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一、用英语解释语法、讲解习题 英语教师在（以听说能力为主要培养目标的）英语课堂上讲英语，如今这已经是英语教学界——不管是大学英语教学还是中小学教学——的共识了。不过，“有好事者”给“Speak English in English classes”这个要求加了个状语：……when possible, Speak Chinese when necessary. 这一加，就好像在《动物庄园》里，Squealer给标语加后半句（如“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”）一样，几乎完全改变了在英语课堂上讲英语这个要求。 也不是说这句话本身有什么问题。学生最初学英语的时候，不告诉学生一个英语指令是什么意思，让学生自行猜测，这样效率的确太低，不如直接解释一下，弄明白，然后坚持说英语。这肯定是好办法。但问题是坚持说英语不容易，不少老师干脆就一直“necesssary”，坚持说汉语了。 另外，“讲题目的时候说汉语”，这几乎是所有的学校、所有的英语课堂都在发生的情况。我曾去不少外国语学校听过课，课下我问过学生，“老师英语课不管上什么内容都用英语吗？”同学们告诉我，“讲题目、讲语法的时候说汉语”。 这其实也不难理解，毕竟语法解释需要进行大量术语的普及，要跟学生说明什么叫countable、什么叫non-countable，的确不太容易，何况越讲到后来，术语就越多、越困难呢。 还有，如今一些流行的教学理念也令老师们左右为难，一个典型就是“Teacher Talking Time”，简称“TTT”，和“Student Talking Time” ——STT——相对。按照如今主流的教学观念，TTT应该是越少越好，STT能增加就增加。鉴于此，不少老师在课堂上追求讲解效率，那么用汉语讲题目、讲语法当然是效率更高的，至少短期内看是这样。 不过，“用汉语讲题目、讲语法”这种做法，还是不值得鼓励。 我们先说TTT的问题。国际英语教材开发专家、英语教学法泰斗Brian Tomlinson对“TTT应该尽量减少”这个说法提出过异议：在绝大部分英语课堂上，唯一能对学生说良好英语的，就是老师。学生们下了课就再听不到英语了，那为什么不让老师多讲一些呢？我觉得，B. Tomlinson的这个观点是对的。 再说用英语解释语法、讲题目的可行性。不少老师认为这不可能，但我们要了解，既然是解释语法、解释习题，那当然是用解释性语言（explanatory language），而我们知道，语言是可降解的（degradable），我们总能用比较浅显的语言来解释比较复杂的语言，所以解释性语言恰恰应该是比较简单的、学生能够听得懂的英语。 无法用英语解释语法、讲解习题，反应出的不仅仅是思路问题、认识问题和习惯问题，更是一个未能掌握解释性语言的问题。我们在上大学的时候读的是英语专业，当时精读课上总是有paraphrase这种练习，其实就是在培养语言的降解——也是讲解——能力，只是我们当时可能并没有意识到这有什么用，结果“书到用时方恨少”，需要讲语法、讲题目的时候，我们的语言显得贫瘠了，讲解能力不足了。 用英语解释语法，讲解习题，有着非常重要的现实意义。国际二语习得泰斗、输入假说的提出者Stephen Krashen指出，即便是传统的语法教学，只要是用英语（或者其他目标语言）进行的，也能够促进学生的语言习得。用英语解释语法，还能够使学生充分认识到英语的工具性，使英语不再仅仅是一门要考到高分的课。 当然，如果说要禁绝英语课堂上的汉语，那也不太现实。首先，任何新语言项目第一次出现的时候，用汉语加以最简洁、最准确的定义，的确是提高效率的好办法，也是英语学习中高阶段双语对照的重要途径。其次，个别老师——比如我——英语口语不是很好，自信心不足，在这种情况下多让学生听录音、适当减少说英语的时间，这也是对学生负责的一种做法。当然绝大部分老师你们都是不必这么做的！ 二、《如何教授英语语法》 当然，空谈重要性，意思不大。让老师们再回到英语专业的课堂上去学习paraphrase，也不现实。从今天起，我从上海外语教育出版社出版的《教学法丛书之八：如何教授英语语法（Explaining English Grammar）》一书中节选部分片段，展示其解释英语语法的若干做法，供朋友们参考。 《如何教授英语语法》一书的作者是George Yule，著名英语语言学家，我记得复旦大学英语专业考研语言学专业的推荐书目里就有他的作品，应该是《The Study of Language》。Yule曾在爱丁堡大学、明尼苏达州立大学等高等学府任教。 《如何教授英语语法》一书分为十章，每章分为Basic Forms、Basic meanings、Meanings in context、Discussion Topics and Projects、Teaching ideas和Further reading等六个部分。这本书我还没有看完，但从我看过的部分来说，是一本很好的书。 因为是比较小众的英文原著，这本书在当当等网店也没有销售，我找了半天，终于在外教社天猫官方店（http://waijiaoshe.tmall.com）找到了，大家可以赶去买一本。您不会后悔的！ 三、选读大意 今天我们选读的是该书第三章“Tenses and Aspects”的第三节“Meanings in context”的前两项，In a magazine article和In academic writing。因为选文的特殊性，今天的选文没有对照译文。下面这几段文字的大意是，不管是在杂志文章里，还是在学术论文中，都有约定俗成的惯例，用不同的动词时态表示不同的内容，如在杂志文章中，用不同的时态追溯了过去的事实与情况、从现状回顾过去，到进行中的结果。在学术著作中，不同种类的学术发现、学术观点往往也有着不同的时态与之相对应。具体怎样对应，尽在英文原文。 必须特别指出的一点是，Yule此文是从通用英语的解释这个视角来撰写的，对于中小学英语的教学，可能还需要对这里的解释性语言做进一步的简化。 ------------------------ In a magazine article A rather clear example of how one writer uses different tense and aspect forms to indicate a change within one area of medical studies can be found in extract [1] , from a magazine (Scientific American, November 1992). Look especially at the italicized verb forms. [36]Drug resistance was mostly ignored in the U.S. until recently because physicians believed they had access to all the antibiotics they might need. They were wrong. Drug resistance has been found in virtually every type of microbe that has been fought with