|
Abstract: This article attempts to unite English teaching
and aesthetic education together theoretically in order
to change the present situation of English teaching. It
is an attempt of present quality education. The development
of English teaching and aesthetic education tend to penetrate
into each other. The extensive meaning of aesthetic education
emphasizes to immerse the elements of aesthetic into the
teaching of various subjects. English is taught as a foreign
language in junior school. It is a main body of English
culture. The differences between western and eastern culture
determines the differences of the two languages. The differences
should be emphasized. Teacher carefully organizes teaching
material and plans the lesson. Moreover, they should be
demonstrated in class and felt by English learners. Through
teaching, learner’s culture-awareness generates, they
acquire English in a spontaneous way. Their communicative
competence is strengthened. And by tasting what they learned,
learner’s qualities are roundly promoted. Their right
life attitude, value outlook and world outlook come into
being. At last, the educational aims are completed successfully.
The union of the two subjects is a tendency of their development.
Key words: English teaching , aesthetic
education , union , quality
Outline:
Ⅰ Introduction
1 Compulsory education reform
2 Present situation
3 Question raised
Ⅱ Aesthetic education and English teaching
1 The intensive meaning of aesthetic education
2 The extensive meaning of aesthetic education
3 The function of aesthetic education
a Tasks of aesthetic education
b Features of aesthetic education
4 Contents of English teaching
a English knowledge
b English teaching method
c Communicative competence and performance
5 The union of the two subjects
Ⅲ Concrete requirements of union of the two subjects
1 Feelings and tasting are emphasized in class
2 Materials of appreciation of beauty for class
3 Cultural and communicative factors
4 Teacher’s role in class
5 Evaluation of class
Ⅳ Principles of union of the two subjects
1 Principle of feeling and tasting
2 Principle of communication
3 Principle of union
4 Principle of development
Compulsory education reform
The indication outline of new curriculum reform points
out that change the knowledge-orientation of curriculum
, emphasize the shape-up of students’ active attitude
of studying , make the course of acquisition of basic
knowledge and basic skills to the course of configuration
of right value outlook and learn to study, cultivate students’
abilities of gathering and conducting with the information,
abilities of acquiring new knowledge and abilities of
analyzing and solving problems and abilities of interaction
and cooperating ,let students feel and appreciate the
beauty of life ,nature ,and science. The evaluation of
curriculum stresses that evaluation promotes the students’
development and growth, promotes teachers’ qualities and
improve the practice of teaching. One of the important
aspects of evaluation highlights shape-up of value outlook
and attitude on study as well as students’ feelings and
taste. The notion of education is changed, learning and
teaching styles should be changed accordingly. These requirements
are accord with the notion of the broad meaning of aesthetic
education. Therefore the factors of appreciation of beauty
should be immersed into class. They tend to be united.
This will intensify humane factors of class. The function
of lecturing of class is still maintained. However , class
is treated from a new angle of view. It means the structure
of class differs from the traditional structure of class.
In Information Age, people lives in the information. How
to acquire and conduct with the information becomes one
of people’s qualities. Juvenile is a special group because
of their psychological features. They should be cultivated
to distinguish and appreciate the things around them.
Appreciation is a kind of mental activities. So learning
to distinguish and appreciate is merely through class
where the juvenile’s brain is the most active in.
The requirements of compulsory education reform and present
situation raise questions for our teaching. That is how
to find a round way to solve the problems existed in class.
The development of aesthetic education makes us confident
in it. Before the functions of aesthetic education are
not completely recognized, we ignore it. Now, many research
demonstrate that aesthetic education plays a very important
role in teaching and learning, it penetrates into every
part of individual’s learning, especially in acquiring
English. Therefore, it is necessary to unite them together.
In the following paragraphs, I will interpret the union
of aesthetic education and English teaching.
Before the topic is elaborated. I will talk about aesthetic
education firstly. The following sections are founded
on how to comprehend the concept of aesthetic education.
