A Brief Analysis of english teaching in senior high school
Abstract: Classroom teaching is the main way for students to learn English. But in senior high school, a lots of probelms still exsit in the English teaching especially in the teaching of reading and writing. In this paper, the importance and methods of reading and writing will be further discussed. Key words: reading writing techniques
Introduction: Classes should be learner-centered, with meaningful, functional activities, often, classes begin by finding out what the students don’t know. These classes operate on the assumption that there is a great deal of information that students lack and that the teacher and textbooks will impact that information to the students. Teachers who hold this assumption view students as plants waiting passively to be fed and watered. But I think the students should be regarded as explorers, active learners who bring a great deal to the learning process and at the same time, draw from their environment as they develop new understandings. The basic principle will be used in the teaching of reading and writing.
How to teach reading
I. Why teach reading
There are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher’s job. In the first place, many of them want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure. Anything we can do to make reading easier for them must be a good idea.
Reading texts provide good models for English writing, provide opportunities to study language vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way to construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons.
The last but not the least, students must read widely because only a fraction of knowledge about the world can come from other experiences in their short lives.
II. What kind of reading should students do?
When the teachers give reading class to students, they should notice a balance----a balance to be struck between real English on the one hand and the students’ capabilities and interests on the other. There is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree: menus, timetables, signs and basic instructions, for example, and, where appropriate, teachers can use these. But for longer prose, teachers can offer their students texts, which, while being like English, are nevertheless written or adapted especially for their level. Anyway, the materials to be read should be interesting and meaningful. Teachers should become better acquainted with books written specially for teenagers and dealing with their problems.
III. What are the principles behind the teaching of reading?
i) Permit Students To Read
No one has learned to swim by practicing the skills of backstrokes, flutter kicks or treading water while staying on the edge of the swimming pool. Yet, in the teaching of reading teachers often do just that. Rather than let the students into “the water”, teachers keep them in skills books learning rules about letters, syllables or definitions of words rather than letting them into the book itself, permitting them to be immersed in the language which comes from the authors as the readers try to reconstruct the written message.
ii) Encourage students to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language
Of course, it is important to study reading texts for the way they use language, how many paragraphs they contain and how many times they use relative clauses. But the meaning, the message of the text, is much more important. Teachers should help students understand that the main reason to read is for them. They have to have their own purpose to read and reading must make sense, they have to find ways of doing something about it. They should be encouraged either to reread or to continue reading to gain meaning. But they must realize that the meaning is not in the teacher, but in the interaction between the reader and author. Students should be encouraged to ask themselves repeatedly, “Does this make sense to me?” Students should be encouraged to reject and to be intolerant of reading materials that do not make sense.
iii) Encourage students to guess or predict
Readers’ guesses or predictions are based on the cumulative information and syntactic structure they have been learning as they have been reading. Therefore, their guesses are more often than not appropriate to the materials. Students have to realize that risk taking in reading is appropriate; that using context to decide what words mean is a proficient reading strategy and that they have the language sense to make appropriate guesses which can fit both the grammatical and semantic sense of what they are reading.
iv) Match the task to the topic
Once a decision has been taken about what kind of reading text the students are going to read, teachers need to choose good reading tasks—the right kind of questions and useful puzzles, etc. Asking boring and inappropriate questions can undermine the most interesting text; the most commonplace passage can be made really exciting with imaginative and challenging tasks. Working in groups, the English teacher and students take turns asking each other questions following the reading. The teacher may ask, “ What is the significance of the character’s age?” These questions require inferences based on details from the reading text.
Published in 1847, WUTHERING HEIGHTS was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when WUTHERING HEIGHTS received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature.
Even so, WUTHERING HEIGHTS continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.
The novel is told in the form of an extended flashback. After a visit to his strange landlord, a newcomer to the area desires to know the history of the family--which he receives from Nelly Deans, a servant who introduces us to the Earnshaw family who once resided in the house known as Wuthering Heights. It was once a cheerful place, but Old Earnshaw adopted a "Gipsy" child who he named Heathcliff. And Catherine, daughter of the house, found in him the perfect companion: wild, rude, and as proud and cruel as she. But although Catherine loves him, even recognizes him as her soulmate, she cannot lower herself to marry so far below her social station. She instead marries another, and in so doing sets in motion an obsession that will destroy them all.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a bit difficult to "get into;" the opening chapters are so dark in their portrait of the end result of this obsessive love that they are somewhat off-putting. But they feed into the flow of the work in a remarkable way, setting the stage for one of the most remarkable structures in all of literature, a story that circles upon itself in a series of repetitions as it plays out across two generations. Catherine and Heathcliff are equally remarkable, both vicious and cruel, and yet never able to shed their impossible love no matter how brutally one may wound the other.
