On The College English Teaching Mode Of Combining Web-Based Autonomous Learning With Face-to-Face Instruction

With the guidance of the new College English Curriculum Requirements (New Edition), as one of the universities involved in the reform of college English education in China, Qingdao Technological University adopts a brand-new teaching mode in its college English course, incorporating the network technologies into the normal teaching process: Web-based autonomous learning plus face-to-face instruction. The Requirements states: "The new model should be built on modern information technology, particularly network technology, so that English language teaching will be free from the constraints of time or place and geared towards students' individualized and autonomous learning." It also promulgates that: "The objective of college English is to develop students' ability to use English in an all-round way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future work and social interactions they will be able to exchange information effectively through both spoken and written channels, and at the same time they will be able to enhance their ability to study independently and improve their cultural quality so as to meet the needs of China's social development and international exchanges." But previous researches have found that, most of the college students in China tend to be passive recipients of language knowledge. Based on theories of CALL, Web-based learning & autonomous learning, the new teaching mode employed emphasizes the application of new computer technologies and focuses on fostering students' autonomous learning ability.This paper is to study the teaching mode of combining Web-based autonomous learning with face-to-face instruction in the hope of improving the current situation of college English teaching. This new teaching mode is to reinforce a student/learner-centered, communicative approach to language learning by taking advantage of CALL environment and web resources which can provide the students with comprehensible access to authentic language materials, an interactive and inviting environment for collaboration learning and flexible opportunities for drill and practice (Debski, 1999). Students can select the materials according to their own needs with the teacher as facilitator and advisor. The thesis tries to explore some questions as follows: 1) teachers' and students' evaluation of this new teaching mode; 2) how teachers arrange their classes in the new mode; 3) how to design classroom activities effectively and combine with web in the hope of providing some suggestions for college teaching; 4) what problems exist and in which aspects the mode should be improved. The subjects of this study are the non-English majors from 24 classes of Grade 2007 who use the textbook of New Horizon College English and four teachers who are responsible for the English teaching of these classes. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods are used to collect and analyze data. Questionnaire, interview and classroom observation are used to collect data. SPSS11.0 is used in the data processing.The result of the study shows that most teachers and students think the new teaching mode, to some extent, can help enhance foreign language teaching for it can take advantage of the most advanced network technologies, although some students and teachers are not so sure of the new teaching mode; and it can also foster students' autonomous learning ability. Meanwhile from the survey, it can be easily seen the autonomous learning ability of Chinese college students is in dire need of improving and a lot of work need to be done to improve this ability. Metacognitive strategies training is suggested for fostering students' autonomous learning ability; in this process, teachers' roles are also under changing.