Study On the Current Situation and Strategies of English Selective Courses

樓科躍

Abstract:Secondary Vocational English Syllabus requires that English courses for

vocational schools should aim to lay a solid foundation for students' professional life ,to further education and lifelong development, to help students to further learn basic knowledge ,to improve their ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing in English, to form the students' ability of using English as a tool in career， to foster the students to form the right sensibility, attitude and standpoint of value, so as to promote the body and mind of students developing generally.

Keywords:English selective courses；necessity；vocational shcools

中圖分類號：G648 文獻標識碼：B 文章編號：1672-1578（2016）06-0005-02

With the reform of English teaching in secondary vocational schools,the studnents' application of English should be paid more attention to make them adapt to the development of the society .The students' overall ability of using English is one of the important norms in cultivating useful talents for secondary vocational schools. For this sake ,the English selective course has gained more and more attention.

What follows are the author ' s reflections on present situations, problems and countermeasures of the Enlish selective courses in vocational schools based on the exploration of devepement and design of English selective courses.

1.The current situation of English selective courses in vocaitonal schools

It is many years since selective courses were offerd in most vocational schools due to the implementation of Credit System put forward by new curriculum reform .All the sudents have to choose at least four hours of selective courses per week in order to earn enough credits.However,it was not until 2013 that English selective courses were offered in our school.It is a fact that English ,not regarded as an important subject ,has been in a position of not being taken seriously in most secondary vocational schools. Athough nowadays English selective courses have been provided in most vocational schools, some obvious problems exist.

1.1 The number of English Selective courses categaories is limited in most vocational schools.The Department of Education clearly advances that English teaching in vocational schools should follow the four basic principals and development principle, aiming principle, interest principle and creative principle.However in most vocational schools ,besides required baisc English courses,there are few types of English selective courses for students to choose.Take our school for example,only two kinds of English selective courses were offered last term.They are the PETS-1 training classe and the Enlish movies appreciation course.What's worse,the former has only been offered to students who want to take entrance exams for vocational colleges .That means students in our school have few chances to choose English selective courses, for the number of them is limited.In this case,though some students want to take some selective courses on English,they fail to find a suitable one.

1.2 English selective courses don't receive enough attention by both teachers and students.A survey on the purpose of taking English selective courses among the students in our school showed that about 65% of the stuents take such courses in order to earn enough credits.In fact ,they are not interested in the course itself.Most of them have it in mind that it's easier to pass the exam of English selective courses.Some of them choose English selective courses just because they want to see some international blockbusters for fun.They take such courses only to kill time.

From an objective point of view, there are no unified ,systematic and effective teaching materials as well as textbooks for the course. Before the class,teachers have to spend plenty of time gathering related information and knowledge from different media in different ways.What's worse,some teachers even are not familiar with the content of the course themselves,which makes the courses unsuccessful and meaningless. From subjective point of view,most vocational school students have weak basis in English，they are not so interested in English and don't have a good habit of learning English.That makes it hard for teachers to carry out some teaching activities.Besides,even in the same class,the sudents are at various academic levels in English. It's also a confusing problem.

1.3 The evaluation systems of English selective courses are inadequate.Since English selective courses are not regarded as main courses in vocational schools,the assessment and evaluation systems of them are usually inadequate in these schools.In my school,there is only one exam at the end of the school term for most ot the English selective courses.The forms of the exams are not restricted,which gives teachers chances to evaluate students in some creative ways.It sounds good.However, some teachers treat it as a loaf on the job.They give each stuent full credits as long as they attend the course on time.Naturally ,the students find it easy to pass the exam and have no pressure at all.Some of them are just lazy around in class and never learn anything useful.

2.What principles should be followed in setting English selective courses in vocational schools.

To establish a set of effective English selective course system, scientific education rules should be followed. Different from required courses ,selective courses are more flexible in content and form. According to different classification basis and standards English selective courses in secondary vocational schools may be classified into different categories.

