| Biography | |
|---|---|
 Dr. Carol Griffiths Girne American University，North Cyprus, UK |
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| Title: A case study of English learning strategy training in a Chinese High School | |
| Abstract: In mainland China, many students take painstaking efforts and spend a huge amount of time in learning English, however, they can’t learn English well, and eventually give up, attributing their failure to laziness, lack of aptitude, or poor teaching. Many teachers work very hard; however, their students’ English remains poor, since the teachers give lessons by following our traditional way of lecturing while students listen and take notes without having enough opportunities to think in English and communicate in English in class. They learn English by rote learning instead of applying effective learning strategies. Our study aimed to change the students’ views and help them to learn English easily, happily and effectively. Many Chinese and international researchers have done a great deal of research in different countries and areas on language learning strategies, and the research has shown that learners fail to learn English well because they don’t have effective learning strategies rather than because they are lazy or lack aptitude (Griffiths, 2018; Jones et al.,1987; O’Mallly & Chamot,1990; Oxford, 2017). This paper will report on a study at a senior high school in Shenzhen, China, involving a special class consisting 24 voluntary students who come from different classes of Senior 1 after they have studied at the school for a semester. Most of the students’ English is not good and they chose to take the course to improve their English. They received a strategy training course consisting of a series of effective strategies on vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, writing and viewing. These strategies helped to resolve their difficulties and problems in their English learning and improved their ability to use English effectively. The training employed a six-stage program of raising awareness, learning, practicing, consolidating and evaluating the new strategy, and after class, reflecting to improve their English learning. The course lasted for one year and ten months, and the lessons were given once a week in the last period on Wednesday from 4:55pm-5:40pm— the school’s only free period for students to take part in extracurricular activities. It is important to mention that it is very difficult to keep the students attending the lessons because it was optional and the teacher didn’t have any right to stop any student from dropping this course. She could only keep the students by means of their interest in the lessons. The teacher developed a variety of ways to implement the course by: 1. Arranging various tasks and organizing effective pair work or group work to cultivate students’ cooperative, autonomous and inquiry learning. 2. Applying a four-step teaching mode (needs analysis, revision, observation, feedback). 3. Requiring each student to write a lesson report after each lesson with multi-assessments on it. 4. Tutoring students to be teachers and to give attractive lessons. The research has shown that learners can obtain strategies through training which can allow them to enjoy learning English and improve their integrated learning abilities and life skills and which help them learn English well by achieving maximum results with minimal effort. The strategy training has been warmly welcomed by students whether they are at a high level or a low English level, as indicated by 20 out of 24 students keeping on attending the whole course for one year and ten months. Moreover, the teaching mode has shown to be a good way to improve teaching effectiveness and enhance teachers’ career happiness. The presenters will first provide more details about the literature and the study briefly described above, and explain the instructional steps more precisely. A model lesson will be demonstrated. Participants will experience the process of one strategy training and be able to take away some useful pointers on how it operates. | |
| Biography: Dr Carol Griffiths has been a teacher, manager and teacher trainer of ELT for many years. She has taught in many places around the world, including New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, China, North Korea, Turkey and UK. She has also presented at numerous conferences and published widely, including her books Lessons from Good Language Learners and The Strategy Factor in Successful Language Learning. Learner issues, teacher education and support, teacher burnout, individual differences, the mature language learner, the Intake Hypothesis, language learning strategies, language issues, action research, the Tornado Hypothesis, English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and using literature to teach language are her major areas of research interest. | |
