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International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 2, 2015 doi: 10.14355/ijmser.2015.0202.01
Practice and Exploration of Wechat Based Elementary School English Extracurricular Learning Platform Shuwen Huang1, Anjing Zhou2, Huansong Yang*3 Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China 1021427235@qq.com; 2869237176@qq.com; 3hzjyhs@163.com
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Abstract English class has been the main front of students learning English. Due to limited class of primary school, students who want to master this basic course, have to use the extra-curricular learning platform to add. Development and popularization of communication tools provide a great convenience for students to learn and master English knowledge. By creating a WeChat group, in which there are photos sharing, project practice, communication exchange, recommended readings and other functions of WeChat, pupils can greatly improve the efficiency and the level of English learning. Keywords Wechat; Extracurricular Learning Platform; Primary School English
Introduction Nowadays, mainstream of U.S teaching research field comes up with the idea of “whole language”. This therapy states “Language is learning from practical using but not combination of the parts of language practice”. It clearly shows that the best method to learn English is by “practical using”, which is an important factor in learning language. Other scholars point out that language learning has its own Specificity, as the so-called coherence. Once a person stops learning or using the language, it can be really hard for him to pick it up. Class hours limit the amount of teaching and learning. If a student only finished the works under teacher’s order, then he is likely to forget lots of knowledge that he learned whether he is hard studying or not. In order to develop a good habit and increase the capacity of self-study, students should not only use the class hours effectively but also take advantage of extracurricular time to expand the knowledge and enhance the ability of using language. Extracurricular learning is the extension of teaching and the developing of learning. For the language learner, extracurricular learning is the base of class learning. Extracurricular learning can optimize the English learning process, increase students’ cultural life and delight their interests of learning. With the helping of extracurricular learning, students could cover the shortage of in-class learning, expand their views, and increase their ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing. It can really train students’ abilities of self-studying and language using. However, most of students still have misunderstanding of “what and how to learn”, thus the guiding of extracurricular learning becomes much more important. <The Standard of English Class> highlights that developing and using the class materials can be a great part of in-class English learning process. Class materials contents English textbooks and all other stuffs and equipment that show effects onto students. The specialty of English learning is feeling and using English in different ways with different methods. With the developing of the Internet, teachers can use WeChat as a platform of communication and learning English, in order to increase and keep the student’s interests and positive attitudes of English learning. So, how to use WeChat skillfully in Primary school English teaching?
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The Feasibility of Primary School Students Using Wechat in Extracurricular Learning With the wide use of modern media and frequently contacting between parents and school, teachers and parents having communication not only by interview, home visiting or phone, but also by using all kinds of social applications, like QQ and WeChat. Based on a survey of writer’s class, there are 95% family getting connection with internet; at least 95% of them who use smart phones; 80% of parents who use WeChat to chat or video chatting; and 71% of parents following the WeChat Official Account and reading the information. Thus, there are a huge number of possibilities for teacher to guide and organize the WeChat group in order to help students’ learning. Primary School’s Students Have Extracurricular Learning by Wechat Is Good for Balancing the Education Resource. Under the traditional education method, the education resource such as teacher resource, educational funding and educational environment show an unbalance distribution. Zhiwei Lin had a survey based on the pool data from 1996-2003 of 31 provinces (including Autonomous Prefecture and Direct-controlled municipality). And according to this research, the three economic zones of our country, including East Zone(developed),Middle Zone(medium developed) and West Zone(undeveloped) have a huge deference on the balance of education resource. West Zone has the highest unbalanced rate and the East Zone has the lowest. TABLE 1 THE FIRST BUDGET FOR EDUCATION SPENDING OF NATIONAL BASIC EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND PERCENTAGE FROM 1997 TO
2000(UNIT:MILLION/%)
First of all, the main field of unbalanced education resource in our country is between cities and villages. We can see from the table 1 that the percentage of countries’ education financial budget over national-wide education financial budget shows downtrend year after year. From 2000, the fiscal budget for education spending of all levels of national basic education institutions began to rise, but not significantly. Secondly, different areas have huge deference. Because of the wide land and huge amount of population, there are significant deference of amongprovinces, cities and areas. Angang Hu in his book <Area and Development: the New Strategy for West Part> said that, there wasa serious shortage of the education resource for West Zone, and it already became the bottleneck of developing. Thirdly, it is the deference between key schools and weak schools. With the policy of compulsory education, key schools become a huge problem. Even in the same city, there is a large gap of educational funding between key school and weak school. Multimedia and Social Network Have Been Becoming the Main Methods of Information Developing. Multimedia and social network break the limit between transmitters and receivers. Unidirectional transmitting is the feature of traditional media, the transmitters make and release the information, and the receivers accept them passively. Because of the feature we mentioned above, traditional media cannot deliver the information timely and effectively. However, the developing of multimedia and social network has made a revolution on this unidirectional relation. The receiver can both accept and release the information; they can share opinions on any topics they want. It makes the relation of communication not only bidirectional but also multidirectional. 29