As the novel coils further into alcoholism, seduction, and one of the most elaborately imagined plans of revenge it gathers into a ghostly tone: Heathcliff, driven to madness by a woman who is not there but who seems reflected in every part of his world--dragging her corpse from the grave, hearing her calling to him from the moors, escalating his brutality not for the sake of brutality but so that her memory will never fade, so that she may never leave his mind until death itself. Yes, this is madness, insanity, and there is no peace this side of the grave or even beyond.
Many people in the world are trying to find a perfect companion.Some of these may marry and not know what their new husband or wife is like.This kind of situation often leads to separation or hostility. Other situations may develop between two friends that stem from jealousy, desire for revenge, uncaring parents, etc. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights displays several characteristics of destructive relationships. Three of these are uncaring parents, marriage without knowing the person, and jealousy.
Uncaring or unsympathizing parents are shown throughout this story to be an element of destructive relationships. Because Heathcliff gained all the attention from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley became disassociated from his father. This separation continued until after Mr. Earnshaw had died.Another example is between Hindley and Hareton. Hindley became such a drunk and a gambler that he could not properly care for young Hareton. This led to a separation between Hareton and his father as well. One primary example of an uncaring parent is shown between Heathcliff and his son Linton.Heathcliff did not even want his son for anything except enacting a part of his revenge. This is shown by Linton's fear of Heathcliff and Heathcliff's enmity toward his son. Linton even says "... my father threatened me, and I dread him - I dread him!"(244) to express his feeling about Heathcliff.The hostility and separation between father and son in this book shows that uncaring parents can cause serious damage in relationships with their children.
This element of destructive behavior may stem from an unhappy marriage in which the husbands or wives don't know each other. This had happened between Isabella and Heathcliff. Isabella did not really know Heathcliff when she married him, but after she had married him she saw that Heathcliff was not a gentleman at all. To declare her feelings she wrote "Is Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I shan't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married ..."(125). Another example of this is when Catherine married Edgar Linton. Although she had been happy at the beginning of the marriage, she thought having parties all the time was going to be fun. Yet, after a while, she became bored. She also realized that she loved Heathcliff more than Edgar and would always love Heathcliff.This enlightenment created separation between Edgar and Catherine during the final hours of Cathy's life. An additional marriage which was made that was doomed was the one between Catherine and Linton. Because this was a forced marriage, Cathy had not yet learned all she could about Linton.Because she did not know until after the marriage that Linton was selfish and inconsiderate, she became distressed and grew isolated in the house.These three failed marriages described in this novel show that knowing the person you will marry is very important.While these marriages took place, jealousy also took a hold in some relationships. One example of this is when Mr. Earnshaw starts to favor Heathcliff over his own son, Hindley. Because of this, Hindley becomes jealous of young Heathcliff and sets out to make Heathcliff's life a nightmare. Hindley's jealousy becomes evident when he says ,"... be damned you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has; only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan."(35). Jealousy was also found very notably in the relationship between Heathcliff and Edgar Linton.
The jealousy between them is expressed when Heathcliff and Edgar start a hostile conversation after Cathy's homecoming at Christmas near the beginning of the book. As the story progresses these two become bitter enemies who will not speak to one another. Another relationship which jealousy ruined is the one between Hareton and Linton. These two become jealous of each other over Cathy's affections. This relationship ends as Hareton and Linton hating each other. These relationships show that jealousy can ruin a relationship very quickly.
The housekeeper Ellen Dean, or we can call her Nelly, tells most of the story. She witnesses the life of the three-generations in the two families. She is a good storyteller but we mustn’t believe all of what she said. She always thinks and considers things in a simple way. She couldn’t understand the deep love between Catherine and Heathcliff. She thinks it is a kind of madness. She is a limited narrator. In a certain way, this helps readers to understand Heathcliff better because he has no chance to defend himself. An outsider will see the whole thing more clearly. However, we should pay more attention not to be affect by her opinions and try to find the truth between the lines.
As a main character Catherine is a paradox. She is attracted by Linton but doesn’t love him. She knows that clearly but she marries Linton without listening to the call of her heart. Many critics believe that what makes her marry Linton is only his high social status and wealth. I think this comment is unfair. In fact, she folly thinks to marry Linton will help Heathcliff “to rise and place him out of my brother’s power.” Her decision ruins herself, Heathcliff and the two families. She has to endure serious suffering because she knows clearly she love Heathcliff whole-heartedly but can’t become his wife. She confesses to Nelly her own thoughts: “…I am Heathcliff—he’s always, always in my mind—not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but as my own being…” She loves Heathcliff because he is more like her than herself. His existence is natural to her for they are the same in nature. They could understand each other without obstacles.
Talking about Heathcliff, he is an evil person but I admire him because his love and hate is straight. Everyone has a devil in his heart. The one in Heathcliff’s heart is especially strong. In spite of this, I believe and can read between the lines that Amily Bronte also has her favor to Heathcliff. She wants to tell us evil and love are deeply planted in everyone’s heart and it is human nature.