Aesthetic education, a main branch of curriculum, has
existed for a long time. It is the accomplishment of human
being’s cognition. As we know, in traditional class, aesthetic
education is art such as painting, singing, dancing. In
such a class, students are taught to knowledge of art,
skills and technical ability. Beauty is treated as an
entity and enclosed in a small area. This concept is in
accord to the level of human being’s cognition. It ignores
people’s attitude, feelings, experience. The outcome of
such an education is that some artists create some beautiful
things like paintings, sculptures, songs, and so on for
most of persons. These artists are elites. Therefore,
this sort of aesthetic education is not successful.
Nowadays, beauty should not be enclosed in a small area.
Beauty is universally exists around the world where human
beings acknowledge. Everyone tastes of the world by his
own way. Appreciation is internal spiritual demand of
one’s own as well as connects with one’s moral standards
of behaviors, world outlook, life attitude, state of mind.
So appreciation of beauty is individuals’ especial spiritual
activity .It is affected by one’s experience and cognitive
competence. For instance, people have different opinions
on colorful body paintings. Old people may not stand it.
Some young people may not mind it. However, the other
part of young people may love it and want to try. Everyone
appreciates the beauty of the paintings by his own way
and makes his own judgment. The judgment generates and
becomes his experience. The experience will affect his
later appreciation of beauty. When he accumulates the
experience to a certain amount, his concept of appreciation
of beauty comes into being. Configuration of the concept
heralds of configuration of his deep psychological structure,
i.e, his moral standards of behavior and world outlook.
This deep psychological structure is stabler than before,
but is relative and can be changed. Therefore appreciation
of beauty is human beings’ spiritual activity. It is arbitrary
and connects with the formation of one’s world outlook.
Vise versa. If measures are taken to influence juvenile’s
appreciation, their deep psychological structure will
come into being. Moreover, it will be good for the moulding
of their good characters. In terms of aesthetic education,
appreciation of beauty is a way by which juvenile’s humane
qualities can be strengthened, their discerning power
can be promoted and their potential intelligence can be
stimulated.
The tasks of aesthetic education are to develop students’
sense of appreciation of beauty and ability and train
their creativity. The essence of appreciation of beauty
is to continually transcend the limits of selves. Its
aim is to shock students’ mind, soul as well as characters,
accelerates the growth of students’ spiritual life. This
concept is very different from the previous one. It enlarges
connotation and denotation of aesthetic education. It
is the development of the previous one. It deepens human
being’s cognition of appreciation of beauty. The activities
of appreciation of beauty provides entrance for the inspiration
and expressions of lives.
The features of aesthetic education: aesthetic education
puts emphasis on perceptual education. Appreciation is
a special active value-orientation activity of human being’s.
Aesthetic education is a kind of education of feelings
which focus on tasting. The standards of value of aesthetic
education firstly must be beauty as well as truth and
virtue. There is no feelings involved, there is no action
of appreciation of beauty happened. The evaluation of
the student’s ability of appreciation of beauty is formative
, that is the standards of evaluation does not concentrate
on the result of appreciation of beauty but the course
of appreciation of beauty.
English, as a language, is the dress of thought. Language
is most essential to mankind. It is used every day .Hardly
any moment passes without someone talking, writing or
reading. Our lives increasingly depend on fast and successful
use of language. In terms of linguistics, language is
a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
This system has two sets of structures , one of sounds
and the other of meaning . Meanwhile, it is a part of
culture. English taught as a subject is components of
vocabulary, grammar and phonetics. In this opinion, it
is well known that learning English is as same as learning
vocabulary ,grammar and phonetics. Students are trained
to read ,write and listen. They seldom say English. Moreover,
their feelings, personalities, attitudes are not cared
for in class. Their learning merely depend on their interest
in English. English knowledge is highly emphasized in
class. Their motivation of learning English is not cared
for. Their learning methods are to try their best to memorize
the English knowledge. Certainly their English is not
good enough to communicate. Class is held in an efficient
way. Teaching is not successful.
As we know , we do not learn a language but acquire a
language. What we learn is not a language but the use
of a language. Therefore , English knowledge is not unique
in class. We learn English not only intentionally but
also unconsciously. English class also contains students’
cultural awareness, feelings and attitude, communicate
competence, creativity etc. The recessive contents cannot
obviously be taught in class. They are concerned with
students’ mind. They should be achieved by another way
. That is aesthetic education in junior English class.
