4. Results and Discussion 6

4.1 Results and Discussion of the Classroom Observation 6

4.2 Results and Discussion of the Questionnaires 8

4.3 Results and Discussion of the Interview 14

4.3.1 Teachers’ interview 14

4.3.2 Students’ interview 14

5. Conclusion 15

5.1 Major Findings 15

5.2 Pedagogical Implications 15

5.3 The Limitations of the Study 15

References 17

1. Introduction

1.1 Research Background

It is stressed in the New Standard of English Curriculum that teachers should make their teaching effective. As the old saying goes, “A well begun is half done”. From this perspective, lead-in as the first step should be paid great attention to by teachers, in order to improve teaching efficiency. Although lead-in just takes a small part of a whole class, it can make a great difference when used appropriately. For example, it not only attracts students’ attention, but also prepares students for the following lesson.

The New Standard of English Curriculum also requires teachers to bear the concept of student-centered and provide students with an all-round development. Thus, the design of lead-in is extremely important and demands teachers to take many aspects into consideration, such as class types, students’ needs, interest as well as their cognitive levels.

As a student teacher in a junior middle school, the author is attracted by the different lead-in used in real English classes and perceived the different effects they bring on students. However, after communicating with a few teachers and students there, the author finds that teachers don’t design lead-in for every class, which suggests that they may not be well aware of the importance of lead-in in English classroom teaching. Thus, the author is quite curious about how the present lead-in situation goes with both the teachers and the students. Since lead-in is so important in a lesson, how is it used in English classes nowadays? Besides, how can we take measures to design a better lead-in?

At the same time, listening and speaking classes are of great importance to junior middle school students, and take up a very significant proportion of their study. So, the author chooses the topic “A Study on Effective Lead-in in English Listening and Speaking Class in Junior Middle School” to work on.

1.2 Research Significance

As is mentioned above, lead-in is an indispensable part of English classes and is likely to have an enormous effect on teaching quality as long as it is well used. Therefore, on the one hand, this research is to let English language teachers have the awareness of taking lead-in seriously.

On the other hand, this research will investigate the lead-in situation in real English listening and speaking classes, which can expose the existing problems of lead-in to some extent. Besides, the study would collect students’ opinions about lead-in, which can help English language teachers know more about students’ needs and interest. So the second significance of this research is to help English language teachers learn more about the present lead-in situation in the listening and speaking classes of junior middle school, thus improve their teaching efficiency through dealing with lead-in better in their classes.

2. Literature Review 初中英语听说课有效导入的探究(2):http://www.chuibin.com/yingyu/lunwen_206472.html