建构主义理论指导下山西省高职英语教学改革研究

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 English teaching in HVE
The study of English teaching in HVE begins with the definitions. First of all,several definitions are represented for the further study. Higher education, also known as post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education,is the stage of learning that occurs at colleges, universities, institutes of technology. Higher education includes teaching, research, exacting applied work, and socialservices activities of universities. Vocational education, known as vocational education and training or VET, iseducation that prepares people for specific trades, crafts and careers at various levelsfrom a trade, a craft, technician, or a professional position in engineering, logistics,accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, pharmacy, law, service etc. Vocationaleducation may be classified as teaching procedural knowledge. This can be contrastedwith declarative knowledge. Vocational education can be at the secondary, post-secondary level, further education level and can interact with the apprenticeship system. HVE is short for higher vocational education. The definition in A China’sEducation Dictionary is that higher vocational education belongs to the vocational andtechnical education including pre-post education and in-service further education.China Education Encyclopedia defines higher vocational education as training seniorapplied and practicable talents, within the scope of higher education. Higher vocationaleducation is an important component of higher education in our country. HigherVocational Education is a post-secondary form of education combining theoreticalstudies with a strong practical approach embedded in the workplace. The total objectiveis to train talents with practical capacity and high technique in production, construction,service and management.
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1.2 Research background
In China, higher vocational education is considered as a category during thedevelopment process of higher education, distinguished with undergraduate educationand vocational training education. Higher vocational education belongs to highereducation as well as characteristics of vocational education, for training students’careercapabilities related to real job in the future. Nowadays, college English teaching in HVEin China is confronted with a number of challenges, such as a large class size, limitedclass hours, limited linguistic input and output, test-oriented teaching ,teaching methods,lack of multimedia facilities, poor teachers' professional developments and so on.HVE in Shanxi province, in the recent years, has gained great achievements. Up to2014, the number of colleges of HVE is about 48(From the website of Shanxi ProvincialEducation Department), which takes up major proportion in higher education in thewhole Shanxi Province with diversified college-run forms. With the rapid development,a series of unexpected problems arose. Many HVE colleges were upgraded on the basisof secondary schools, most of which have poor infrastructure, low teaching quality, unenlightened teaching mode and imperfect curriculum setting, as a result, graduatescan’tmeet society’sneeds and haveto attendpre-post trainingorganizedbyenterprises.These problems also challenge English teaching in HVE colleges.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Constructivism Theory
As an old Chinese saying goes, Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day whileteach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Many teachers are confused incollege English teaching in HVE, because they have no theory to guide their teaching,until constructivism gradually come into their minds.Modern education theory has underwent three stages, and they are behaviorism,cognitivism and constructivism. The basic views of behaviorism are that learning is thelinking of stimulus and response, external factor as main factor for a learner.Cognitivism views that learning is more complex procedure than stimulus and response.During the cognition of knowledge, the internal factor is more complex than externalfactor. Constructivism is the further development of cognitivism, which was first putforward by Swiss psychologist Piaget on the basis of studying the child’s cognitivedevelopment. Piaget thought that the child constructed the knowledge about the externalworld and developed their own cognitive structure when they interacted with thesurroundings. He states that the subject exists because, to put it very briefly, the beingof structures consists in their coming to be, that is, their being “under construction”.There is no structure apart from that construction. He regards the human as a developingorganism, both in biological sense and in cognitive sense. A person constructs hismental structure throughout his or her lifetime (Piaget, 1970).
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2.2 The research on the present English teaching in HVC
Concerning the English teaching in HVE in China, a lot of researches has been made.Liu Dailin(2009), director of the Supervisory Committee of English LanguageTeaching in HVE, the MOE, carried out a survey in vocational and technical collegesthrough questionnaires at the end of 2007, analyzing the situation of English teachingin HVE in China and discussing the findings. She thought that the ultimate goal ofcollege English in HVE was to formalize and enhance students’ English practicalcapabilities and cultivate talents with high skills. In her point of view, it was believedthat students were supposed to learn English because of lower levels and be taught bydifferent levels. The prospect for college English in HVE is to improve practicality,carry forward different-level teaching and construct the mode“GE + ESP” inaccordance with curriculum setting, teaching organization, assessment, teachingmaterials and teachers arrangements.An Xiaocan and Zhou Long (2010), members of English Supervisory Committeeof Higher Vocational and Technical Education, organized and made a research on“English Curriculum Requirements for Higher Vocational and Technical Education.The team finished its research in 2009 through wide-spread questionnaires, seminarsand interviews, on the basis of the Basic Requirements issued by the Ministry ofEducation of China in 2000.Their research introduces the basic principles offormulating the requirements and summarizes the research achievements in order todeepen the English teaching reform of Higher Vocational and Technical Education. TheRequirements points out that College English should follow the guidelines of service-aimed and employment-oriented, cultivating the practicality on the career, reconstructcurriculum setting and teaching mode, improve the assessment system and renewteaching ideals for teachers etc.
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Chapter Three Research Methodology.........16
3.1 Research instruments.........16
3.1.1 Questionnaire.........17
3.1.2 Interview .........19
3.2 Research procedure.........19
3.3Research summary.........20
Chapter Four Research Results and Discussion.........20
4.1Results of research.........20
4.2 Discussion and analysis..........32
Chapter Five Suggestions and Conclusion.........36
5.1 Suggestions for the current English teaching in HVC.........36
5.2 Conclusion..........43