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Learner Can Use “Spare Time” to Study in Order to Use Time Effectively. Learner can study anywhere besides class, such as office, bus, metro, or even at meal. It can use your waiting time effectively and build the sense of achievement. Learner Can Create a Custom Studying in Order to Increasing the Positively of Study. Learner can create a cosmetic system based on the hobby, interest and unfamiliar knowledge. Learner can also receive the in-time information and share them with friends and study groups over the Internet. On-Going Studying Will Change the Relationship between Teachers and Students, and It Will Change the Role of Teachers During the Class. Following is the fact of primary schools’ English class, it is hard for teacher to finish the teaching goals of every class in 40 minutes, not to mention using different teaching methods in order to fit every students. For the teaching method, teachers always use the “Universal Application” method to all of the students. Studying should base on students themselves, and it can be highly effective with correct guidance from teachers. With the help of WeChat, teachers and students could build a one-to-one platform for study. It can build a harmony self-studying atmosphere and make teachers and students feel closer. On-Going Studying Has Expended the Number of Objects that Receives Education. Modern society is a lifetime learning society, but the stereotype of learning method becomes the obstruction of receiving education. On-going studying is a method that allows you to study everywhere and every time. Two heads are always better than one. On-going studying will make learning no longer only involve students. On-Going Studying Is Conductive to Build Lifetime Learning System and Increase Quality of the Nation. With the call of building learning society, more and more citizen notices the important of knowledge. As the developing of on-going studying, people can finally find out that it is never too old to study. The Practical Using of Wechatin Extracurricular Primary School English Learning Creating the Wechat Group, Organized Conversation Teacher set up the WeChat group, and parents can join the group with teacher’s help. Teacher and students can review the class materials and even learn new knowledge. There are three steps for the methods of conversation. 1) Step 1: Chat by Typing Student can type the stuff that learned from class directly on WeChat as a method of reviewing. 2) Step 2: Multi-Students Conversation It requires more than 3 classes of a week to study English well. Not only for English, but all kinds of languages requires a large amount of language input in order to increase the output. With the traditional learning method, the average time for student can own per class is less than one minute. With the help of portable devices, the communication can be easier for students than let them speak in the class. Students can talk freely without being shy or awkward when they make mistakes. It can increase the memory of the knowledge, the ability of oral expression and the ability of English communication. 3) Step 3: Teachers Decide the Stuffs to Teach Based on both Teaching Material and Students, and Let the Student Share Their Own Ideas. WeChat can build a better atmosphere than in-class studying. Normal studying materials are based on syllabus and chosen by teachers, students don’t have chance to choose. With the WeChat, however, students can choose the stuffs by their hobbies and language level from a huge amount of network resources. For example, teacher organizes students to discuss the learning of Oxford Primary English 6B Unit 5, the Seasons. 30
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Teacher: Which season do you like best? Why? Student 1: I like summer, because summer is hot. I can go swimming and eat ice creams. Student 2: Many flowers open in summer, it's a beautiful season. Student 3: I love spring, because I can fly kites and go camping. Student 4: Autumn is a harvest season, I can go to the farm to help farmers pick fruits. Photo and Resource Sharing Besides video chatting, WeChat can be used to share articles and pictures, keep diaries and writing comments. It is very convenient for students to communicate with others and can also increase their interests of learning English. According to the feature of learning English, sharing photo via WeChat can train the ability of observation and expression. Teacher can build a photo-sharing column, and it allows students to share the photos in WeChat group. Every photo should be written with a paragraph of words in English, in order to explain the photo or sharing the opinions. Teacher can monthly choose some of the bests and post them on the back of the classroom for students’ looking. Teacher can also ask students to search and share the related studying materials via the Internet before every class. By using this studying method, students can increase the proactivity and creativity. Practicing and Review Knowledge Teacher can guide and encourage students to publish stuffs in the WeChat group. The stuff can be a nice English word, one famous quotation, or a paragraph of article. For example, after we learned how to introduce home and scene, Student Su wrote an English essay <My bedroom>: “Hi, everyone. Welcome to my bedroom. It is not big but very beautiful. There are some pictures on the wall. There is a desk near the bed. On the desk, there are a lot of books and a nice lamp. I often sit at the desk and