论文--张春子

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me

during the writing of this thesis. My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor, Professor Hu, who has given the most helpful instructions, invaluable suggestions and constant encouragement. Without his devoted help, this paper would have never appeared in its present form. He has assisted considerably in sharpening and strengthening the focus and in pointing out errors and inaccuracies. I am also greatly indebted to all my teachers in the Foreign Languages Institute of Central China Normal University; to them I owe much of My knowledge in the English language, linguistics, literature, and especially in the literature appreciation. Last but not least, I owe much to my friends and colleagues for their valuable suggestions and critiques which are of help and importance in making the thesis a reality.

摘要

本文旨在通过对交互教学模式在激发学习兴趣方面的理论实践的研究，阐明交互教学模式在初中英语课堂中的地位和作用，提高理论和实践工作者对交互教学模式的认识，探讨激发大学生英语学习兴趣，提高其英语水平的方法，以期实现学生英语能力的提高。

本文开篇介绍了目前国内英语教学领域存在的问题:课堂教学活动过程单向化;教学活动形式单一化。其中教学模式陈旧是造成这些问题的一个主要原因。针对这些问题，作者提出了本文的研究目的，即对交互教学模式在提高学生英语学习兴趣这一问题进行理论和实践的探索。

在理论发展部分，本文综述了心理学、教育学、语言学等领域对于“兴趣”、“交互教学模式”的主要研究。在实践部分，本文通过实验法、观察法、问卷调查法、成绩测试法，以英语学习兴趣、态度调查问卷和弗兰德斯师生互动分析系统表为调查工具，把传统的英语课堂教学与交互教学模式下的英语教学相比较。在分析对照班、实验班前测，中测，后测数据的基础上验证交互激励策略对于激发初中生英语学习兴趣的可行性、有效性。通过对实验结果的分析和讨论，发现交互教学模式存在新的问题和不足，提出一些策略性建议，以促进模式建构的进一步完善。

本研究对交互教学模式的课堂进行深入观察，有利于人们透过语盲‘行为，了解交互教学模式的实然状态，以正确的态度去对待交互式教学。关键词:交互教学模式;大学英语;口语

Abstract

Based on theoretical and practical considerations, this thesis aims to illustrate the improvement of the interactive teaching model on college students' interest in English learning. Some guidelines on college students' interest activation are proposed, and some suggestions on the implementation of the interactive teaching model are listed. In the mean time, it aims at drawing people's attention to the significance of interest activation in English classrooms in colleges. It is hoped that the thesis might help to improve the students' English abilities.

The thesis begins with an introduction of the general conditions of English classrooms in colleges, revealing the problems of language teaching. i.e. not only is the activity process in a single way, but also the activity form is monotonous. The outmoded teaching model has to assume great responsibility for this. In view of these problems, the purpose of the research is further presented

On the theoretical basis, the thesis provides a rather detailed review of the research findings on students' interest in English learning. It also summarizes the researches on the interactive teaching model, which is for long a cross-disciplinary issue in the field of psychology, pedagogy, and linguistics. In practice, evaluation of students' achievement is conducted by comparing the students' participation rate with Flanders' Interaction Analysis System in the traditional class and the interactive

class; a questionnaire is designed to get a whole idea of the students' interest and attitude in English learning both before and after the experiment; two tests are used as the pretest and the posttest; and at last the results and the analysis are followed. The research tries to test the feasibility and effectiveness of stimulating college students' interest in English learning by the interactive teaching model.

The data analysis and discussion shows that students have made great progress. However, some problems and challenges arising from the implementation are also found. Some strategic suggestions are proposed in order to improve the constructions of the interactive teaching model.

The research goes deep into the observation of the interactive teaching model, which helps people penetrate classroom language behavior to understand the real state of the interactive teaching model and take a correct attitude towards interactive teaching.

Key words: interactive teaching model, college English; Oral English

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research background

The English Curriculum Criteria for college (2001) issued by the Ministry of Education advocates new curriculum concepts. It aims at fostering students' competence of integrated use of language knowledge, which includes five aspects: language skills, language knowledge, cultural awareness, affective attitude and learning strategies. Of the five aspects, affective attitude is an important factor of influencing students' development. It refers to the related factors of influencing students' learning process and learning effect. Interest is one of the several different affective factors. The English Curriculum Criteria for college formulates the requirements of affective attitude, which are maintaining the students' interest in English learning, actively participating activities which help to improve the students' English abilities, developing positive study motivation, getting to know clearly that the aim of English learning is to be able to perform effective communication.

