论文范文主题研究: 关于语言的论文范例 大学生适用: 硕士毕业论文、学院学士论文
相关参考文献下载数量: 43 写作解决问题: 怎么写
毕业论文开题报告: 论文模板、论文结论 职称论文适用: 刊物发表、职称评中级
所属大学生专业类别: 怎么写 论文题目推荐度: 经典题目

Since the 1970s, municative linguistics has begun to catch the eyes of many language experts and teachers but some of them, both in China and other countries, still keep researching the potential functions of literature material in language study from different views. These researches mainly studied the functions and effectiveness of literature in language teaching. Tarawneh(1986: Wu,2008)and Shablac (1986,Wu,2008), claimed literature material as a necessary part of language teaching. In the following year, Collie and Slater (1987) suggested that literature materials provided authentic language material for study, culture and language nutrition. Almost at the same time, Hill (1986: Yang 2011) found that literature was valuable in helping English learners intake the language, motivate them to study the language and provide authentic discourse. From the perspective of language change, Sandra Lee Melay (1989) explained that the literature could help learners understand language changes. Brown (2004) suggested the effectiveness of using the children's literature is an effective and enjoyable way to teach language. However, negative opinions and doubts were raised by some language teachers when they used these materials in their classes; the junior and adult students thought them childish and felt demeaned (Linda Ho, 2000). According to the research conducted by Smallwood (1998) on children's literature for adults ESL literacy,“children's literature can be used to teach literacy skills for adult ESL learners” and proposed that children's literature could be one of the most effective teaching materials ailable for students of all ages. From such research, it appears the functions of using children's literature in language learning are admitted but still not so popular with language teachers who use adult literature in language teaching for their adult language learners.

III.Values of Teaching with Children's Literature

Using children's literature in ESL classroom has the following 5 values:

1.It is monly believed that“using authentic material in the classroom can arouse student's interests in learning”, (Lee, 1997). Children's literature provides ‘genuine' or 'authentic' teaching material and they are usually not written for the specific purpose of teaching a language but for native speakers (Collie and Slater 1987). Some of the stories are familiar to students and they are easily adapted in the English class. 2.The frequent repetition in the children's literature can reinforce students' learning new vocabulary and grammar structures. Also repeated rhythms are good and useful to practice intonation and stress. Usually, college English, unlike exam-orientated education in middle schools, aims to train students' munication skills. Therefore intonation and stress are the first to be taught and repeated patterns in children's literature works provide an additional aid for language learning (Smallwood).

3.Children's literature can enhance the students' basic language skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening. According to Marcus (1998), the subjects and themes in the children's literature are universal. Besides, materials can be very useful in improving student's oral skills. If students are hooked by the selected materials in class, they are more likely to bee more interested in reading which will promote their reading proficiency (Mckay1986, Krashen 2004). Kelli (2007) mented that learners“benefited in many ways from actively engaging in high quality children's literature” that“provide a natural enue to motivate and encourage students' writing”.


4.According to Jin he &Li cha(2011), children's literature is written in simple sentences and structure, which will not cause students to feel frustrated and they will pour more energy into content prehension rather than their vocabulary .

5.Children's literature is a wonderful recourse to acknowledge the target language culture.

IV.Practical Classroom Application

Although children's literature is valuable material in language learning and an ailable resource for teachers to obtain, it is not an easy task to use such material in college ESL classrooms because students think they will lose face if taught with materials for children and feel demeaned. Therefore care must be taken in designing effective activities when using children's literature material.

Maley (2011) categorised literature-based activities into two, one being to focus on the linguistics analysis of text and the other on language learning, such as reading, speaking and writing. The former is employed in the super-intermediate or advanced students and the later is to improve students' basic language abilities and skills. The following are some activities which involve children's literature materials, such as fairy story, poems, chants, etc.

