Abstract

English，as a tool of international communication，plays an important role in our educational enterprise. However, it’s known to all that the quality of English teaching in rural middle schools is not satisfying. A pronounced gap exists as compared with schools in cities in teaching conditions, students’ quality, teaching staff and so on.

    The author finds it is common in rural middle schools that teachers use spoon-feeding method and students learn English by rote. Chinese, as the mother tongue of us is widely used in English classes. Many factors may be responsible for this phenomenon. 

The research aims to improve the English teaching in rural middle schools and it mainly deals with three questions. 1. What’s the proportion of English used in English? 2. When is English used in English classes? 3. What are teachers’ and students’ ideas of the proportion of English and Chinese? We will come to the point from the proportion of English in English classes. In this research, the author will dissect the data that collected and show the present situation of English teaching in rural middle schools. 

The subjects of the research are 150 students and 8 English teachers from a middle school in Huaian. We will collect the data from class observation, interview and questionnaires and then analyze the data collected. From the overall analysis of the data, we may find that our English teaching in rural middle schools relies on the mother tongue, and the proportion of English in English classes is only about 50%, which is far from the ideal amount. The main reason responsible for this may be students’ English level. 

In this thesis, we will discuss the suitable English teaching model for rural middle schools according to limitations and deficiencies and give suggestions to improve the situation. The present research has limitations. The data is collected during a short period, so the data may be fortuitous. And the survey only covers a middle school, which means the results may be limited by region. In all, the framework needs to be improved. However, we will try our best to improve the English teaching in rural middle schools and and create a better environment for students to avoid the dummy English.

    Key words: English; mother tongue; use; rural middle school

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-1

1.1 General Description of the Research-1

1.2 Significance of the Research-1

1.3 Construction of the Present Research-2

2 Literature Review-2

2.1 Key Terms-2

2.1.1Oral English Teaching -2

2.1.2Introduction of the present situation 3

2.2 Theoretical Foundation of the Present Research-3

2.3 Related Studies-4

3 Methodology-4

3.1 Research Questions -4

3.2 Research Subjects-4

3.3 Research Instruments-6

3.3.1 Class Observation-6

3.3.2 Interview-6

3.3.3 Questionnaires-7

3.4 Data Collection-7

4 Results and Discussion-8

4.1 Results-8

4.2 Discussion-10

5 Conclusion-11

5.1 Major Findings-11

5.2Suggestions-11

5.3 Limitations of the Present research-13

References-14

Appendix:Questionnaire15