Chapter Five Suggestions and Conclusion

5.1 Suggestions for the current English teaching in HVC in Shanxi province
From the investigation and analysis on English teaching in Shanxi province, theresearcher has a more comprehensive understanding. Compared to Chinese study, weshould realize that English study is essential for young students to grasp advancedtechnology, absorb civilization and strengthen communication. According to NationalOutline for Medium and Long-term Reform and Development Plan( 2010-2020),considering the current English teaching in HVE in Shanxi, we must accelerateand deepen English teaching reform and improve English teaching quality, giving anew outlook for English teaching in colleges. It was clearly stated in the Ministry of Education’s document “Views on Improvingthe Teaching Quality of Higher Vocational Colleges” (No. 16 [2006] of HigherEducation) that the combination of employment with learning should be carried on inevery aspect such as the talent training mode, specialty construction and the curriculumsetting in higher vocational colleges. We all know that the ultimate goal of highervocational education is different from that of common universities. The goal in commonuniversities is to train talents to be good at scientific research, they regard finding thelaws of nature as mission, disciplinary system is formulated according to the naturallaw, the process of education is KNOW-WHY process. While the goal of highervocational college is to develop students' practicability, it is action oriented, the processof it is KNOW-HOW process. So the practice of combination of employment withlearning is more appropriate to be carried on in higher vocational colleges. Job-orientedvocational education, not only its guiding ideology of teaching and curriculumdevelopment, curriculum theory and teaching forms are different from the traditionalvocational education, it is also designed under the deconstruction of the traditionalsubject system, it forms a vocational education mode that is better fit for the rule ofability formation.

Conclusion

he dissertation is a tentative study on the investigation and reform on the presentsituation of English teaching in HVE in Shanxi province. The author firstly reviewedsuch definitions as higher education, vocational education, higher vocation educationand its English teaching. The author pointed out no one is involved in college Englishteaching in the language of English in Shanxi province, even in China, and emphasizedthe objective and significance. Based on the theory of constructivism, the author utilizethe literature review,questionnaire and interview to conduct the investigation oncurriculum setting, teaching mode and methodology, teaching assessment, teachers’development etc. By analyzing the data, the author put forward many valuablesuggestions for college English teaching in Shanxi province. Certainly there are some limitations existing in this dissertation. One major one isthe sample size. The sample size of 20 for Questionnaire One and 100 for theQuestionnaire Two is a little too small. Actually the author had great difficulties indelivering and collecting questionnaires, and many questionnaires were sent in personand the author got some data by telephone one by one. Another limitation is thequestionnaires were designed for teachers, not for students. It may be better to have awhole investigation and analysis for students to draw more appropriate conclusion.
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References (omitted)