An Action Research On Applying Situated Learning Theory To Teaching English For Specific Purposes

English for Specific Purposes is a specialized course for studentsmajoring Management Information System. Through previous teachingpractices, students generally reflect that this course is very difficult, forthere are too many specialized proper nouns and complex long sentences,and the class atmosphere is tedious. And the students’ scores are not good.A lot of students even consider this course a waste of time.As an ESP teacher, the author is trying to solve the problem byintroducing situated learning theory to the ESP class. An action research isconducted on the ESP students majoring MIS for two semesters. Situatedlearning is learning that takes place in the same context in which it isapplied. The action research is the exploratory action of teachers toacquire knowledge and improve the teach quality by inspecting andresearching the educational phenomenon. The research plan is that thetraditional teaching method is used in one semester, while the situatedlearning theory was applied in another. The result is measured by aquestionnaire and two translation tests at the end of each semester. The experiment result shows that: after applying situated learning theory to theESP course, the study interest and mobility of the students, as well as theclass atmosphere, are improved, and the test scores are increased to someextent.But there also exist many deficiencies and limitations in the research.Some suggestions on the ESP teaching are provided at the fourth chapterof this thesis, in the hoping that others may come up with more valuableopinions.