A Study On The Current Situation Of The Application Of ICT In College English Teaching And Learning

Information and communication technology(ICT) has changed many aspects of society, including the way of language teaching and learning. In western countries, all kinds of studies have proved the effectiveness and benefits of the integration of ICT into language education. However, applying ICT into college English teaching and learning in China, has not aroused great attention of most researchers.By using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research method, the present study aims to explore: 1) Teachers’ and students’ current application of ICT in college English environment, namely, the reality of teachers’ implementation of ICT in college English classroom, and the present situation of ICT usage in students’ self-learning environment. 2) Students’ views on the current application of ICT in college English teaching and learning. 3) Gender and major differences in attitudes towards ICT functions in college English education. 4) Correlations between the time students spent on personal ICT usage in English learning and their academic achievements. 5) Difficulties and possible solutions under ICT environment. In this study, a questionnaire was used to investigate 312 sophomore students who were randomly chosen from Yunnan Normal University, and also 8 students were chosen for the subsequent interview.Findings from this study show that: 1) Generally speaking, the use of ICT was not conducted very well in college English teaching and learning. Both English teachers and students did not form a good habit of using ICT in their teaching and learning. 2) Students surveyed in this study held low evaluations toward the effects of ICT usage in college English teaching and learning. 3) Female students are more positive than male students toward the use of ICT in college English teaching and learning, and English major students are more positive than non-English major students toward the use of ICT in college English teaching and learning. 4) No necessary relationship exists between the time spent on the use of ICT in student’s independent learning and their English learning outcomes. 5) Both college English teachers and students did not have a systematical knowledge and skills about ICT, which may be the biggest barrier of implementing it in college English teaching and learning.Based on the findings of the present study, in order to improve the full application of ICT and promote its further development in college English teaching and learning, to facilitate students’ English proficiency, colleges and universities should strengthen the construction of ICT environment, and more attention should be given to ICT resources, teachers’ training and workloads, testing systems and so on. College English teacher and students should be encouraged to form and update their systematic knowledge of ICT theories and skills. Also, college English teachers need to take gender and major differences into account when they prepare and implement language teaching under ICT environment. What is more, male and non-English major learners should pay more attention to the use of ICTs in their self-learning situations. They also need to take active part in English class, to strengthen the communication between teachers and students as well as among learners. All in all, this study attempts to contribute to the growing understanding of the present application of ICT in college English teaching and learning, which will be greatly beneficial for the improvement of the current ICT environment in college English education, and even for future researches in this area.