A Case Study On Strategy Of Face-to-face Tutorial In Distance Learning

Central Radio and Television University (CRTVU) has set up English lessons sonn after it was founded in 1979. In 1999, "The Reform of Personnel Training Modle and the Pilot of Open Educaion in CRTVU" was lauched by Ministry of Education. During 2002 and 2003, the project of college English teaching reform was initiated by Ministry of Education. Some colleges started to establish new models of English teaching in the network environment and push test reform, and then CRTVU started to set up new English courses in 2003, that was "This Is English", and its multimedia learning materials was chosen as "National Elaborate Courese" in 2007.This paper takes a case study on "This Is English" in CRTVU to investigate its status of face-to-face tutorial and online learning in order to assist adult participants in their English learning. From April to October in 2010, the researcher did a non-participation observation in "English I (1)" and "English I (2)" classes, and got access to the online learning platform and the QQ Group. At the end of "English I (2)" class, interviews with face-to-face tutorial teacher and students were carried out separately in the light of some problems found during face-to-face tutorial and online learning platform. On the basis of theories of Adult Education, Proxemics, Pragmatics, Education Communication, Media Richness, and the Cone of Experience, some analyses has been taken to look into the process of face-to-face tutorial, the participation of online learning platform and QQ group, group and cooperation learning, the adatation between English learners and learning objectives and contents.The results show that:"This is English 2" is still mainly based on face-to-face tutorial and teacher's presentation and students have little chance to practice or participate, and till now web-based learning is not yet commenced. During face-to-face tutorial, evaluation-based, question-based, student experience-based teaching, as well as teacher-student discourse and teaching media can improve student participation. In addition, web-based learning, self-learning and teacher-student relationship in the process of face-to-face tutorial can be paid more attention, especially for language learning.