师范英语专业开题报告

毕业设计(论文)题目

the application of using role-playing games to change students’ reticence in english class

应用角色扮演教学法改变大学英语课堂沉默现象

研究对象、目的与意义：

1. purpose and significance of the research

it is not a piece of news to implement the role-playing games into college students’ classroom any more, however, both chinese and foreign

researchers have studied this application for a long time via the perspective of culture or

the types and topics of tasks. all of them want to explore the important role of role-playing games in college students’ classroom. in this thesis, the author does not tend to

build up a new model of class interaction but aims to give abundant evidences to prove that

using role-playing games can change college students’ reticence indeed by promoting and enhancing

college english teaching and learning ,and adjusting ways of students’ and teacher’s

strategies. moreover, the author aims to present some implications along with tactics for

teachers to enhance classroom interaction, which makes for having a better understanding

of each other and making their teaching and learning more effective.

role-playing games, as it is, encourage students increasing their language store by listening to

real authentic linguistic material and the output of their partners in discussion, communicati

on or dialogue journals. in role-playing games, there is an interaction between student and student, student and teacher, which

forms a triangle in learning and teaching. the ability to speak english frequently and

positivel

y is now becoming a pursuing goal in english teaching, however, seen from the unfavorable

current situation of students’ reticence on english teaching and learning, we can not wait to

change students’ reticence in classroom which comes to the premise problem and come up with

an idea to solve this kind of dilemma.

2. object of research

chinese college students (examples: english learners form zhejiang agriculture and forestry

university)

3. literature review:

up to now, many researchers and teachers from home and abroad have been attached importance to

the effects of role-playing games on changing college student’s reticence. many studies have been done in this

respect.

1. unfavorable effects of reticence on students’ english proficiency

the seminal study in this area is by wang xuehua (XX), who points out that many college

students of english regarding english as a second or foreign language have been diagnosed as

reticent learners in the recent esl/efl literature. they are unwilling to participate in

classroom activities and reluctant to give responses, even do not want to ask questions, which

pushes the atmosphere of class dead as a doornail. it is so universal to find that there are

so many reluctant speakers, and it is acceptable if active participation were not important in

language learning, however, it is in mainland china where english can not be used daily so that

language practice is the basic guarantee for the improvement of language competence. moreover,

either for personal needs or for environmental requirement the ability to communicate frequently in english comes to be the premise now.

drawing upon wang xuehua, luo yongqin(XX)

takes the argument a step further and observes that the dominant role in class is mixed in the

traditional teaching of english. that is, excessive teacher domination and language structural

knowledge privileged leads to students’ lack of practicability. it is a limitation for

students to learn english feasibility, practicability and effectiveness. in luo’s opinion,

role-play activities, as an effective solution, along with much material in the textbook is

available to carry out the interaction, which makes for cultivating students’ interest in

learning and encouraging them to use english socially. however, there are also many limitations

and difficulties in putting role-

play teaching into classes, for example, the contradiction between linguistic competence and

communicative competence, misunderstanding of the dominant role between teacher and students

in class, the difficulty of implementing role-playing games with over 30 students in a class and so on. (zou yan, XX)they are remained to be solved.

somewhat in contrast to wang and luo, wu bian (XX) agreed with the opinion that traditional

teaching method has some negative effects in english language teaching and learning, while he

emphasis to create a positive classroom atmosphere. it is vital to create an open and

democratic atmosphere where students are easy to express their thoughts and opinions during

discussion. as senior (1997) points out ‘an atmosphere of classroom cohesion was a necessary

precondition for the development of linguistic proficiency’. a comfortable atmosphere brings

out a familiarity for students to achieve affective objective of language learning. in addition,

it is a feasible way to minimize classroom anxiety. role-playing games combined with listening, speaking and body language encourage two or more partners

to perform humorously, freely and pleasurably.(van ments, 1983) it is stressed that efficient learning takes place in an atmosphere where

subjects have no ware of the threat to the self-image and external criticism is maintained to a minimum and self-evaluation is encouraged.

taking the argument in a new direction, yu jiaona proposed that role-playing teaching play an important role in students’ productive vocabulary

learning, referring

to swain’s output hypothesis and cooperative learning theory. as merrill swain proposed,

output activity promotes students internalizing what they say, and making themselves as a

main part of it. by developing their own independent cognitive thinking competence through

output activities can improve the effect of target output in english learning. (harmer, j,

XX)it is an invention to turn invisible knowledge into vivid act by changing the teaching method

from teacher-centered instruction to student-centered approach in a limited time. with a large body of statistics of experiment, it is

accurate point out that role-

play teaching is a more effective teaching approach for students’ productive vocabulary

learning than traditional teaching approach.

2. role-playing games

one important research study that demonstrates this is conducted by ma jie (XX), who

discovers that role-playing teaching makes for expanding the possibility of training students’ communicative

ability greatly. ‘interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas

between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each others’ (brown, XX).

role-play is designed according to students’ knowledge structure, for examining their relevant

knowledge reserve. to choose the topic which students are interest in and is divergent is

better for the curriculum activities and knowledge absorbing. while in the role-play games, the effect of teachers can not be neglected, they can encourage students to carry

on with other styles in english when students are trapped. but it is not wisdom to give

answers to students directly. (song xuejun, XX)

in a much different study that yields similar results, ji yan (XX) put forward that there is

a discrepancy on english teachers’ roles between students’ expectations and teachers’

class-room behaviors. (zhou xing, zhou yun, XX)her research indicates that the new teaching model should be cultivated by transforming from

a teacher-centered pattern to a student-centered pattern, in which students are encouraged to build up the ability to use language and

to learn independently in addition to language knowledge and skills. (he cuiyu, XX)despite, the role of teacher can not be ignored as well, as they play more important roles in

fostering autonomic learning, which is the key to develop a comprehensive ability and quality

of learners. seeing from her research findings, we can obtain these information, 1) teachers

should have a better understanding of autonomous learning and lead students to form a correct

concept of autonomous learning; 2) teachers should pay more attention to self-

improvement so that transform the roles from teachers to students; 3) teachers should provide

abundant chances for students to have a better learning methods and strategies which fits

themselves.