The key to teaching in colleges is to let students get interested in their lessons. How do teachers stimulate their students' interest? That's the work teachers should do in the teaching job. They should select the suitable teaching model to attract their students' attention, and to arouse their enthusiasm for learning and their desire of seeking knowledge. Teachers should guide their students to think actively, and

encourage them to use their heads, eyes, mouths, and hands more often. Only in this way can students develop their intelligence better and can students learn English well.

However, there are many problems in teaching remaining to be solved in the urgent need. Considering the processes and forms of classroom teaching activities in China, there are still problems. On one hand, the activity process is in a single way. Chen and Zhang (1998(1):14-16) made a research from the angle of time distribution of teaching and learning activities in college classrooms. The result shows that the interaction between the teacher and the class the interaction when the teacher's behaviors direct to the whole class is dominant. The main nature of the behaviors between the teacher and students is controlled and obedient. On the other hand, the activity form is monotonous. The research (1995(4): 57-60) on interaction by Wu et al is of the characteristics of being simple, intelligible and easy to observe. It is obvious that the main forms of class interaction between the teacher and the students in China are the interaction between the teacher and the individual and that between the teacher and the whole class, whose interaction effects directly decide the whole classroom interaction effect. The interaction between the teacher and the group cannot have influence on the whole interaction effect owing to its smallproportion on the whole.

The possible reasons that have caused the problems lie in many complicated aspects but the traditional teaching model has to assume great responsibility for this. In traditional English classes, the teacher explains grammatical rules and uses of words in details without context and students are busy taking notes of what the teacher says. During the process of teaching, the teacher plays the active role and students can only receive the knowledge passively. Moreover, because of the lack of interaction, it is difficult to arouse students' enthusiasm for learning. As a result, they gradually lose interest, and some of the students give up learning English. Although the traditional teaching model has made some progress in recent years, it is still necessary to search for an interactive teaching model to make up the drawbacks of the traditional model, get students feel interested in their English learning, and guide them to learn voluntarily.

1.2 Research questions and the significance

It is worth noticing that teachers are not doing sufficient work in stimulating students' interest. It is of great significance to adopt interactive teaching to cultivate students' oral English learning interest. It would be better to identify what key questions are discussed in the research field and whether the interactive teaching is an advanced teaching model. Therefore, two research questions will be explored in this thesis:

1) How can the interactive teaching model stimulate college students' interest in oral English learning?

2) What are the limitations of the interactive teaching model and the suggestions to improve the construction of the model?

This thesis goes deep into the observation of the interactive teaching model, which helps people penetrate classroom language behavior to understand the real state of the interactive teaching model and take a correct attitude towards interactive teaching. 1.3 Layout of the Thesis

This thesis tries to give a systematic study on stimulating college students' interest in oral English learning by the interactive teaching model. It is composed of the following chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the research background, questions, their significance and expectations. Chapter Two investigates the theoretical basis of interest and the interactive teaching model, provides a review of the existing published literature about the development of students' interest to learn and the interactive teaching model at home and abroad. Chapter Three introduces the experiment design including subjects, method and data collection. Chapter Four mentions data analysis and discussion. A detailed data report and statistics are attended to. Chapter Five presents the findings of the analysis from data collection. Finally, the author draws the conclusion in chapter six.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

This chapter investigates the theoretical basis of interest and the interactive teaching model. 2.1 Interactive Teaching Model 2.1.1 Concept of Interactive Teaching

Interaction is an important word for language teachers. In the era of communicative language teaching, interaction is, in fact, the heart of communication; it is what communication is all about. We send messages, we receive them, we interpret them in a context, we negotiate meanings, and we collaborate to accomplish certain purposes. And after several decades of research on teaching and learning languages, we have discovered that the best way to learn to interact is through interaction itself. Brown (2001:159) defines the concept of interaction as follows:

Interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other Theories of communicative competence emphasize the importance of interaction as human beings use language in various contexts to \"negotiate” meaning, or simply slated, to get one idea out of your head and into the head of another person and vice versa.

