The Application Of An Intelligent Teaching Platform To The Teaching Of Junior Middle School English Listening And Speaking

Listening and speaking are an important component of English language teaching and learning in junior middle schools.Currently,the external environment of English listening and speaking teaching is facing profound changes in our country.The “double reduction” policy requires a reduction in the quantity with an improvement in the quality of homework,and the information and communication technology has been deeply integrated into English language teaching and learning in recent years.Moreover,at the beginning of 2020,with the outbreak COVID-19 pandemic,online teaching has become the main teaching method.In the situation of “suspension without suspension”,all middle schools and primary schools used intelligent teaching platform to carry out online teaching,English teaching activities are no exception.Traditional offline teaching is required when the COVID-19 is alleviated.So the mixed teaching mode combining online teaching,offline teaching and online and offline teaching has emerged and will become the main mode under the normal situation of COVID-19 pandemic.In this context,many junior middle schools(including a middle school in Guangxi,where the current author is working)have used EKWING.COM(its app name-EKWING Student)as an intelligent teaching platform to assist English listening and speaking assignments.The traditional teaching of English listening and speaking in junior middle schools is problematic and not effective in improving students’ listening and speaking skills.EKWING.COM is important to solve the inherent problems of traditional listening and speaking teaching.Based on the theory of constructivism,blended learning and second language acquisition,an empirical study was conducted at a middle school supplemented by a questionnaire and an interview,which aim to examine the problems in English listening and speaking teaching in junior middle schools,to test the effectiveness of EKWING.COM and analyze its limitations,and ultimately propose some improvement options under the situation of COVID-19 pandemic.The thesis aims to address the following three research questions: 1)What are the difficulties and problems teaching English listening and speaking and traditional homework in junior middle schools? 2)How can the intelligent teaching platform EKWING.COM be effective in enhancing students’ listening and speaking ability? 3)What problems are there with the use of the intelligent teaching platform EKWING.COM and what measures should be taken to further improve its teaching effect?The following findings have been achieved: 1)The difficulties and problems in current junior middle school teaching and learning of English listening and speaking include the inadequate provision of facilities in schools,the poor speaking skills of some teachers,the neglect of listening and speaking teaching under the pressure of exam-oriented education,emotional factors such as self-confidence,anxiety and motivation that hinder students’ acquisition of listening and speaking skills,the inadequate emphasis on listening and speaking skills in the educational assessment system,the friction in home-school cooperation,the monotonous form of listening and speaking assignments and the difficulty in giving feedback.2)EKWING.COM has been effective in enhancing students’ English listening and speaking skills in many ways.Firstly,it improves their pronunciation accuracy and makes up for the poor speaking skills of some English teachers.Secondly,it has also improved students’ English fluency.Thirdly,their sense of language has been enhanced.Finally,the students’ listening skills have improved.All this can be attributed to the application’s empowerment of the students to actively construct their knowledge and skills of English listening and speaking.On the one hand,according to the blended learning theory,EKWING.COM changes the deficiencies of traditional listening and speaking teaching facilities and provides an asynchronous blended learning environment,in which students give full play to their initiative.According to the theory of second language acquisition,EKWING.COM changes students’ emotions and attitudes,weakening their psychological barriers and allowing them to participate more actively in English listening and speaking.Consequently,they take the initiative in English listening and speaking training to improve their skills.3)There are three problems with the use of EKWING.COM: some students report a lack of confidence,some students do not have or have access to the internet or computers,and for students with poor self-discipline,their parents are forced to restrict their use of EKWING.COM.Teachers and parents can handle these issues through the effective use of encouraging comments,teacher supervision of parents in the provision of necessary facility and increased parental supervision.Considering the existing limitations,more pertinent research can be conducted in the future on a city-wide or even nation-wide scale to expand the sample scope and obtain more solid conclusions.Meanwhile,longitudinal studies can be conducted to investigate the long-term impacts of EKWING.COM on the teaching of English listening and speaking in junior middle schools.