Research On The Application Of Project-based Learning To Art Majors’ Oral English Teaching

With the continuous development and prosperity of Chinese cultural and artistic undertakings,the exchanges between Chinese art and world art are closely increased.The job market has a growing demand for composite talents who are proficient in both professional art knowledge and English language skills.As one of the most essential skills to reflect comprehensive English proficiency,oral English has received more and more attention in China’s English teaching and the job market.However,college students in art majors generally pay more attention to the study of professional knowledge and ignore the study of cultural classes,especially their low interest in English learning,weak basic English proficiency,and lack of confidence;they hardly speak out English and are unable to communicate skillfully in English.Nevertheless,the existing college English teaching materials and teachers’ teaching methods do not meet the employmentoriented and application-based teaching requirements according to their professional characteristics.This research attempts to find a suitable oral English teaching model for art majors because of this phenomenon.After reading a lot of literature and constantly trying to teach,according to the characteristics of theory and practice,project-based learning is applied to the oral English Teaching of art majors.Project-based Learning(hereinafter referred to as PBL)originated in the field of engineering education at first and then was gradually widely applied in social sciences.The core proposition of PBL is that it takes project research as the orientation,learners themselves as the main body and center,group discussion as the primary organization form,and students’ quality cultivation and application ability improvement as the fundamental purpose.Studies at home and abroad show that PBL can well meet the needs of art talent training in today’s society.Firstly,this research analyzes and summarizes the results of PBL and its application in English teaching at home and abroad through literature review,then discusses the current situation and problems of college oral English teaching for art majors.Under the guidance of Constructivism Theory,Pragmatism Theory,Humanism Theory,and Multiple Intelligences Theory,taking College Experience English Integrated Course Basic Objectives Volume I(4th Edition)as a textbook,this research uses PBL to conduct a semester’s application research.It profoundly explores the feasibility of PBL in college oral English Teaching for art majors based on art majors’ characteristics.This research is an applied research in teaching.The research subjects are 60 students from two parallel classes of art majors in Northwest Minzu University,30 students from the experimental class,and 30 students from the control class.Both classes are taught by the researcher in this thesis,the experimental class adopts PBL,and the control class adopts the traditional teaching method.This research attempts to answer the following two questions:1.What is the effect of PBL on art majors’ oral English proficiency compared with traditional teaching method?2.What changes have taken place in art majors’ attitude towards oral English learning after using PBL?In this research,SPSS 20.0 was adopted to conduct scientific analysis and indepth discussion on the two classes’ learning situation by comprehensively analyzing the data of questionnaire survey,pre-test and post-test,attendance rate,and interview.The results show that,after using PBL,art majors’ oral English test scores have been effectively improved,their confidence and interest in oral English learning have been enhanced,and their oral English proficiency has been improved as a whole,especially the ability of discourse application,pronunciation and intonation,interactive communication has been significantly enhanced.The research results provide a valuable reference for the current college oral English teaching reform for art majors.However,due to the limitations and shortcomings of this research,such as a short research period and few research samples,it is hoped that other researchers can conduct more in-depth discussion and Research on a broader research sample and a more extended research period in the future.