Rivers (2000:4-5) holds the view that students achieve facility in using a language when their attention is focused on conveying and

receiving authentic messages (that is, messages that contain information of interest to speaker and listener in a situation of importance to both). He says: Through interaction, students can increase their language store as they listen to or read authentic linguistic material, or even the output of their fellow students in discussion, skits, joint problem solving tasks, or dialogue journals. In interaction, students can use all they possess of the language-all they have learned or casually absorbed-in real life exchanges where expressing their real meaning is important to them. Even at an elementary stage, they learn in this way to exploit the elasticity of language.

Interactive teaching is a linguistic collaborative activity involving the establishment of a triangular relationship between the sender, the receiver and the context of situation, whether the communication is in speech or writing. It is interaction between teacher and student, student and teacher, student and student, student and authors of texts, and student and the community that speaks the language (Rivers 2000:6).

Interactive teaching does not mean just leaving students to make whatever sense they can from any experience (learning by doing), but to be of value, needs the interaction of sensitive teachers to interact and challenge students thinking, exposing them to new ideas. The phrase \"focused teaching\" and \"the teacher as a cognitive coach\" are often used to define this more positive role for the teacher.

Interactive teaching values students' earlier ideas and aims at giving students power or authority to be independent learners. For teachers it offers an opportunity to learn together with students and to use their interactive skills to listen carefully and challenge misconceiving where possible. The teacher's own knowledge will always be an important factor. 2.1.2 Theoretical Basis 2.1.2.1 Psychological basis

Social cognitive theory and constructivist theory make it necessary for teachers to adopt the interactive teaching model in English classrooms.

Canadian born psychologist Albert Bandura focused on social cognitive theory. Bandura's social cognitive theory emphasizes the concept of triadic reciprocal determinism, which explains behavior in terms of a dynamic interaction of the environment, personal factors and behavior. I-however, this reciprocal interaction does not imply that all sources of influence are of equal strength. The social cognitive theory recognizes that some sources of influence are stronger than others and that they do not all occur simultaneously. In fact, the interaction between the three factors will differ based on the individual, the particular behavior being examined, and the specific situation in which the behavior occurs (Bandura 1989). Thus, this model of causation as

proposed by the social cognitive theory is extremely complex.

The person-behavior interaction involves the bi-directional properties and one's thoughts, emotions, biological properties and one's actions (Bandura 1977, 1986, 1989).For example, a person's expectations, beliefs, self-perceptions, goals, and intentions give shape and direction to behavior. However, the behavior that is carried out will then affect one's thoughts and emotions. The social cognitive theory also accounts for biological personal factors, such as sex, ethnicity, temperament and genetic predisposition and the influences they have on behavior.

A bi-directional interaction also occurs between the environment and personal characteristics (Bandura 1977, 1986, 1989). In this process, human expectations, beliefs, and cognitive competencies are developed and modified by social influences and physical structures within the environment. These social influences can convey information and activate emotional reactions through such factors as modeling, instruction, and social persuasion (Bandura 1986). In addition, humans evoke different reactions from their social environment as a result of their physical characteristics, such as age, size, race, sex, physical attractiveness.

The final interaction occurs between behavior and the environment. Bandura contends that people are both products and producers of their environment (Bandura 1977, 1986,1989). A person's

behavior will determine the aspects of their environment to which they are exposed, and behavior is, in turn, modified by that environment. A person's behavior can affect the way in which they experience the environment through selective attention. Based on learned human preferences and competencies, humans select whom they interact with and the activities they participate in from a vast range of possibilities. Human behavior also influences their environment, such as when an aggressive person creates a hostile environment. Thus, behavior determines which of the many potential environmental influences come into play and what forms they will take. In turn, the environment partly determines which forms of one's behavior are developed and activated (Bandura 1989).

This three-way reciprocal relationship is presented below:

In Bandura's learning model, person learner centeredness (Santrock 2005:227). In school, teachers have the challenge of improving

the academic learning and interest of the students in their charge. Using social cognitive theory as a framework, teachers can work to improve their students' affective attitudes, expectations and knowledge (personal factors), improve their academic skills and self-regulatory practices (behavior), and alter the school and classroom structures that may work to undermine student success (environmental factors).

The generally acknowledged ‘father' of constructivist theory, Ernst von Glasersfeld argues that education is essentially a `political' enterprise with two main purposes to empower learners to think for themselves, and to perpetuate in the next generation ways of acting and thinking that are judged the best by the present generations. In von Glasersfeld's view, constructivist theory is best put into practice by presenting issues, concepts and tasks in the form of problems to be explored in dialogue rather than as information to be ingested and reproduced. In constructivist point of view, the interactive teaching model becomes concerned with helping learners to make their own meanings. Also presenting learners with problem-solving activities becomes an important part of putting such a theory into practice.

