A Study On Effective Lead-in Strategies In Senior English Classroom Teaching

As the initial stage of English classroom instruction, lead-in is the most basic step. As the proverb says, "Well begun is half done". Lead-in plays a crucial role in implementing the teaching task, in achieving the teaching goal, and in improving teaching quality. Simply speaking, lead-in section has great influence on the effect of teaching and learning. Therefore, teachers must attach enough importance to it, use different lead-in strategies to arouse students’ learning interest, and excite their learning enthusiasm, initiative and creativity.Most of English teachers in high school put more emphasis on imparting knowledge, and ignore the significance of lead-in, which may lower the efficiency of classroom instruction. In order to have a better understanding on current situations of lead-in in high school English classroom instruction, find out the existing problems and put forward some feasible strategies, the author conducts a survey among teachers and students in No.2 High School in Yangcheng by classroom observation, questionnaire, and interview. This thesis aims to study the following questions:(1) What are the lead-in strategies in senior English instruction? (2) What are the problems in lead-in section? (3) What kind of effective lead-in strategy can be introduced to English classes?After a four-month investigation, the author found that teachers often apply direct lead-in, lead-in by revision, lead-in by music or song, and lead-in by multimedia and so on in practical teaching. In addition, there are still some teachers who either ignore the importance of lead-in, or apply single lead-in method in classroom instruction. This may influence teaching effect and learning effect to some extent. The reasons causing this phenomenon can be divided into three aspects:(1) factors concerning teachers; (2) factors concerning students; (3) factors concerning teaching condition. Then the author puts forward some effective lead-in methods, including lead-in by story, lead-in by scenario, lead-in by game, lead-in by music or song, lead-in by speech, lead-in by free talk, lead-in by question, lead-in by conversation, lead-in by presentation, lead-in by background knowledge, lead-in by imagination and so on. At last, the author proposes some implications:(1) teachers should change traditional teaching concepts, and try to help students hold the dominant role in English teaching and learning; (2) teachers should take students’ needs into consideration; (3) teachers should specify the objectives of lead-in; (4) teachers should apply different lead-in methods based on different teaching materials; (5) last but not least, teachers should read more academic works on lead-in.