3.Full-Scaled Implementation of the Solutions

This part of my study was conducted during May16, 1999~Jun15, 1999.

3.1 Make up groups
In order to guarantee that most of the students would be highly involved into the oral practices, I decided to make up groups. Through the investigations, I found there were two main problems for them to do oral practice by themselves at home. One was the family members of most students did not know or hardly knew English. When the students met difficulties or had problems, they couldn't get any help. And if they made mistakes in oral practice, they couldn't be corrected in time. The other was they thought there was little pleasure to practice without a partner. Through analysis, I thought I would like to give speaking the purpose of communication, so it was the most effective that I should create chances for them to communicate with each other in English. I was also conscious that the students were all 13 or 14 years old and they were all English learning beginners, so they had strong, mutual dependence. If they were organized into small groups, not only both of the problems above could be solved but also they could achieve the purpose of communication. Moreover, I could cultivate their spirit of cooperation and achieve unity among students by making them learn from each other and help each other.

In my class there were 37 students, so I divided them into 9 groups. When I did the work, I followed three principles:

3.1.1 Members of each group lived in the same area. For instance, students who lived in the school formed school groups. They could select freely any spare time to practise oral work together. Whereas the students who lived out of school formed groups by themselves. They could practise after class, before going home. They could also practise through telephone.

3.1.2 Each group was composed of the students of different English levels so that good students could help those who had lagged behind.

3.1.3 Each group was made up of the students of different personalities in order to exert the specialties of every student and make up for each other's deficiencies.

3.2 Provide materials
In order to make it sure that the students could do the oral tasks better, I provided them with a lot of materials for reference. The students of 13 or 14 years old are usually curious. They have strong desire of seeking knowledge and novelty. They hope to express what they are interested in, but they can only speak a little English. Besides, the students have little social experience, their trains of thought are limited. So they are not satisfied with the materials supplied only from texts. In order to solve the problem, I provided them with a lot of related words, topics and model dialogues. Moreover, I also especially selected those materials that were close to real-life and could interest the students. I thought the materials were very useful for helping the students to expand their trains of thought and learn more. I found with such help they could make up very good dialogues and they could speak English more smoothly and confidence than before.

3.3 Ask them to perform
I created chances for the students to act out their dialogues and small plays. Most of students are willing to show their abilities before others. And most of students hope to be praised and encouraged by the teacher and other students. Therefore I challenged them to act out their own plays in class. I asked the students to elect the best "actor and actress', the best writer and the best director. They looked very excited and anxious to act. Sometimes some students were so eager to correct the mistakes made by the players. Laughter could be heard now and then, thus the classroom atmosphere seemed quite active. More students were very happy and earnest to practise after class.

3.4 Check their oral work
I decided to check their oral work because many students would usually do better under the supervision of their teachers or parents. Sometimes I told them to recite some passages before me. Sometimes I gave them five minutes to write from memory. Sometimes I asked their parents to record the time of every oral work at home.

3.5 Reduce their pressure
I decided to simplify the students' oral homework. The students often complained they had too much written homework-not only English homework, but also the homework of other subjects. They thought written homework must be finished on time, so they had no enough time to do oral work. I thought I should make allowances for the students' pressure. So I adopted two effective measures to reduce their pressure.

One was that I gave them less written homework when I asked them to do oral practice after class. The other was I simplified the exercises in class. For example, if I wanted them to recite a lesson, I taught them how to retell or abbreviate the lesson. The short passage must contain the main idea, the main patterns and some new expressions. And then I asked them to recite the short passage. When we did that like this, we could get three benefits. Firstly, they learned to retell a text or abbreviate an article. Secondly, they felt happier to recite a simplified passage. Thirdly, they could review what they had just learned in class in time.