Role play: This activity is suitable for the pre-intermediate and intermediate students. Students are assigned to prepare role play with fairy stories in their mother language and can try to translate the stories into English. During the preparation, the task stimulates them to apply the words and sentence they he learnt as well as attracting their interest. In addition, students adapt various ways to express the same topic. Discourse Analysis: This activity is designed for the super-intermediate students as children's literature is usually written in simple language and structure. Discourse analysis is, to some degree, dull to some students but children's literature is the perfect material to learn discourse analysis.

Fun Reading: In this activity, chants or poems are adapted mainly to train to read with rhyme or intonation.

Story telling: As the warm-up activity, story telling is an interesting and easy way to attract students' attention. In class, students are encouraged to tell a part or whole fairy story. If a few students know the story, each of them can tell a part. If needed, a discussion can follow.

Make up a story with pictures. Pictures he an intrinsic appeal for a wide-range of readers and can arouse thinking in different perspectives. For the beginner, or pre-intermediate student, pictures help them to he ideas on what to say and write. Students are encouraged to create stories or illustrations for pictures.

Discussions: Discussions about more plex themes which the stories espouse are often arranged among the super-intermediate or advanced student for the stories used often provide a good context to promote discussion and students can express clearly their thoughts and ideas in English.

College students do not lack the ability but merely interest, motivation and confidence. These activities carried out with children's literature material provide s seemingly simple form and content but with higher requirements and can lead to a higher level by pleting such activities. The use of children's literature in college classrooms demonstrates the teacher's belief that literacy growth is not a quick fix, something acquired after a short-term period of study.

V.Conclusion

As the Chinese saying goes, teaching has its method but non-fixed. Obviously, children's literature can be employed in a variety of ways in English teaching and the way in which they are adopted is determined by both the students' level and the course they learn. However, meaningful and interesting teaching materials plays a rather important role when the teaching result and effectiveness are considered since the teaching objectives are to assist students to improve language skills. Most children's literature material, which can generate interactive activities, is familiar to students and easily arouses their interest to use and talk about. For the pre-intermediate students who need improve language skills quickly, children's literature materials provide more easy understandable resources. Once they he a high level, they can then move on the higher level material without much difficulty. A succesul adaption of children's literature is valuable not only in young children's class but also in ESL college classes. (作者单位:陕西工业职业技术学院工商管理学院) Bibliography

[1] Collie, J. & S. Slater. (1987). Literature in the Language Classroom: A Resource Book of Ideas and Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

[2] Eowyn Brown (2004 ) Using Children's Literature with Young Learners The Inter TESL Journal, Vol. X, No. 2, February 2004 http://iteslj./Techniques/Brown-ChildrensLit.

[3] Jackie Lee, 1997 Using short stories in the classroom The Cinderella effect Modern English Teacher Vol16 No.4 October 2007

[4] Jin he &Li cha, (2011) College teaching and appreciation of English teaching Modern Communication No.298,Nov 2011

[5] Kelli R. paquette (2007) Encouraging Primary Student's Writing Through Children's Literature Early children Education Journal,Vol.35 No.2 October

[6] Krashen, S. (2004). The Power of Reading: Insights From Research. 2nd Edition. Westport: Heinemann.

[7] Linda Ho( 2000) Children's Literature in Adult Education Children's literature in Education,Vol,31 No.4 2000

[8] Marcus(1998) Enhancing discussion through short stories in Eric ED425646

[9] Maley, A. (2001). Literature in the Language Classroom. In R. Carter and Did Nunan (Eds.), The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (pp. 180-185). New York: Cambridge University Press.

[10] Smallwood Betty Ansin( 1998) Using Multicultural Children' s Literature in Adult ESL Classes ,Centre for Applied Linguistics , December, 1998 http://.cal./caela/esl_resources/digests/childlit.

[11] Smallwood, Betty Ansin (1991) The literature connection:A read aloud guide for multicultural class room .MA: Addison Wesley

[12] Shi Mingyan,(2008) Literature――the art of language Science and Technology Innovation Herald

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[14] Yang Yanling (2011) Improve the non-english major students Literaure Journal of Hubei TV University Vol.31 No.6 June 2011