Heuristic mode of teaching is based on the thought of quality education. According to the basic law of the development of teaching activities and specific requirements of teaching content, teachers shall take some measures like enlightenment, guidance, assistance, revelation, reminding and so on during the process of teaching activities. In English teaching, heuristic mode of teaching means the combination of teachers’ leading role and students’ initiatives. The leading role of teachers is mainly embodied in the fact that teachers work as designers, organizers, guides and play the inspiring and promoting role in teaching, also reflected in imparting knowledge to students. But more importantly, teachers should give full scope to their leading role and foster students’ ability to make a start, settle problems, innovate and cooperate with each other. Teachers should stress that students are the subject of learning and teachers need to respect and develop students’ consciousness and initiative. They should turn students into initiative researchers rather than passive receivers in the classroom. Teachers, teaching materials and different kinds of teaching methods should all serve students in English learning. Meanwhile, teachers should not consider students as simple learners. What is important in teaching is to arouse students’ self-consciousness and let them know that teachers are just their guides and assistants in their studying. Various kinds of teaching methods should be taken by teachers to lead students from passive learning to active learning. In English teaching, we can always find that different students under the instruction of the same teachers and teaching materials in the same environment can have different learning results. The reasons causing this difference lie in students’ inpidual differences as well as their different degree of initiatives. So it is necessary to arouse students’ initiative and establish the awareness of students. However, whether English teaching is heuristic or not depends on whether a teacher can lead students to think positively and learn actively or not. Therefore, whether students can gain knowledge actively on the basis of thinking independently is the boundary of heuristic mode of teaching and cramming method of teaching. Generally speaking, the teaching method that can lead students to think actively belongs to heuristic mode of teaching, vise verse.
In brief, heuristic mode of teaching can arouse students’ self-consciousness and learning motivation, enhance their learning interest and confidence and promote their thinking activities. It can also cultivate students’ abilities to find out and solve problems and develop their thinking abilities. Thus, I will have a research on the application of heuristic mode of teaching in primary school’s English classroom and analyze the advantages of this teaching method
2. An Overview of the Heuristic Mode of Teaching
With the further development of new courses reform, classroom teaching as the most important aspect of educational reform is being more and more emphasized. Heuristic mode of teaching, which is regarded as the significant part of classroom instruction behaviors has gone deep into primary school’s English classroom. However, as far back as the Spring and Autumn period, heuristic mode of teaching has appeared in our country. Moreover, it is constantly developing and changing.
2.1 The Concept of Heuristic Teaching
The word ‘inspiration’ originates from Confucius who was a famous educator in ancient China. He once said, ‘I will not instruct my students until they have really tried hard but failed to understand. If I give them one instance and they cannot draw inferences from it, I will not teach them any more’. The descendants re-generalized his concept and then created the idea of heuristic teaching.
The so-called heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical methodology not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals. While finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. More precisely, heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable information to control problem solving in human beings and machines. 浅谈小学英语课堂中启发式教学法的应用(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_32890.html