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【Abstract】More and more attention is paid to interactive language teaching in current intensive English teaching in college to get a better effect in the overall quality training of the college students. Through years of practice, this kind of classroom language teaching method has been well celebrated by the teachers and learners, and interactive approach turns to be the key means to improve the students?practical language communicating ability.
【Key words】Language Teaching Interaction Application
I. Interaction in Classroom Teaching and Learning
In the education of training the students, overall qualities, improving the traditional silent classroom atmosphere is urgent with the reform of current education. In the traditional intensive English classroom in college English teaching, the teacher plays the dominant role in most cases; he or she is the lecturer who is interested in presenting language items, the organizer of teaching and learning activities, and the assessors of the learner，s performance, students are usually bench-bound listeners. They watch their teacher explaining language points and giving examples, take notes, recite the required materials and do follow-up exercises. Apart from being asked to read loud parts of the text or sentences they have made or translated, they are virtually mute and passive.
Where there is no interaction, there is no improvement in foreign language teaching and learning. The ability to interact at a reasonable rate and with good comprehension has long been recognized to be as important as other skills. Teachers in English language education should be vitally concerned with approaches that can improve or upgrade the language interaction of students. In other word, the interactive approach to learning is of great value in this respect.
II, Interaction in Communication
College English education has made great progress in China since the reform and opening up to the outside world. It is the same with the college English teaching and learning in our university. However, the learners?insufficiency in communicating abilities has long remained a big issue. According to a survey made by National Education Research Center in 2002,lacking in interaction is one of the main problems that most of the college students are facing in their English study (Zhou Yan, 2002). Meanwhile, we made a few investigations among the students of the Science-tech Normal College of our university in the recent years and got the same result.
For instance, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the nature of reading and learning process so that we can adopt an appropriate teaching methodology. The theory of reading has evolved in three stages: namely, the traditional approach to reading is commonly known as the bottom-approach. Traditional reading researchers view reading as passive, bottom- up decoding process, this traditional approach over-emphasizes the text as the center of the reading process and overlooks the students, active role in the reading process. During reading, the reader constructs a personal interpretation of the text; there is an interaction between the reader and the text. The reader also tries to get at the author,s original intentions; there is also a constant interaction between the reader and the author. The interactive approach is superior to others in that it covers both perspectives and better reflects the nature of reading and the interacting process.
Strategy training is one of the most important ways to improve the student,s reading comprehension, communicating ability and writing skills. In order to help the students to become efficient language learners, it is necessary for us teachers to teach them certain learning strategies and encourage them to read extensively and therefore think independently. Different strategies are trained during the three-phrase classroom procedure of studying. It has been suggested that the focus should be put both on decoding the text and on guessing and predicting with the bottom-up and the top-down strategies functioning interactively.
III. Interaction in Activities
Though attempts have been made to promote learner抯 involvement and participation in the language classroom by our teachers, classroom situations, at present, are far from being learner-centered and cooperative learning has not been widely used. For most teachers still feel comfortable and secure with textbook-oriented teaching while giving their college students intensive English lectures. They stress the passing of what they have prepared on to their students. Further, activities such as the duty report, pair work and role-plays employed in the classroom are scanty. These limited activities do change the classroom atmosphere a little, yet they do not do much to train learner,s initiative and creative abilities. As a result, the students are practically deprived of their opportunities to think and use the target language.
Researches both at home and abroad have shown that English (as second or foreign language) learning strategies can be used to enhance language learners,abilities and improve their English level, and strategy training should be treated as part of foreign language course and integrated into English teaching (Wen Qiufang, 2000). From some research projects and an experiment done by the writer and co-workers, we have drawn the conclusion that much can be done for improvement, and the key means lies in the interactive approach.
IV. Interaction in Skills Training
If the cultivation of communicative skills in the target language is the goal of education, then interaction must be present in the classroom teaching. Since real communication is the interaction between people and linguistic and the interaction is a collaborative activity, classroom teaching and learning activities must be interactive in cooperative study.
Interactive language teaching stresses the importance of providing learners with more activities (listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating) to interact directly with the target language——to require it by using it rather than to learn it by studying it. It requires the teacher, on one hand, to step out the limelight, to give a full role to the students in carrying out activities, to accept all kinds of opinions, and to tolerate errors. On the other hand, the students are able to listen to others, to talk with others, and to negotiate meaning in a shared context.
