A Study On The Comprehensive English Classroom Environment For Non-english Major Postgraduates

The study of classroom environment has already become a hot topic in the field of Education and Educational Psychology during the past thirty years. In order to evaluate classroom environment, foreign researchers designed a large number of classroom environment scales. They assessed and investigated different types of classroom environment by using the classroom environment scales.The study adopted “What is Happening in the Class”, a classroom environment scale designed by Fraser as the research instrument, which was modified through a pilot study.The author investigated 463 Non-English major postgraduates and 5 English teachers from Xi’an Polytechnic University in order to analyze how students perceive their comprehensive English classroom environment and whether they are satisfied with their comprehensive English classroom environment. The author analyzed the collected data by using the SPSS16.0, and then 10 students and 5 teachers who have participated in the questionnaire investigation were chosen to do interviews.Through the quantitative research and qualitative research, the research findings are as follows: 1) Generally speaking, the students perceive positively on their comprehensive English classroom environment, which indicates that the students think their comprehensive English classroom environment is satisfactory; 2) The perceptive difference between the students and the teachers on their comprehensive English classroom environment is significant, and the teachers perceive more positively; 3) There is no significant perceptive difference between male students and female students on their comprehensive English classroom environment, but female students perceive more positively on Student Cohesiveness, whereas male students perceive more positively on Innovation; 4) Generally speaking, there is no significant perceptive difference between high-level students and low-level students on their comprehensive English classroom environment, but the perceptive difference is significant on Task Orientation. High-level students perceive more positively than low-level students on Task Orientation.The study results can help the teachers have a better understanding of comprehensiveEnglish classroom environment, and it offers reliable basis for the perfection of comprehensive English classroom. Besides, it can help improving the teaching efficiency and learning outcome of the comprehensive English classroom.