An Integrated Approach To The Development Of Good Language Learners Through College English Education: Theory And Practice With Special Reference To WZU

College English (CE) is a program set up by the Ministry of Education of China and learned by full-time non-English majors in four-year programs at the university level. The curriculum guide issued in 2007 for CE, termed College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR),states the following aim that CE is to pursue: to cultivate students'overall abilities of language application with focus on listening and speaking so that students will be able to communicate effectively in their future studies and careers as well as socializations, and at the same time enhance their ability of autonomous learning and general cultural awareness so as to meet the needs of China's social development and international exchanges.CECR involves three specific groupings broken down as (1) basic requirements, (2) intermediate requirements and (3) higher requirements. These are used as benchmarks to follow in teaching vocabulary, grammar and language skills to students of different language levels. In addition, CECR mandates a relationship between teaching and testing. CET 4 & 6 is adopted to evaluate whether or not students have reached the expectations of CECR upon the completion of their curriculum study.Obviously, CECR works as the language syllabus to guide teaching of the CE program. Textbooks accepted as excellent materials for CE teaching and learning, have been compiled around CECR. For example, the textbook College English- Integrated Course regards the training of basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating as well as the training of students'comprehensive communicative competence as the aim and the guideline of textbook compilation ( Li (李荫华) 2005:V). Consequently, the textbook consists of such contents as texts, vocabulary, exercises in language study and use, skills practice, etc.Due to the unidimensional language syllabus and textbook compilation around the syllabus, problems are found in existence in CE teaching and learning. For example, the teacher considers one textbook as the teaching content of one term, so the common teaching practice is teaching from the book through one unit after another in order. There are not many teachers who are aware of unit curriculum reorganization for their own classroom use according to students'language levels and competence. Consequently, students remain weak in applying English in different situations mainly because of their inability to expand on their vocabulary, lack of grammatical awareness, the interference of their mother language and weaknesses in their application of learning strategies. These are the main factors affecting successful English learning of the students especially from the average local universities such as Wenzhou University (WZU).Professors Dai and Shu ((戴炜栋,束定芳)1994:1) point out that foreign language acquisition gets affected by the learner individual factors including age, intelligence, language aptitude, cognitive styles, personality, motivation and attitudes; by the factors of learning process including prior knowledge and learners strategies; and by environmental factors including social environment factors such as language policies, policies of foreign language teaching as well as social attitudes and educational factors involving syllabus composition, curriculum design, time for study, learning materials, teachers, methodology, testing, and so on.Ellis (1997), Cook (2006) together with other researchers conclude the characteristics of GLLs in their own perspectives, which, as a whole, are closely related to learning strategies, indicating that GLLs are able to well apply learning strategies in language study and use. Stern (1983,1992) in his multidimensional curriculum approach stresses strategy learning and use which is also paid special attention to in Langacker's (1999:99) usage-based model in cognitive grammar. Based on the related theories reviewed, the present study takes WZU as a case study to investigate ways to cultivate students'abilities of language learning and use by referring to the benchmarks set in CECR as well as the characteristics of GLLs. Thus, the Integrated Approach to the development of GLLs is proposed.Integrated is meant in the Integrated Approach as follows:(1) the integration of the four syllabuses into one unit teaching including the language syllabus, the communication syllabus, the content/culture syllabus, and the learning strategies syllabus, showing the enrichment of the teaching content, and transformation of the traditional uni-language syllabus teaching model. (2) the integration of a theme with its related subject, indicating in CE teaching the application of the approach of bottom-up schema in cognitive grammar to enhance students'abilities of analysis and imagination from the concrete to the abstract.(3) the integration of classroom teaching and autonomous learning after class, providing students with opportunities and environments to learn and use English.