antibiotics. That covers everything from food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella to sexually transmitted organisms such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Surgical patients are now dying in U.S. hospitals from wound infections caused by enterococcal bacteria resistant to several different drugs. The sequence of the writer's presentation in [36] can be traced through the verb forms, from a remote factual situation (past tenses), through some changes that are viewed retrospectively from the current situation (perfect aspect), to a non-remote factual statement (present tense) of a general current situation, to a specific result that is viewed as ongoing (progressive aspect) at the time of writing. In this expository text, there is a pattern of using past tenses for background information and present tense (with or without grammatical aspect) for information that is in the foreground of the writers focus. In academic writing A related observation can be made about academic writing where the results of different research studies are being reviewed. There is a tendency to use past tense forms to report on research that is identified as a finding, but not the type of finding that the author uses as a generalization. Generalizations are expressed in the present tense. In this way, some research results form a background relative to which the foreground generalizations can be made. Some extracts from one article on second language speech research (Leather and James 1991) may serve to illustrate the pattern. Some specific results are reported in the past tense, with the researchers (dates of publication in brackets) as agents, as shown in [37a, b]. [37] a. Maidment (1976, 1983) and Ohala and Gilbert (1978) also found that listeners can in some circumstances recognize languages by their prosody alone, b. In one of the experiments carried out by Cochrane (1980), Japanese children scored highcr than adults. In contrast, generalizations by the current writer(s) are made in the present tense, with researchers' names and publication dates in brackets, but not as agents, as shown in [38a, b]. [38] a. There are often considerable differences in judgment between one native judge and another (see de Bot 1979; Strain 1963). b. That some ontogenetic neurological change limits the ability of adults to learn a new sound system is not proven (see, e.g., Flege 1988; Leather 1988).' This difference in the use of past as opposed to present tense may be made clearer by comparing two potential ways, [39a] and [39b], of reporting the same result. [39] a. Scovel (1969) found that age was a factor in L2 learning, b. Age is a factor in L2 learning (Scovel 1969). The choice of type of statement, and particularly its tense, has a clear influence on the status of the information being presented. One specific result (past tense, as in [39a]) may be different from possible others, but a current statement of fact (present tense, as in [39b]) gives the information much more authority. ------------------------ 最后，我要加上一个收款二维码，为本系列的发展募集一点资金。当然，打赏有风险，扫码请谨慎！实在要打赏，长按图片选择“识别图中的二维码”即可。 |
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