The recessive target is the underlied element that brings
about students’ successful communication. Words are the
forms of the successful communication. The ideal class
is to combine the recessive target and the forms into
an entity harmoniously and naturally. The contents of
class can stimulate students’ feelings and make students
be involved in class actively and spontaneously. Let students
say what they want to say from their hearts and say the
things they are interested in. Teacher is a participant
in the activity, not a supervisor. Or not a lecturer but
a guider. Students’ thoughts can be expressed freely.
Culture is an important property of language, language
is a main body of culture, the two partly cross and penetrate.
One culture obviously differs from other cultures. In
terms of culture, language signifies culture and has a
dialectical feature. To be bilingual, one must be bicultural.
English is spoken widely in the world, moreover, many
books, newspapers are published in English. Most of countries
take English as their official language. In terms of English
teaching, it is very important to master social culture
in English-spoken countries. The differences between western
and eastern culture determines the differences of languages
which includes syntax, vocabulary, expressions, contents
of expressions, context, and so on. Sensitive learners
should acknowledge and adapt to the differences. This
kind of acknowledgement, absorption and adoption to the
social culture of English-spoken countries is the cultural
awareness that the learners must have to master English.
The aim of foreign language teaching is to have cross-culture
communication. At present, many schools have quality education,
however, acquisition of communicative competence is an
important aspect of students’ qualities. In communicative
method, junior English teaching has made great progress.
Besides it, we should put emphasis on the important factor
that influence students’ communicative competence. In
order to get it, we should cultivate it in class. Furthermore,
it is an efficient way to cultivate aesthetic feelings
in junior English class. By means of it, students can
acquire English in a spontaneous circumstance effectively.
In one word, what we get is more than what we give in
this way. It make up their good personality, shape up
their deep psychological structures, make them distinguish
and appreciate the things around them, cultivate qualities
for their future life.
As a teaching style resulted in
the crossing of two subjects, its content are myriad.
As a new teaching viewpoint, it prefers to unite subject
and object harmoniously. Feelings are bound them together
and unite them to form one. The subjects are teachers
and students. The subject’s sense of participation is
a key factor in class. The class is successful or not
is decided by the degree of sense of participation. The
object refers to teaching material, interactions between
students and teachers, teaching aims , situation of class
as well as teaching behavior and studying behavior. What
to do in a class is designed by teacher according to the
students’ state. Besides it, the teacher should think
over how to teach and why to do so. Therefore, the class
is carefully prepared for every student and full of resource.
In the course of designing such a class, teacher explore
the teaching material to find and select the teaching
material which is bound to the appreciation, organize
them due to the teaching aims, not only dominant one but
recessive one. It is important to stress the recessive
aims. They should be immersed into teaching activities.
The realization of recessive aims strengthens sense of
subject as well as sense of participation. In the meantime,
their mind is activated. The center of gravity of class
is transferred from knowledge-center to student-center.
Students actively study by means of their experience.
The teaching effects cannot be acquired by the way of
only concentrating on knowledge. For instance, when we
teach students who are new in junior school phonetic symbols,
they may confuse them with alphabets. This phenomenon
demonstrate that they acquire new things by their own
experience. They accounts for new things in their own
way. However, they get wrong. But if we train them mechanically,
they may lose the interest of learning English and will
still get wrong. The teaching aims are not completed.
If we concentrate on students, not phonetic symbols, and
care for the differences between students, stimulate them
to join in the recognition of phonetic symbols, they may
get them easily. The possible behavior is to ask them
“how do you remember the symbols?” . Get students to say
what they thought.. To do so , students participates in
class actively and spontaneously. Their feelings are aroused
. So the teaching effect is better than previous one.
Therefore, the recessive aim is a thread run through the
class. In English textbook, there are many things can
be conducted with this method. What teacher do is to select
and design, let English be English, that is to make the
differences between the two cultures clear, get students
to acquire English in spontaneous way. And teacher should
try one’s best to relate the teaching material with students’
lives in order to make sense of what they learned.
