On The Main Features Of "New College English

For many years, we have reached a consensus that the ultimate goal for English language teaching is to train the student to obtain the communicative competence. A good and effective method of teaching has always been pursued by foreign language teachers. However, the language-based, and teacher-centered traditional teaching pattern pays more attention to the development of the linguistic competence which is not the ultimate goal of language teaching. That is to say, the traditional teaching pattern overemphasized the language form and accuracy with little concern about the communicative functions. Obviously, the object in a grammatical syllabus is to cover the syllabus with communication as a by-product. The textbook determines to a great degree the teaching methods and class models of college English. The language-based structural textbooks will absolutely result in the "cramming" pattern of teaching. Therefore, the reform in the teaching method is mainly dependent on the innovation in teaching materials.Since 1940s, theories on how to approach effective language teaching have emerged one after another both at home and aboard. Tremendous progress has been made both in the theories and practice in college English teaching (GET). In the recent ten years, the focus that tends to be changed from form-based and teacher-centered teaching pattern to communication-based and student-centered teaching mode has become popular and welcomed. However, it will unavoidably result in the "cramming" method of teaching if we continue to employ the traditional structure-based teaching material. Therefore, it is necessary for us to reconstruct the college English textbook series and develop a new format. The reconstruction should take for its basic line of inquiry the fundamental concepts and principles of communicative competence in the student. This has become an urgent and ultimate goal for both college English teachers and the non-English majors in order to meet the needs of professionals with high proficiency in the 21st century. Furthermore, college English teachers have to reject the traditional roles in the classroom. We, college English teachers, therefore, will do everything possible to dig out the potentials of the students, to arouse their interests and to equip them not only with linguistic competence but also with the communicativecompetence both in the classroom and social environment. What's more, our teaching objectives and goals are realized through a two-way multidimensional communicative mode of teaching initiated by the student-centered principle.In this paper, the author tries to explore some effective ways to help non-English majors to learn English effectively in GET classroom on the basis of relevant theories on foreign language learning and teaching by analyzing the major features of New College English compiled by Zhejiang University. The paper discusses some principles of the Learner-Centered Topic-Based Mode, a brand-new classroom teaching model. The first one of the main features New College English embodies is the concept of student-centeredness that the first important task of foreign language learning is that teachers can help, advise and teach, but only students can learn. This indicates that, on the one hand, students have to take responsibility for their own learning through a lengthy and effortful process, and that, on the other hand, their needs and interests in language knowledge and use, in their personal emotion and intelligence have to be fully concerned about, so that the motivation to learn can be strengthened, and thus a high degree of success in foreign language learning is likely to be achieved.The second one is the selection and organization of the instructional materials. New College English, a series of textbooks, including four student books used in the classroom and four books of listening practice for autonomous learning after class. New College English includes a variety of well-chosen topics which are closely bound up with the real life of the students. Each unit...