As the characteristics of vocational schools, vocational schools English teaching should not only help students lay a solid language foundation but also pay attention to cultivating application-oriented qualified talents to meet social demands. Therefore ,students' practice is the basic requirement of teaching.In this case, the setting of English selective courses should be on the purpose of training students' practical ability, creative ability and the overall application of English knowledge.

Secondary vocational school English elective courses should also be "people-oriented".When setting courses, teachers' and students' enthusiasm and initiative should be considered. The courses setting should be of diversity. Students in vocational schools have different developmental stages in listening, speaking, reading and writing respectively. That makes students differ in their needs for English skill improvement.In this case,English selective courses should be set to meet the students in different levels and with different purposes.

At the same time,the English selective cousrse provided for students in the secondary vocational schools should be suitable for the development of students' personality and quality extension. Besides,the English selective course is supposed to be rich in participation so that sduents are glad to participate in learning process .As a result ,sdudents bcome the centre of the teaching process,which is required by new curriculum reform.

Setting English selective courses that are related to student' majors is also available.As we know, vocational education is employment-oriented education, with the main objective developing the students' practical training capacity. The new century needs the inter-disciplinary talent, so the traditional isolated and simple language teaching can no longer meet the new requirements.The main task of vocational students in the school is learning professional skills.However ,if a vocational student wants to adapt to the new job, daily communicative English is not enough at all.Mastering some professional English is necessary.It also helps students to obtain a great development of future career.Therefore,different professional English selective courses can be provided for students from different majors,such as tourism English ,business English.

In summary,English selective courses provided for students in vocational schools are required not only to promote the students' individual development and quality enhancement ,but also to apapt to the talents training objectives of vocational schools and meet the needs of all the students.

3.The categories of English selective courses in vocational courses

Based on the principles mentioned above,English selective courses in vocational schools can be classified into five categories.English application courses,such as English Audio-visual-oral courses,English speech courses etc.

Casual modern Eglish courses,such as Enlish songs appreciation and learning courses, English films appreciation courses,Fashion in America ,English movie stars ,English in sports etc. English culture courses,such as British and American literature reading, British and American Culture Course ,English in western food, American etiquette cultureetc, learning English slang and colloquialis,Body language in English,English in advertisements etc.

Some professional English selective courses,such as business English，Tourism English，Restaurant English , also should be set to meet the students from different majors to help students to broaden the specialty knowledge and obtain a great development in future job.

Besides above four kinds of English selective courses ,we also have English language knowledge and skills courses,such as oral English ,English writing,English reading , English translation etc.Though such courses are not popular with vocational students due to their difficulty,they are useful to students in some majors ,such as International Business and Tour guide.

4.The standards and grounds of choosing teaching materials in English selective courses

Firstly, the choice of the materials should comply with the cognitive level of the students.According to famous American linguist Krashen's Input Hupothesis, the only way to acquire a human language is to accept a large amount of comprehensible input . He suggests that the learner's focus is on the input information itself, not in the language.When the learner understands the input information and some more language materials , the language is acquired.Otherwise ,the students will find it hard to accept the information and gradually lose interest in the course. The teacher should take into account the interests of the students.What's more,the English selective course povided in vocaitional schools should help students form correct values of life and the world.In a whole,life values of students in vocational schools are positive.To help input students some healthy and progressive idea and help them to form correct values of life and the world,teachers may choose some teaching materials that are both thoughtful and informative.

In a word,teaching materials chosen in English selective courses should be comprehensive,interesting ,practical and useful. As a saying goes"the classic in tradition "， "the frontier of the fashion".

In terms of the current situation and suggestd srategies of English selective courses in vocational schools,more series of research projects of the course are to.be further explored and studied, in Curriculum System Construction, Teaching models ,Teaching methods and so on.As an English teacher in vocational school,the author supports the study of the development of English selective courses to enhance students'comprehensive practical abilities in English effectively.

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