The major roles of the interactive teacher include the roles of a facilitator, a manager, a resource, an independent participant, a researcher and learner. As a facilitator he or she makes the process of learning an easier task, helps students clear away roadblocks and shortcuts. As a manager he plans lessons, organizes learning activities, gives feedback and structures classroom time. As a resource he offers advice and counsel when students seek them. As a researcher and a learner he makes an effort to find out how well students learn and how much assistance is needed. He grows in his profession with each much assistance is needed. His profession with each passing day linguistically and intelligently.
V. Interaction in Overall Quality Training
The most workable classroom interactive activities are presentations, pair work, discussions, debates and written exercises. All these activities need to be task-oriented so that they can help nurture students?problem-solving and creative abilities, and give them experience in functioning in realistic interactions. We should try every means to help to cultivate the students?overall quality of using the target language.
It is known to all that the well-organized interactions of the whole classroom language teaching will make learners rack their brain, speak their mind, share their views with others naturally. Thus words slip out or pour out desirably. Other ways of improving interaction ability should also be suggested; we should select suitable materials for the students?learning interaction. The English novels, magazines, newspapers such as The Twenty First Century, English Weekly are among the students?favorites. And the students should form a habit of reading extensively in English so that their problem with communicating can be solved mainly by interaction itself, such as teacher,s short interview with the individual students about their opinions on the current issues and the hot topics.
Findings and reflections of 3-year-long experiment will be presented in detail. Some of them are: (1) the teacher,s genuine trust in the learner is absolutely necessary；(2) The use of provocative questions can be effective；(3) Individualized learner tasks and assignments are well come and often successful；(4) The teacher needs to promote learner,s awareness and control of effective learning strategies.
Itis of great importancethatthe teacher,s maintenance of a lively attention and active participation among the learners in the interaction is vital.
Bibliography：
1、文秋芳：“大学生英语学习策略变化的趋势及其特点”[J],《外语与外语教学》，1994（6）：43-46
2、周 炎：“对普通院校大学英语教学引起的几点思考”[J]，《大学英语教学》，2002（6）
3、《中国外语教学》[J]，外语教学与研究出版社，2004.6
【Key words】Language Teaching Interaction Application
I. Interaction in Classroom Teaching and Learning
In the education of training the students, overall qualities, improving the traditional silent classroom atmosphere is urgent with the reform of current education. In the traditional intensive English classroom in college English teaching, the teacher plays the dominant role in most cases; he or she is the lecturer who is interested in presenting language items, the organizer of teaching and learning activities, and the assessors of the learner，s performance, students are usually bench-bound listeners. They watch their teacher explaining language points and giving examples, take notes, recite the required materials and do follow-up exercises. Apart from being asked to read loud parts of the text or sentences they have made or translated, they are virtually mute and passive.
Where there is no interaction, there is no improvement in foreign language teaching and learning. The ability to interact at a reasonable rate and with good comprehension has long been recognized to be as important as other skills. Teachers in English language education should be vitally concerned with approaches that can improve or upgrade the language interaction of students. In other word, the interactive approach to learning is of great value in this respect.
II, Interaction in Communication
College English education has made great progress in China since the reform and opening up to the outside world. It is the same with the college English teaching and learning in our university. However, the learners?insufficiency in communicating abilities has long remained a big issue. According to a survey made by National Education Research Center in 2002,lacking in interaction is one of the main problems that most of the college students are facing in their English study (Zhou Yan, 2002). Meanwhile, we made a few investigations among the students of the Science-tech Normal College of our university in the recent years and got the same result.
For instance, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the nature of reading and learning process so that we can adopt an appropriate teaching methodology. The theory of reading has evolved in three stages: namely, the traditional approach to reading is commonly known as the bottom-approach. Traditional reading researchers view reading as passive, bottom- up decoding process, this traditional approach over-emphasizes the text as the center of the reading process and overlooks the students, active role in the reading process. During reading, the reader constructs a personal interpretation of the text; there is an interaction between the reader and the text. The reader also tries to get at the author,s original intentions; there is also a constant interaction between the reader and the author. The interactive approach is superior to others in that it covers both perspectives and better reflects the nature of reading and the interacting process.
