| English listening and speaking ability is the foundation of comprehensive language application ability,and it is an important guarantee for students to use English for communication.After classroom observation and conducting a questionnaire survey,it is found that the students in the two classes of grade seven in H Middle School in Huanggang,Hubei Province generally have poor English listening and speaking ability.In the English listening and speaking teaching of grade seven,the monotonous listening and speaking activities designed and organized by teachers,the lack of listening and speaking situation,and the difficulty of the activities lead to low enthusiasm for most students to participate in listening and speaking activities.Many students find it difficult to finish listening and speaking activities in class.Hardly can they acquire any communication strategies during such a situation.Therefore,traditional listening and speaking teaching does not effectively improve students’ English listening and speaking ability.Through literature review,it is found that English films,television series and animations can stimulate students’ interest in English listening and speaking and create language situation so as to help improve students’ English listening and speaking ability.Some teachers try to use English films,television series and animations in listening and speaking teaching,and have carried out relevant research and achieved some results,but there is still a lack of relevant theories and systematic and specific teaching cases of English films,television series and animations to assist English listening and speaking teaching.This paper takes Peppa Pig,an English animation,as a case study.Combined with the research of the English listening and speaking ability level,cognitive characteristics and personality characteristics of the students in the two classes of grade seven in H Middle School in Huanggang,Hubei Province,it is found that Peppa Pig has rich listening and speaking teaching values.First,the content of Peppa Pig is rich,lively and interesting,and also highly relevant to the listening and speaking content of the textbooks of grade seven.Second,the language difficulty meets the requirements of the listening and speaking ability of the students in grade seven in the English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011 edition).Third,this animation contains rich language culture and diversified communication strategies.Therefore,Peppa Pig is very suitable for assisting English listening and speaking teaching of grade seven.In the teaching practice,through classroom observation and in-depth interviews with 60 students selected from these two classes,it is found that using Peppa Pig in listening and speaking teaching effectively improves the English listening and speaking ability of the students.First,the rich,lively and interesting content of Peppa Pig improves students’ interest and motivation in English listening and speaking.Second,the language characteristics of Peppa Pig,like moderate speed,standard pronunciation and concise language,help students adapt to the difficulty of listening and speaking teaching materials,promote students’ acquisition of listening and speaking language related to textbooks so that the students better complete the relevant listening and speaking activities in the textbooks.Third,the multi-modal advantages of Peppa Pig present the language communication situation comprehensively,which not only helps students understand the English culture better,but also enriches the application situation of listening and speaking activities in the textbooks and provides listening and speaking activities of different levels,so as to help the students acquire communication strategies and improve students’ ability to communicate in English.The overall teaching design and the specific teaching cases of Peppa Pig assisting the teaching of English listening and speaking demonstrate how to use English films,television series and animations in listening and speaking teaching,which provides references for primary and secondary school teachers to scientifically and effectively use them to assist listening and speaking teaching. |
