A Preliminary Study on the Cultivation of Students' Expression Ability through Reflection and Practice
Zheng Xiuzhen【Singapore】
In primary school, writing is an important part of Chinese language learning and the formation of language expression ability, which plays an important role in promoting students' self-expression ability and physical and mental development. However, there are many problems in actual composition teaching. In response to these existing problems and solutions, the author has conducted thinking, research and analysis from the following aspects:
1、 Create a good atmosphere for composition teaching and stimulate students' enthusiasm for writing
Chinese language teachers should recognize the subject status of students, strive to create a writing atmosphere that allows students to speak freely, express their own opinions, emotions, and personalities, help students eliminate their ideological concerns, protect their writing enthusiasm, advocate for students to write boldly based on their own opinions, feelings, and emotions, and respect each student's unique perspective and feelings. Without constraints and restraints, students' subjectivity can be fully reflected, and the space for independent expression will also expand. At the same time, wonderful works will also be presented to us one by one.
2、 Change traditional education methods and conduct "appreciation" education
Appreciation education has been a teaching method implemented by many schools since the curriculum reform. In traditional education methods, teachers' evaluation of students' compositions is relatively "simple", which means that one or two comments from the teacher can accompany them through many years of teaching experience. This is a serious problem. Every time students see their essay comments, they are limited to phrases such as "have made significant progress compared to last time, continue to work hard" and "read", which seriously undermines their initiative and enthusiasm. Students will have a feeling that no matter how they write, the result will be the same. Over time, even if they used to be very interested in writing, they will lose their motivation to write later on. When evaluating students' compositions in response to the above issues, teachers should focus on finding and discovering their shining points, marking the well written parts, and paying attention to praising students. Even small progress is a manifestation of ability, which can stimulate students' interest and motivation.
3、 Dedicated to cultivating students' personalities, appreciating students appropriately, encouraging and affirming students
In some stages of teaching in the past, the most failed aspect was the stifling of students' creativity and the use of standards to constrain their imagination and creativity. This is also why the new curriculum reform has always attached great importance to the progress of primary school reform and strengthened supervision of primary school teaching. The education of the new era aims to cultivate students with active thinking, creativity, and imagination. After years of reform, the teaching methods of teachers have clearly undergone changes. They are actively following the requirements of the new era and curriculum reform to conduct effective and open teaching, focusing on cultivating students' personalities and talents, and increasing their enthusiasm for learning and creativity. Essay writing is about students' understanding and the world they see through their eyes. Teachers should not use their own standards to directly attack students and negate their imagination. Instead, they should provide appropriate guidance, frequently inspire students, and show appreciation and affirmation for them. For example, when some students use very imaginative metaphors, but some of them are not practical. At this time, teachers should not directly cross them out or mark them with a cross. Instead, they should think from the perspective of the students and consider whether it is reasonable to write in this way. They can also praise the students for their imagination and promising future, and give appropriate opinions according to their thinking, encouraging them to write better. Students have fragile hearts, and appreciating and affirming them has a significant positive impact on them.
4、 Composition teaching should break tradition and be brave in innovation
Innovation is the soul of a nation's progress. Through continuous innovation, we can constantly break free from the constraints of backwardness and make progress. Primary school Chinese teachers should also pay attention to breaking tradition and be brave in innovation in their teaching. Teachers need to break through the guidance methods in teaching, such as more situational teaching, extracurricular teaching, interactive teaching, etc., to change the previous atmosphere in the classroom. In an open and active atmosphere, students can discover, experience, and comprehend, and then have something to write. Only then can the written essays be rich in content and emotions. Primary school students are at the age of most active thinking, which is the stage of forming their thinking patterns. Do not confine them with norms, but allow them to boldly imagine and assume in reasonable situations, enhancing their imagination and creativity.
5、 Integrating Writing with Life
Life is the source of all creation. All creation relies on the development of human thinking ability and the emergence of innovative consciousness. Sukhomlinsky once said, "A true school should be a kingdom of active thinking." This tells us that when guiding students in writing, "thinking" is very important. It is not possible to truly improve the level of composition by memorizing a large number of model essays and setting patterns, hoping to improve writing skills through imitation. This is because the students' subject status is ignored, thinking training is neglected, and ideas are not explored. Only by obtaining inspiration in "thinking" can we achieve a spring of thought, a vivid and brilliant stroke. For example, teachers need to lead our elementary school students into a broad life to expand their thinking areas. French sculptor Rodin once said, "Beauty is everywhere. For our eyes, it is not a lack of beauty, but a lack of discovery." Some students' essays are often diverse and lack creativity because they lack careful observation and discovery. Observation itself is a kind of "silent" thinking. Due to the narrow scope of life and small circle, students often enter the school gate as soon as they leave home, lacking social practice, having a limited perspective, and limited activity areas, resulting in very little understanding of the surrounding life. Based on the current situation of students, appropriately leading them into life is not only about allowing them to participate in some social practice activities and have extensive exposure to society, but more importantly, guiding them to learn methods of observing society, observing life, and understanding things. It has been proven that students often write much better essays after participating in social life practice activities, which are more literary, vivid, and tangible. So, teachers should help students find the starting point of their thinking in life.
6、 Let students write their own 'essays'
The so-called "creation" of primary school students can only be relative to imitation. As teachers, we should guide primary school students to learn how to write on their own, give full recognition to their innovative consciousness, guide them to observe life, actively discover and understand things, and then use their imagination or insights to reorganize language and conduct "writing". As long as it is something that has not been used in books or by other students, even if it is just a sentence description or a new usage of a word, teachers should seize the opportunity to praise and encourage it, so that students can taste the joy of independent creation and success, establish their confidence in independent writing, and stimulate the creativity of other students. Especially for newly learned words in the classroom, teachers should guide students to use them more, such as making sentences, and then require students to use them in their own compositions. For essays with new perspectives and experiences, or descriptions of new problems discovered from a new angle, they can be read as model essays in class for other students to listen to, allowing them to discuss why they are well written, what they are good at, and how we should write them, so that students can understand what creation is and how to create. We advocate for life oriented composition teaching, where teachers can encourage students to pay attention to their surroundings in daily life and organize them to participate in interesting extracurricular activities. When they are able to observe everything with their eyes and ears, and come into contact with and understand some things, they naturally develop a certain emotional understanding, which triggers the brain's thinking. After mature consideration, they develop a desire to communicate with the outside world. With the timely guidance and encouragement of teachers, an excellent essay is created in this way, and the phenomenon of plagiarism and mechanical imitation no longer exists, making it more authentic and expressive.
Composition teaching is the focus and difficulty of primary school Chinese language teaching. But as long as the teaching methods are mastered and students learn writing skills, writing will no longer be the focus and difficulty of students, and the goal of highlighting key points and breaking through difficulties will be achieved, thereby comprehensively improving the writing ability and level of primary school students.