read books .On the bed, there is a new toy tiger. It is four years old. It is my birthday present from my father. I like it very much. I like my bedroom. What about you!” This unit’s main teaching goal is letting students skillfully using “There be”. Obviously he has achieved this goal by using this phrase to describe his own bedroom in order. Increasing the Feeling between Students and Teachers by Communication Different students require different ways to be taught, because they have different language levels and characters. The best way to teach is teaching individually, but it is hard to achieve this goal under the traditional teaching method. Especially for English teachers, who usually teach two or three classes, it is difficult to finish the teaching goal while keep all the class in the same progress. Teachers usually leave the classroom after finishing class, and nearly don’t have time to communicate with students. Lacking of communicating between students and teachers can lead some of terrible effects: teachers cannot know students’ learning results, and students lose their interests of learning English. WeChat group can let students and teachers communicate in time, increasing the proactively of learning English and feeling between them. Guiding the Extracurricular Reading and Expanding the English View Excellent works have irreplaceable value of both idea and artistic characteristics. Language and culture are inseparable; English teaching should focus on students' understanding of foreign culture. By comparing the culture of China and foreign culture, we can increase the understanding of our own culture. In this way, we can expand the culture views and be capable of multicultural communication. Extracurricular reading should be a significant part to enhance English level of primary school students. However, due to the limited knowledge of the background of extracurricular reading and the limitation of students’ language level, the process of extracurricular reading does not function well currently, which has a bad influence on improving students’ English language ability. In this case, WeChat is really a good way for auxiliary teaching, filling the gap of the outside reading and increasing the important effect of additional reading.
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To achieve this goal, teachers should firstly gather more proper reading materials for students. By using WeChat, teachers are able to search materials matching with teaching contents and undergo a planned recommendation of reading. For example, teachers can recommend some E-books, such as 《We’re Going on a Bear Hunt》,《Frog and Toad》,《The Giving Tree》 and 《Fish in Fish》. Teachers can also list some good English- studying websites. Secondly, teachers need to strengthen guidance of outside reading. On the one hand, teachers should guide students to better reading methods - fast browsing rather than translating word by word. On the other hand, teachers should help with different problems that students may have during the process of reading case by case. Thirdly, it is important to encourage students to write notes and make extracts during their reading. There are a lot of students who do not have the behavior of taking notes while they are reading. It is easy for them to forget related knowledge after reading. Good notes and extracts can help students acquire more knowledge and understand more about western culture. So it is very important to encourage students to forma good reading behavior, consequently accumulating knowledge and improving English proficiency. Matters Needing Attention in the out-of- Class Study of Primary School Students We have already known that it can be very beneficial to strengthen the communications and links among people, improve teaching efficiency of teachers and boost students’ efficiency in studying by appropriately using WeChat to share information. However, we should understand that WeChat is a double-edged sword and there might be some negative factors which also needs attention. Lase Information in Wechat Since the user name is virtual and the real identities of users are concealed, WeChat provides an excellent stage for information counterfeiters and rumor mongers. They can send irresponsible messages and spread false information purposely to make a mess. Students are weak in discerning between true and false, thus they are easily cheated. Excessive Use of the Wechat Produces Dependence Part of the students may form a sense of dependence to mobile phones while using WeChat. Without cell phones, they will become bemused, nervous and even feel extremely lonely. Besides, the self- control ability of children is always weak. So it is very possible that they will bring cell phones to school and play them in class. Health Problems Caused by Long-Time Use of Wechat There are a bunch of health problems related to long-time use of communications tools. First, using WeChat is a sedentary activity, and the results of sedentary activity include weakening cardiopulmonary function, increasing the risk of forming venous obstructions and decreasing the volume of artery blood flow. Second, lacking of exercise can impact digest and immune function, which can lead to haemorrhoids, soreness of lower extremities and joint pain. In some severe cases, it can cause muscle stiffness and even muscle atrophy. Conclusions WeChat is the product of this fast-developing information society. The proper use of WeChat can definitely provide a platform for students to learn creatively. Students can effectively learn on this platform and incredibly improve their level of vocabulary. What’s more, the communication between teachers and students can be considerably and effectually developed. In education and teaching, teachers should continually enhance their ability of network techniques and online teaching, offer students guidance according to the real situations and also prevent negative outcomes of using WeChat. In this way, WeChat can surely serve better for English teaching. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study obtained the modern education technology in jiangsu province in 2015 project financing, project number is 2015 - R - 41156.
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