Slavin (2004: 258) points out:

The essence of constructivist theory is the idea that learners must individually discover and transform complex information if they are to make it their own. Constructivist theory sees learners as constantly

checking new information against old rules and then revising rules when they no longer work. This view has profound implications for teaching, as it suggests a far more active role for students in their own learning than is typical in many classrooms. Because of the emphasis on students as active

learners,

constructivist

strategies

are

often

called

student-centered instruction. In a student-centered classroom, the teacher becomes the \"guide on the side”instead of the \"sage on the stage”，helping students to discover their own meaning instead of lecturing and controlling all the classroom activities.

However, constructivist theory does not dismiss the active role of the teacher or the value of expert knowledge. Constructivist theory modifies that role, so that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The constructivist teacher provides tools such as task-basked learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. Constructivist theory transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacher or the textbook. Thus constructivist theory lays so lid foundations for fostering learners' competence of integrated use of language knowledge.

2.1.2.2 Pedagogical basis

Cooperative learning affords students the opportunity to develop a range of skills while interacting and negotiating in the classrooms. It refers to the instructional use of small groups in which students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning (D.W. Johnson&H.E. Johnson 1994).

There are three types of cooperative learning groups: formal, informal and base groups. According to D.W. Johnson and H.E. Johnson (1994), formal cooperative groups last from one class period to several weeks with students working together to achieve shared learning goals by ensuring that they and their group mates successfully complete the learning task assigned; informal cooperative learning groups are ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period, which are used during direct teaching (lectures, demonstration, films and videos) to focus student attention on particular materials; cooperative base groups are long term (lasting for at least a year), heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is to allow members to give each other the support, help, encouragement, and assistance each needs to succeed academically.

In cooperative learning classrooms, students are expected to help, discuss and argue with each other, assess each other's current knowledge, and fill any gaps in each other's understanding.

Cooperative learning often replaces individual seatwork, study and individual practice but not direct instruction by the teacher. When properly organized, students in cooperative learning groups make sure that everyone in the group has mastered the concepts being taught (Slavin 1995). 'There is sufficient research to suggest that all the students can benefit from being placed in the role of both tutor and tutee, of learning from. and providing scaffolding for peers. The value of cooperative learning is likely to be understood by those from more cooperative or group-oriented societies, but its value can also be demonstrated to those living in more competitive societies, where it can help to foster the development of social skills needed to interact and communicate equitably with diverse groups of people.

Different researchers may have different concepts about cooperative learning, but the three major models, those of Robert Slavin, Spencer Kagan and Johnson brothers share the following essential characteristics (Crandall 2000): 1) positive interdependence, 2) individual accountability, 3) face to face promotive interaction, 4) social skills and 5) group processing.

Positive interdependence means that students see themselves as linked to the others in the group in such a manner that they cannot succeed unless the other members of the group succeed. Positive interdependence promotes a situation in which students work together

in small groups to maximize the learning of all the members, share their resources, provide mutual support and celebrate their joint success. Positive interdependence lies at the heart of cooperative learning. Once teachers establish positive interdependence, they must seethat students actually interact to help each other. Students are expected to discuss what they are learning and how to solve the assigned problems or complete the assignment, as well as to provide each other with help, assistance, support and encouragement. Positive interdependence results in promotive face-to-face interaction. Face-to-face interaction may be defined as individuals encouraging and facilitating each other's efforts to achieve complete tasks, and produce in order to reach the group's goals. It is characterized by individual; providing each other with efficient help and assistance; exchanging needed resources, challenging each other's conclusions and reasoning in order to promote higher quality decision making and greater insight into the problems being considered; influencing each other's efforts to achieve the group's goals and so on.

Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are subsequently reported to both the individual and the group. It is important that the group members know that they cannot \"hitchhike\" on the work of others. Individual accountability is the key to ensuring that all the group

members are, in fact, strengthened by learning cooperatively.

Besides, cooperative learning requires particular interpersonal and small-group skills. Students must often be taught the social skills for high quality collaboration and be motivated to use these skills. This will enable them to coordinate efforts so as to achieve mutual goals.