Strategy training is one of the most important ways to improve the student,s reading comprehension, communicating ability and writing skills. In order to help the students to become efficient language learners, it is necessary for us teachers to teach them certain learning strategies and encourage them to read extensively and therefore think independently. Different strategies are trained during the three-phrase classroom procedure of studying. It has been suggested that the focus should be put both on decoding the text and on guessing and predicting with the bottom-up and the top-down strategies functioning interactively.
III. Interaction in Activities
Though attempts have been made to promote learner抯 involvement and participation in the language classroom by our teachers, classroom situations, at present, are far from being learner-centered and cooperative learning has not been widely used. For most teachers still feel comfortable and secure with textbook-oriented teaching while giving their college students intensive English lectures. They stress the passing of what they have prepared on to their students. Further, activities such as the duty report, pair work and role-plays employed in the classroom are scanty. These limited activities do change the classroom atmosphere a little, yet they do not do much to train learner,s initiative and creative abilities. As a result, the students are practically deprived of their opportunities to think and use the target language.
Researches both at home and abroad have shown that English (as second or foreign language) learning strategies can be used to enhance language learners,abilities and improve their English level, and strategy training should be treated as part of foreign language course and integrated into English teaching (Wen Qiufang, 2000). From some research projects and an experiment done by the writer and co-workers, we have drawn the conclusion that much can be done for improvement, and the key means lies in the interactive approach.
IV. Interaction in Skills Training
If the cultivation of communicative skills in the target language is the goal of education, then interaction must be present in the classroom teaching. Since real communication is the interaction between people and linguistic and the interaction is a collaborative activity, classroom teaching and learning activities must be interactive in cooperative study.
Interactive language teaching stresses the importance of providing learners with more activities (listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating) to interact directly with the target language——to require it by using it rather than to learn it by studying it. It requires the teacher, on one hand, to step out the limelight, to give a full role to the students in carrying out activities, to accept all kinds of opinions, and to tolerate errors. On the other hand, the students are able to listen to others, to talk with others, and to negotiate meaning in a shared context.
The major roles of the interactive teacher include the roles of a facilitator, a manager, a resource, an independent participant, a researcher and learner. As a facilitator he or she makes the process of learning an easier task, helps students clear away roadblocks and shortcuts. As a manager he plans lessons, organizes learning activities, gives feedback and structures classroom time. As a resource he offers advice and counsel when students seek them. As a researcher and a learner he makes an effort to find out how well students learn and how much assistance is needed. He grows in his profession with each much assistance is needed. His profession with each passing day linguistically and intelligently.
V. Interaction in Overall Quality Training
The most workable classroom interactive activities are presentations, pair work, discussions, debates and written exercises. All these activities need to be task-oriented so that they can help nurture students?problem-solving and creative abilities, and give them experience in functioning in realistic interactions. We should try every means to help to cultivate the students?overall quality of using the target language.
It is known to all that the well-organized interactions of the whole classroom language teaching will make learners rack their brain, speak their mind, share their views with others naturally. Thus words slip out or pour out desirably. Other ways of improving interaction ability should also be suggested; we should select suitable materials for the students?learning interaction. The English novels, magazines, newspapers such as The Twenty First Century, English Weekly are among the students?favorites. And the students should form a habit of reading extensively in English so that their problem with communicating can be solved mainly by interaction itself, such as teacher,s short interview with the individual students about their opinions on the current issues and the hot topics.
Findings and reflections of 3-year-long experiment will be presented in detail. Some of them are: (1) the teacher,s genuine trust in the learner is absolutely necessary；(2) The use of provocative questions can be effective；(3) Individualized learner tasks and assignments are well come and often successful；(4) The teacher needs to promote learner,s awareness and control of effective learning strategies.
Itis of great importancethatthe teacher,s maintenance of a lively attention and active participation among the learners in the interaction is vital.
Bibliography：
1、文秋芳：“大学生英语学习策略变化的趋势及其特点”[J],《外语与外语教学》，1994（6）：43-46
2、周 炎：“对普通院校大学英语教学引起的几点思考”[J]，《大学英语教学》，2002（6）
3、《中国外语教学》[J]，外语教学与研究出版社，2004.6