英语小学生英语学习兴趣的培养与研究本科论文.doc

The Improvement of English Learning Interes for Primary Students
Abstract: The English teaching in elementary school aims at stimulating student’s interest in English learning, developing their positive attitude towards learning for the purpose of guiding them to initially build up the confidence of learning English, and helping them to develop their sense of English pronunciation intonation. Such well-designed curriculum will lay the solid foundation for the pupils’ continuation of learning English in their upcoming middle school. It is an important topic to research how to cultivate the primary students’ interest in English learning. At present, the situation where students follow the teacher and teacher focuses on the book must be changed in the English teaching, however, we must fully stimulate and cultivate students’ interest in learning so as to make the students learn actively. This study aims to discuss how to improve interest of primary school students according to relevant studies. Meanwhile, to create a strong English culture and to stimulate students’ interest in English learning.
Key words: primary students; English learning; interest

小学生英语学习兴趣的培养与研究

摘要：众所周知，兴趣是最好的老师。小学英语课程教学的目地就是激发学生英语学习兴趣，培养他们英语学习的积极态度，使他们建立初步学习英语的自信心，培养一定的语感和良好的语音、语调基础，为他们升入中学继续学习英语奠定初步的基础。如何激发小学生的学习兴趣，使他们积极地、主动地学习是本论文研究的重点。在现代的英语教学中，必须改变学生围着教师转，教师围着教材转的旧格局，要充分激发学生的学习兴趣，使他们积极主动的学习。通过研究调查，本研究建议教师要为英语学习者创造良好的学习环境，营造浓厚的英语文化氛围并开展形式多样的课外活动。
关键字：小学生；英语学习；兴趣

I

Contents

Abstract in English I
Abstract in Chinese II
1. Introduction 1
2.The Background information of English Learning Interest 3
2.1 The Definition of Interest 3
2.2 The Classification of Interest 3
2.3 Theoretical Basis for the Present Research 4
3. Methodology 6
3.1 Research Questions 6
3.2 Research Subjects 6
3.3 Questionnaires 6
3.4 Procedures 6
3.5 Result Collection and Analysis 7
3.6 Major Finding 10
4.The Methods of improving the interest 12
4.1 To Create Joyful and Supportive English-learning Atmosphere 12
4.2 To Apply Various Methods to Attract Students’ Learning Interest 12
4.3 To Set up students’ confidence 13
4.4 To Establish a Good Relationship between Teacher and Student 14
4.5 To Design Wonderful Lessons 15
4.6 To Design a Diverse of Homework 15
5.Conclusion 17
Bibliography 19
Appendix 20
Acknowledgements 22

II

1. Introduction

English is becoming the most widely used language all over the world. With the improving of society, we have many chances to communicate with all kinds of countries in the world. Meanwhile, English is an international language, but its teaching is not a piece of easy work. Nowadays, many students are loosing their learning interest and showing disgusted attitude. It seems that students are not reluctant to learn new words, recite dialogues and do some exercises.
Einstein once said that”Interest is the best teacher.” Interest is a kind of direct motivation to push student to learn. That means interest plays a crucial part in English learning. The English teaching in primary school aims at stimulating students’ learning English interest, and developing their positive attitude towards learning English. As the saying goes” attitude is everything” .A good attitude is the key to the success in every way.
We all know that the way of arousing interest is a vital thing. But, how do teachers arouse and keep students’ interest in learning English? The real process of teaching is the important step. As to conduct research for this problem, we need to investigate and to research the present situation of primary school students’ interest in learning English first. Only in this way, we can suggest the suitable strategies and provide guidance for the future. In this paper, the author used a research method to seek effect factors of English learning interest in primary school.
The investigation of the primary school students’ English learning interest is a project which can influence the relevant study at middle school or even at university. Its significance can be high lightly in two aspects as follows:
Theoretical significance: at present, many domestic studies of interest in learning focus on those subject, such as math, physics, while only a few research on English. Besides, most subjects for domestic research of interest in English learning are middle school or college school. While the domestic English learning mainly happens in class, and students communicate with Chinese after classes so that they have a few opportunities to practice, because they lack environment or atmosphere to use English.
Practical significance: As the original stage of English teaching, primary English may possess the main purpose of stimulating and maintaining students’ interest. In the basic education stage, one of the tasks of English courses is to stimulate and develop students’ interest English learning. A successful primary school English teacher should consciously cultivate the students’ interest in English learning, and at last help them form lasting learning interest, thus they may enjoy learning English, be good at learning and learn it well. This research aims to discuss and find out the helpful method to improve the students’ learning interest.