The relationship between teacher and students is also
very important. Good relationship makes better circumstance
and provides adequate conditions for communication. Moreover,
it itself is a part of beauty in English class. On a basis
of it, teaching practice can be completed creatively.
Harmonious relationship of teachers and students guarantees
the successful teaching. Meanwhile, students taste the
beauty of interpersonal relationship. Their communicative
competence is cultivated in the course of associating
in English. It develops students’ abilities such as making
decision, giving opinions, tasting feelings.
There are many factors of aesthetic of education in English
teaching material. The cultural factors are dominant.
They provide myriad intuitional materials for students.
Every part of life demonstrates the differences between
different cultures. So in English acquisition, these factors
should be embodied. Teachers should create proper situations
to show the differences for students and get students
to acquire English in a spontaneous way. When students
were in such a situation, in contact with their own conventions
and courtesies, they taste these cultural factors that
are different from theirs, their mind is activated. Studying
behaviors are naturally produced. And the effects of these
behavior is better than the effects that lecturing to
students.
In class, besides the activities that teacher designed
for students, they play an important role in English teaching.
Teacher is one of objects of students’ appreciation of
beauty. A good teacher’s qualities and character are the
best education to them. It is the key factor that whether
or not aesthetic education is immersed into English class.
A teacher’s qualities and character are mainly components
of knowledge, moral and grace., A teacher ‘s virtue ,
spacious knowledge and graceful mold can educate students
directly and powerfully. The teaching contents could be
easily accepted by students. The teaching aims could be
easily completed. Teacher’s role is to make students appreciate
and create beauty. The teacher not only manipulate the
activities but also dominate students’ feelings. The teaching
activities are held in a delightful and active circumstance.
Teacher’s tactics are required to be skillful and abundant.
The experienced teacher should configurate one’s own teaching
style and stimulate one’s teaching experience to teaching
model. The teacher also should use modern technical teaching
device to affect teaching. In this way, teaching materials
are demonstrated directly and visually in order to turn
on students. Class of appreciation of beauty requires
a high-qualified teacher.
The evaluation of class of appreciation of beauty guarantees
the development of teaching reform.. The criteria of evaluation
plays the role of encouragement and direction. In terms
of students, acquisition of communicative performance,
learning strategies and creativity are considered as criteria.
In terms of teachers, the awareness of self-developing
should be deserved. The teaching plan and design should
demonstrate creativity and elements of appreciation of
beauty. Class should contain feelings. The forms of evaluation
vary. Formative evaluation and diagnostic evaluation should
be emphasized in class.
Principles in English teaching of appreciation of beauty.
As a union of English teaching and aesthetic education,
feelings and tasting is one of its properties. It aims
at shaping up students’ good characters, life attitude,
and perfect personalities. Teaching of appreciation of
beauty is a sophisticated cognition styles. It is different
from rational cognition and logical reason. So feelings
and tasting are treated as a principle.
Communicative competence and performance are English learner’s
qualities. Communication should be immersed into the class.
In this way, English is not lectured by teacher but acquired
by students. Students acquire English in a spontaneous
circumstance but not an artificial one. They learn to
use English delicately but not to receive lecture. Their
activities are highly appreciated. They actively participate
the class. The circumstance inspires them to create. Therefore,
the class obeys the principle of creativity.
As a teaching way, it is effective or not to be determined
by the teaching effects, that is what the students acquired
and how much they acquired. The teaching aims are fulfilled
or not. Therefore the class should obey the principle
of development.
Generally speaking, whatever teaching aims, teaching contents,
teaching organization and method as well as textbooks,
should be in pursuit of beauty. Students are edified by
the beauty of materials and enlightened their intelligence.
They are attracted by the approach of beauty and stimulated
the desire of seeking knowledge.
Reference:
[1] HuZhuanglin, LiuRunqing, LiYanfu. Linguistics, a course
book, Peking University Press, 9,1989
[2] HuChundong, English Teaching Method, High Education
Press , 9,1990
|