Group processing exists when the members of the group discuss their progress towards the achievement of their goals and the maintenance of effective working relations. Its purpose is to clarify and improve the effectiveness of the members in contributing to the collaborative efforts to achieve the group's goals. 2.1.2.3 Linguistic basis

Learning a language as a natural human accomplishment involves getting to know something, and being able to do something with that knowledge. Communicative language teaching aims to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication.

Littlewood (2000:1) states that one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it plays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language. According to Howatt (1997:279), there is a strong and a weak version of communicative language teaching. The weak version stress the

importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching. It could be described as \"learning to use English\". The strong version, however, holds the idea that class time should be spent not on language drills or controlled practice leading towards communicative language use, but in activities, which require learners to do in class what they will have to do outside. It entails \"using English to learn it\". For others, it means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups employing available language resources in problem-solving tasks.

A basic principle underlying communicative language teaching is that learners must learn not only to speak properly, but must also develop the ability to use language to get things done. In the communicative view to language, language learning is characterized as a process of developing the ability to do things with language (as opposed to learning about language). This means that the focus of attention shifts to the learner, who becomes the dominant partner in the pedagogic enterprise, so that instead of having the assertive teacher dictating to the submissive learner, we have the teacher submissive to the requirements that assert themselves as necessary of successful learning (Widdowson, 1990:160). With students as the dominant partner, teachers have to make sure that classroom-based studies provide

interactive teaching so that successful learning could be achieved. 2.2 Researches on the Interactive Teaching Model in Oral English

At the beginning, the research on language learning considered the dialogue as the main means of practicing language in class. But as time went on, this view changed in the 1970s', because dialogue practicing that did not make students get the ability to use language is only a drill practice. Later, interactive teaching was considered to be helpful in language learning in the following two aspects: learners' understanding language and productive language competence. Therefore, since the 1970s', many ideas about interactive language have been put forward. Rivers (2000) thinks that language teaching is a procession of interaction; teachers should build up an effective environment and create an opportunity to use language freely. During this procession, the learner-centeredness is emphasized, not the teacher-centeredness. Through observation, Nunan (2000) points out: a new teaching model, which calls for students to participate, is gradually changing the traditional teacher-centered pedagogy. Also Ellis (1994) thinks that in the past 30 years, the teaching model, which is interactive, is the major change and tendency in language teaching. So, many experts and teachers begin to focus on how to make learners get language learning instead of too much emphasis on the teaching of language components and neglecting the training of language skills. That is to say, the

educators start language teaching with the functional teaching, rather than the forms and results of language teaching. At present, in the western countries, many teachers put interactive teaching into their teaching practice. By interactive teaching, the modern teaching model-the learner-centered teaching can be realized. It aims at offering learners more opportunities to participate. In the process of interactive teaching, teachers are not only resource-providers of English knowledge and controllers but also helpers, guiders and participants. Learners are not the passive receivers but the active participants. In interactive teaching, learners can know not only language code or the form of language, but also what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. In other words, they would obtain the communicative competence that includes knowledge of what to say, when, how, where, and to whom (Wang, 2000:16) by means of many ways such as teacher-student interaction and student-student interaction. During this course, the learners can cooperate well with each other and share the knowledge as well as experiences equally.

In 1984, Beijing Donglu Primary School of Shanghai started the educational reform of \"Pleasure to Creativity\ and then in 1991 a teaching model was proposed i.e. \"Self-initiated Three-stage Teaching Structure\": building up situations (arousing interest); exploring subjects (learning guidance to ensure learning ability);

using and developing (thought-provoking to stimulate clever-learning). This structure can be considered as the beginning of interactive teaching. In the following 5 years, they practiced it in many subjects such as in Chinese and math’s lessons. Interactive teaching has been studied and explored repeatedly from theory to practice as well as from practice to theory. Thus, they constructed the classroom-teaching model, which has the feature of teaching interaction (Xia, 2001:183--184). Communicative language teaching has a great influence on English teaching in China. The communicative teaching theories have inspired many Chinese teachers to explore, research and practice. It stimulates the students' interest in English learning and is widely used in China. Besides, communicative language teaching tends to develop students' language skills completely, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Meanwhile, learning and teaching should be as close as possible to language use in real life.

The interactive teaching model is now considered to be a quick, effective and ideal teaching model based on the results of researches on classroom teaching and interactive classroom activities.