Implications Of Student-Centered Approach For College English Teaching

The student-centered teaching approach is mainly based on the theories of adult learning, humanististic psychology, communicative language teaching and learning and the concept of language proficiency. The student-centered teaching model places students' needs and their learning under the focus of attention and shows great concerns for the cultivation of students' communicative competence. It promotes new relationships between teachers and students and encourages autonomous study in language learning.How to fully embody the essence of the student-centered model in College English teaching in China, especially in average universities, is what College English teachers are concerned about, and is also the major concern of this thesis. The author has conducted a survey about the situation of employing this teaching model in some average universities. The subjects are 120 non-English major undergraduates from three different universities. Results of the survey show that there are some mismatches between the real teaching processes and the requirements of the student-centered approach in some average universities. Some procedures in curriculum are far away from the principles of the student-centered teaching approach. Most students have positive attitudes to student-centering and autonomous study, but they can not get enough help and efficient facilities to support themselves.The thesis points out the reasons behind this phenomenon and also makes some suggestions for College English teachers to improve it.Meanwhile, the thesis points out that if teachers could not understand the student-centered approach in terms of the source of the theory, course design, choices of teaching materials and evaluation system, the so-called student-centered teaching only remains at the level of affording class time for students to do classroom activities.