from a similar perspective, johnson, k (XX) argues that as suggested by the name, role-playing games are played face to face, asking members involved in the acting role. players are

asked to choose a character to put up and storytelling with rules, furthermore, students

should have a clear understanding to determine the objectives, define the contents and

progressions, and select the methods and techniques to be used and so on. he emphasis the

ability with ‘ a potential capacity to act in a given situation but not the actual behavior

of an individual is the essential factor concluded in the role-playing games.

the previous researches are almost convincing in the showing that there are more benefits role-play games can bring out for students’ language proficiency and it is necessary to pay more

attention

to change the way teachers teaches in the traditional way. but very few of them seem to have

realized that does role-playing teaching effect a permanent cure to change students’ reticence? this study will make

an attempt to explore the final result of this question and try to come up with more effective

implications for both teachers and students to be in better control of knowledge teaching and learning.

bibliography

[1] brown, h. d. teaching by principle: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. beijing: foreign

language teaching and research press: XX

[2] harmer, j. how to teach english. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. XX

[3] johnson, k. XX. understanding communication in second language classroom. beijing:

people education press. XX

[4] senior, r. transforming language classes into bonded groups. elt journal. 1997

[5] van ments, m. the effective use of role-play. new york: st. martin’s press. 1983

[6] 贺翠玉. 如何提高英语课堂教学的实效性[a]. 语言与文化研究(第五辑)[c]. XX

[7] 纪燕. 自主学习模式下学生对教师的角色期待与教师课堂教学行为的研究[d]. 江苏大学，XX

[8] 罗永勤. 高中英语教学中的角色扮演[d]. 重庆：西南大学，XX

[9] 马洁. 综合英语课堂活动的组织—以role-play为例在课堂教学中实现交际目的[j].科教文汇(上旬刊),XX(7)

[10] 宋学军. 运用角色扮演提高初中生口语能力的额研究[d]. 华中师范大学，XX

[11] 王学华. 应用人际交互式教学法改变大学生英语课堂沉默现象[d].东南大学,XX

[12] 吴卞. 课堂互动和大学英语教与学[d]. 重庆师范大学,XX

[13] 于娇娜. 论角色扮演教学法对产生性词汇学习的影响[d]. 辽宁师范大学,XX

[14] 周星，周韵. 大学英语课堂教师话语的调查与分析[j].外语教学与研究， XX

[15] 邹燕. 英语教学中互动与沟通模式的研究[j]. 沈阳大学学报，XX

4. the contents and methodology:

in this thesis, the author wants to explore the important role of interaction in english teaching and

learning and analyze the role of teacher and student played in classroom interaction. after that,

the author would conclude the function of role-playing games in changing students’ reticence along with some implications for both students and

teachers, such as strategies for implementing college english classroom interaction.

research methods used in this thesis includes investigation, comparison, contrast, analysis,

illustration and summary. the document retrieval will provide enough information and give a

clear review of the history of the study on schema. the comparison and contrast between the

information will show that schema plays its special pragmatic functions on english reading

teaching that should not be ignored. the analysis of its special pragmatic functions will

reinforce the fact that schema theory is used as a very efficient strategy in our english

reading. all in all, the author aims to provide students enough benefit a lot from the data the author collects.

table of contents:

1. introduction

1.1 research background

1.1.1 common allegations of students’ reticence in english classroom

1.1.2 unfavorable effects of reticence on students’ english proficiency

1.2 significance of the present research

1.3 research objective and thesis overview

1.3.1 research objective

1.3.2 thesis overview

2. literature review

2.1 english teaching in china

2.2 importance of output in second language learning

2.3 the ways to facilitate output in the classroom

2.3.1 interpersonal interaction

2.3.2 task-based learning

2.4 related researches on asian students’ reticence

3. task-based interpersonal interactive approach—role-playing games

3.1 approach of changing students’ reticence

3.2 method to implement role-playing games

4. application of task-based interpersonal interactive approach

4.1 experiment design

4.2 experimental and control classes

4.3 gathering of preliminary data

4.4. observation

4.7 summary

5. conclusion

6. bibliography

5. expected results:

according to investigations, the author wants to explore the various causes behind

reticence in order to have a better understanding of the overall english learner’s

proficiency. in allusion to the analysis, the author would present some implications for

both teachers and students, thereby, a reconsideration of chinese learner’s reticence in

english class is a prerequisite for the change of traditional ways of teaching. the author

aims to analyze the main characters’ position to have a full view of the research, moreover,

the approach has been applied to the practice to test the effectiveness of role-playing games.

6. innovations:

the author does observations in the college that promising the accuracy of the data, and

the data obtained form both

experimental and control class have been analyzed. the author accomplish this thesis not only

in virtue of reasonable structure and scientific methods, but also due to the great interest

in how to dealing with the students’ reticence.

研究进度安排：

1. 确定选题: 10月28日—11月27日

2. 开题报告: 12月1日—12月23日

3. 撰写论文: 12月26日—3月31日

4. 修改论文: 4月1日—4月30日

5. 论文答辩: 5月12日—5月13日