2. The Background information of English Learning Interest
2.1 The Definition of Interest
What is interest? Interest is defined as “the feeling that you have when you want to know or learn more about something” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (2008). The study of interest is a cross-disciplinary issue that involves linguistics, pedagogy and psychology. According to Renniger, Hidi and Krapp, “interest is a phenimenon that emerges from an individual’s interaction with his or her environment, it refers to a feeling of wanting to know, learn, see or take part in something.”(Renniger, Hidi and Krapp,1992:5) Chen Xueliang(1987), after studying, said that interest is the warm-hearted guide of life, the enlightenments of career and the lifelong company. From everyone view, interest is a feeling that accompanies or causes special attention to something, and a kind of inner motivation to do something. Interest plays a very important role in English learning.
2.2 The Classification of Interest
According to Jean Piaget(Wadsorth,1989:30), “interest is the most common and powerful example of affect at works influencing our selection of intellectual activities.” In educational field, interest has been divided into two categories: individual interest and situational interest.
Interest is a kind of psychological condition in the psychological field. “Individual interest is always specific to individuals.”(Renniger, Hidi and Krapp, 1992:6) In Renniger’s view, individual interest consists of more than one’s knowledge, and attitude, positive emotions and increased reference value connected with a topic or an object are part of individual interest. In recent years, lots of investigations show that primary school students can own strong and well-centered individual interest which have great influence on their study. To sum up in conclusion, it can be seen that individual interest is an important determinant in English learning. In school learning, the related studies show interest can affect students’ learning attitude,that is, high individual interest in a particular subject links with high academic achievement and high-level pleasure. Many researchers have demonstrated that individual interest can lead to a high learner-task engagement which is require for a high level of achievement (Benton, Corkill, Sharp, Downey, &Kharamstsova, 1995; Renniger, 1992; Schiefele, Krapp, &Winteler, 1992)
There are many definitions for the term of situation interest according to the scholars, as follows:
Renniger, Hidi and Krapp(1992) stated that situation interest is defined as an emotional state aroused by situational stimuli. It is often generated by certain conditions and concert objects in the environment.
Hidi(1990) and her fellows insisted that situation interest plays an vital role in English learning.
Since individual interest has been shown a strong impact on learning which is an emotional state induced by certain situational stimuli according to the previous researches, it can be taken as an useful idea for the teacher to optimize interest influence for the purpose of promoting students’ learning in classroom.
2.3Theoretical Basis for the Present Research
Theory is always the guidance for a study, without it, it is impossible to deal with the analysis and demonstration objectively. According to this paper, there are two bases theoretical for this research.
According to Dulay, Burt and Krashen, “one’s affect towards a particular thing or action or situation or experience is how that thing or that action or that situation or that experience fits in with one’s needs or purposes, and its resulting effects on one’s emotion.”(quoted in Arnold, 2000:44) Krashen(1982:56) once arhued that the importance of one’s interest is concerned in the Affective Filter Hypothesis. Krashen(1982) also argues that affective fators are seen to play an important role in acquiring a second language. He concludes that there are two conditions about how to acquire a second language. One is comprehensible input containing structures a bit beyond the acquires’ current level. Another is a lower or weak affective filter to allow the input “in”. Krashen’s propose is a crucial advise for a second language teacher to provide students with understandable input, so that it helps to make it understand in a low anxiety situation of learning.
Abraham Maslow (Maslow,A. 1954) pointed a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growths needs. According to Maslow, within the deficiency needs, each lowers need must be met before moving to the next higher level. Based on Maslow theory,the desire for acheievement and communication is the best to stimulate students’ interest of learning. As for English teaching and learning in primary school, students’s desire, which is as important as interest, should arouse teachers’ great attention.
Mutiple Intellgences provide new pivot, new foundation and new angle of view for China’s traditional education in its unique and original way. (Huo liyan, 2003:56-98). Mutiple Intellgences provide an original opportunity for the present status quo of teaching strategy (Fu shuling, 2003:51-54 ). It encourage the teaching strategy of no fixed but varied teaching mode and deeply believed that it will benifit all the students. When having lessons under the Mutiple Intellgences environment, students can release their own favorable and use other learning ways to express, to understand, to memorize to expert what they have learned. To better embody the notion of “teaching student according to their aptitude”. It’s necessary to stimulate students interest according to this theory.

