A Practical Inquiry Into The Training Of Senior-students' English Language Skills

In September 2001 the Ministry of Education issued " The standard of English Curriculum for middle school in China" which points out that the main purpose of learning a language is to master the language skills. Language skills include listening,speaking,reading and writing and the comprehensive ability of using them. Listening and reading are the skill of absorbing while speaking and writing are skill of expressing. Only by enormously absorbing can the expressing skill be improved and only during the course of absorbing information and expressing one's will can the communicating ability be developed. Therefore,listening and writing are both the purpose and means of learning a language. Only through practice can language skills and the comprehensive ability of using them be improved. My school,lying in the suburbs of the city ,is an ordinary high school and the students' English skills are poorer. And for quite some time,more efforts were made to train the students' English knowledge while less attention was paid to training of their language skills. On the other hand,the reform of the NCEE has a deep effect on English teaching. Test questions in an NCEE paper trend to be more and more practical,for example,listening skill testing and everyday English for communication are parts of it. Reading and writing are further emphasized .Knowledge teaching changes into skills training is a must in high-school English teaching ^including the reform of teaching methods ,the adjustments of teaching contents ,the improvement of the teaching methods ,the renewal of teaching media and so on .Under the situation of carrying out quality education nationwide and the reform of basic education ,how to develop a student's English language skills has been a hot topic in middle-school English teaching .Following the theories education and linguistics and combined with my own teaching experience ,this paper deals with " How to train the students' English language skills "in the following three aspects:1.Varying English lessons to train the students' English language skills by various means. Learning a language is the result of several sense organs,such as senses of hearing and sight,working together. Hearing,speaking,reading and writing are viewed as a whole during the course of the development of a language. Each of them can not exist without the others. Varying English lessons is to increase the language stimulus,widen information sources and tap the students' internal latent language abilities.2. Making up English teaching and learning atmosphere to speed the forming of the students' English language skills. Making up a good language atmosphere and training the students' skills of communication is part of English teaching program. As a subject of practical tool,English teaching is aimed to master the English language and improve the students' abilities of using it. It is of great significance to make up the external English learning atmosphere.3. Teaching English by different levels to improve the English language skills of the students at all levels. The individual differences are common and absolute. Everyone has characters of his own,which requires teachers,during the course of their teacher,should follow the principle of teaching students in accordance with individual characters to give free rein to their initiative and special advantages.