(4) the integration of teaching and evaluation, leading teaching and learning efficiency to be promoted. Approach is meant in the Integrated Approach as the following route of CE teaching and research: firstly, investigation of students'perceptions of EFL learning, teaching and evaluation; followed by analysis of learner individual differences in cognitive styles, language aptitude, intelligence, and learning strategies, etc.; then, ability cultivation of less successful students'learning strategy use, and lastly, effect exploration of the content-based-through-cooperative-learning method on the development of GLLs. The present study explores the Integrated Approach in the theoretic perspectives of L2 acquisition, cognitive grammar and EFL education with the quantitative research method and the qualitative research method. Through questionnaire survey, tests and interviews to investigate CE teaching and learning among the students of year 2003 and year 2008, the following findings are brought forth:(1) Prior knowledge contributes to comprehension of meanings. Students can apply prior knowledge in learning or answering questions in the classroom. Teaching related to students'prior knowledge can achieve positive outcomes; the more interactive the English classroom is, the higher motivation the students have in coming to the classes. Compared between female and male students, female students have higher motivation in English learning, are more patient with the learning process, more social in communicative activities, and better in linguistic analysis; male students are more inclined to interactive learning, more interested in classroom evaluation, and have higher expectations of integrating technology into English assessment. As far as learning assessment is concerned, both males and females regard formative assessment as having better outcomes than summative assessment.(2) The students who speak English both inside and outside the classroom can achieve overall development of listening, speaking, reading, writing, etc.(3) In language aptitude, abilities of analysis and rote memory have great impacts on grammatical output. In cognitive styles students comprehend meanings by field-independence or field-dependence which tends to interact with each other without the support of a context.(4) In intelligence preferences, the order for the seven types of intelligence arranged from high to low is interpersonal, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal and visual-spatial intelligence. Interpersonal intelligence is on the top of the preference list, while spatial intelligence is on the bottom. The SSs are more inclined to interpersonal, linguistic and intrapersonal intelligence than the LSSs, while the LSSs are relatively stronger in logical-mathematical intelligence. There is no difference in musical, bodily-kinesthetic and spatial intelligence between them.(5) The LSSs are weak in application of learning strategies, but after receiving strategy training, they perform better than before in applying strategies in learning and become more sensitive to the English language.(6) The content-based-teaching-through-cooperative-learning method can bring forth the following teaching outcomes: The focus of teaching is shifted to the students who are able to have ample opportunities for interactive learning through which they can comprehensively input knowledge and meaningfully output language. The teaching objectives of a unit become multidimensional with the content/ culture objectives being integrated into the language objectives, which provides students with contexts, themes and cooperative learning activities so that they experience language use in an authentic way. The formative assessment method is accepted by the students.(7) Both the SSs and the instructors of the EE as well as EE courses are satisfied with the content-based-teaching-through-cooperative-learning method. The LSSs are satisfied with cooperative learning. Thus, the teaching method accepted by the SSs can equally be appropriate to the LSSs.Obviously, the Integrated Approach has been proved effective to the development of GLLs. However, limitations exist such as:(1) Though the author conducted the research in her best endeavors, the present study is not of high research standards. For example, the content-based-teaching- through-cooperative-learning method was not experimented with the LSSs of year 2008 even though it achieved positive teaching outcomes from among the SSs who did not have many big differences from their less successful peers in intelligence. It is expected that this limitation will be eliminated with application of the Integrated Approach among the students of year 2011.(2) With little expertise the author has not yet established a CE database for collection of formalized routines, chunks of knowledge, words with cultural connotations, discipline-related terms and expressions, learning strategies, etc. With this database, application of the Integrated Approach will be facilitated to a great extent. Such a database is hoped to develop by those who are interested in it.(3) The innovation background for the Integrated Approach is not completely ready at present. While the present study is part of the research results of the provincial program - the 2009 Zhejiang New Century Teaching Reform Program (No.yb09053), it has not yet been approved to establish as a research program of national level. Consequently, its promotion and further application in CE teaching has been affected. Nevertheless, the author will seek more theoretical support by integrating related and also the latest theories both at home and abroad into the present study. In this way, the Integrated Approach will be refined for the better, and the research program of the desired level can be approved to set up.Moreover, the Integrated Approach requires transforming teaching content, methodology, and the system of learning assessment in existence. It requires teachers to change their conventional conception regarding a curriculum, and to redesign the unit curriculum around a theme together with various related resources. Such requirements will take teachers a lot of time and energy.Fortunately, CE teachers at WZU have shown great involvement in curriculum transformation and enthusiasm for applying the Integrated Approach in their teaching styles. With teachers'mastery of the knowledge related to theories of Stern's multidimensional curriculum approach, Langacker's usage-based model of cognitive grammar as well as other foreign language teaching theories, the Integrated Approach will be well promoted and accepted by WZU and other local universities as well.