3. Methodology
3.1 Research Questions
From the study, we all have been clearly aware of the importance of English learning. How to help students build interest in English learning and how to maintain it when study is marching on are two questions. According to the theme of the research, a survey on English learning interest of primary school students is set, which mainly resolves the following two questions:
1. Are the primary students interested in English learning?
2. What are the reasons they are interested or not interested in English learning?
3. How to improve the interests of primary students?
3.2 Research Subjects
The subjects of the present research were about 100 the students from Yangguang Primary School of Xi’an, including 20 in Grade 3, 25 in Grade 4, 24 in Grade 5, 30 in Grade 6, and the students are randomly chosen.
3.3 Questionnaires
The questionnaire which was conducted about 100 students to examine individual interest of English learners. It was based on the questionnaire of Li Wei (2011).The questionnaire majorly to survey: students’ interest of English learning and the reasons why they like or not like.
Since answering questionnaires was a new experience to most students, the questionnaire was translated into Chinese.
3.4 Procedures
The questionnaire survey about English learning interest was investigated in Xi’an Yangguang Primary School in July, 2014. Altogether about 100 students from three grades (one class from Grade 3, two classes from Grade 4, two classes from Grade 5 and two classes from Grade 6) were chosen by random as the subjects. First of all, they were told that they needn’t to write down their names on the questionnaire sheets, following that the author explained how to conduct the questionnaires and told the students that they should choose the most suitable one of the choice. After several minutes, all the sheets were collected as soon as the students finished filling the questionnaire sheets.
3.5 Result Collection and Analysis
As have been mentioned above, the questionnaires are designed to get the general situation of the students’ interest of learning English in primary school, which contains two parts. Here is the table 1.

The number of students who are interested in English
The percentage
The number of students who are interested in English
The
percentage
Grade 3
15
75%
5
25%
Grade 4
13
54.2%
11
45.8%
Grade 5
12
48%
13
52%
Grade 6
13
43.3%
17
56.7%
Table 1 the General Situation of the Students’ Interest in English Learning
(Table 1)
From the data above, we can clearly see that as the grade increases, the students’ English learning interest decreases. From the table, it clearly demonstrates that the interest of English learning interest in Grade3 (75%) is the highest among 4 grades. The reason is that maybe the students have had a strong curiosity in English when they first have lessons in school. For this reason, the more relaxed and joyful they feel, it’s easy for them to keep the high interest in English learning. Dai Yulan once said, pupils at school are interested and excited about English learning for their curiosity and newness of English when they begin to study English. However, as the increase of learning content and learning difficulty, and the surface of frustration or tired in learning, many students easily begin to decrease their interest gradually.
By the present survey, it can be well conducted why the student is interested in English or why not. The following reasons show why the student is interested in English learning, as follows:
A. In order to communicate with foreigners.
B. English class is very funny and interesting.
C. English teacher is lovely and I like to attend her class.
D. I want to be a English teacher and it sounds beautiful.
E. Sometimes my parents wi