A Study On Teaching Strategies Of Embodied Oral English In Junior High School

As one of the language skills that secondary school students must master,speaking is one of the most neglected aspects of English teaching.Due to the influence of examination-based education,especially paper-and-pencil tests,speaking has not been given the attention it deserves compared to reading and writing.In the traditional teaching process,teachers and students only focus on the output of the written language,while neglecting the learning and training of the spoken language.In the long run,learners have a poor foundation in spoken language,which in turn limits the improvement of their written language.The new English curriculum standards require that secondary school students must strengthen their speaking skills.So they can communicate and express themselves orally in everyday life.Therefore,in order to improve junior secondary school students’ the level of spoken English and the current speaking situation,novel and effective theories and methods of guidance are urgently needed.The body is a non-verbal expression and language is an inter-bodily activity.The body plays an important role in language,especially in the learning of oral language.It is the root of language.Therefore,the integration of embodied cognition with oral language is important.This paper uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods,and SPSS software to analyze the data obtained from the questionnaire and the experimental study.Based on the theory of embodied cognition,the relationship between embodiment and language,the body and English learning is explored and the concept of embodied teaching is proposed.A questionnaire survey was conducted to understand the current status of junior high school students’ learning of spoken English.The conclusions were drawn,which are briefly summarized here as follows:(1)There were significant differences in junior high school students’ attitudes towards spoken English on the demographic variable of length of time spent learning English,with a higher mean value of length of time spent learning English for three years.(2)The three dimensions of junior high school students’ current English speaking level and expectations,current speaking practice and attitudes towards teachers’ speaking instruction were significantly different on the three demographic variables of school,grade level and length of study in English.Students in key junior high schools,junior high schools and those who had studied English for three years,have higher means.(3)There were significant differences in junior secondary students’ attitudes towards embodied teaching on four demographic variables: gender,school,grade level and length of time studying English.The means were higher for male students,general middle school students,junior high school students and students who had studied English for three to six years.On the basis of these findings,teachers were interviewed and further analyzed on the current situation and the root causes of speaking learning among junior high school students.In order to improve the current situation of oral teaching,inspired by the concept of embodied teaching,the author proposed four embodied oral teaching strategies for junior high school students’ English learning: oral teaching strategies under the guidance of body language,oral teaching strategies under the contextualization,oral teaching strategies under dynamic generation,and oral teaching strategies for students’ lives.By setting up a control group,the experiment was conducted in the experimental class for two months,while the control class remained with regular teaching.At the end of the experiment,the data were analyzed for differences using the paired-samples T-test in SPSS software.The following experimental conclusions were eventually drawn:(1)Middle school students’ English speaking learning is embodied.(2)The embodied speaking teaching strategy can significantly improve junior high school students’ speaking skills.(3)The embodied speaking teaching strategy has a positive effect on improving students’ overall performance in English.(4)The key to the embodied speaking strategy is that students are physically involved and learn to speak during the activity.Therefore,the embodied speaking teaching strategy proposed in this paper is effective and embodied teaching can significantly improve learners’ speaking skills.