An Effective Attempt To Apply Reflective Teaching Into College English Teaching

First proposed in 1980's, reflective teaching has been favored among educators in 1990's, especially in some western countries. Reflective teaching practice has become a central theme, either explicitly or implicitly, in professional development for academic staff. Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about whether it works or not — a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in classroom, and by analyzing and evaluating the information, teachers identify and explore their own practices and underlying beliefs.Being a college English teacher for four years, I have been frequently confronted by one problem. Vocabulary and reading have always been the focus of College English teaching in China. Reading plays an important role in the overall English competences especially in CET-4 where reading takes 40% of the total scores. However, students have problems with reading speed and reading comprehension. Vocabulary building is another big concern for college students. Students usually spend much time and energy on vocabulary building but the result is not satisfactory.Aiming to solve this problem, a research is conducted in form of qualitative analysis. The objectives of the research are: 1) to find out the relationship between reading and vocabulary teaching and learning; 2) to improve reading competence as well as vocabulary building; 3) to improve CET-4 results on the basis of the improvement of reading competence and vocabulary building.The research lasted for one year with 37 students of History department from teacher's college of Qingdao University as the subjects. The data were collected and recorded using various of means, mainly comprising of student interviews, teacher logs and questionnaires. Through out the action research process, a continuous reflection cycle was carried out in forms of problem identification, hypothesis presentation, action planning, action taking, evaluation and reflection. The results ofthe research were analyzed by means of CET-4 test of the subjects.The major findings of the research are: 1) Being exposed to larger amount of vocabulary will encourage learners to tap their potentials as much as possible and regular check helps students recall and retell what is learned. 2) Rote rehearsal should not be ignored or regarded as passive learning. 3) Learning new words through reading is an effective way of vocabulary learning.4) Reading competence is closely associated with vocabulary building. 5) CET-4 results can be improved by focusing on vocabulary learning and reading. 6) College English teacher is responsible to arouse the different interest of students of different majors. Students will be more interested in the materials related to their major compared with other materials. 7)Individual instruction is helpful and valuable for language learners especially for college students.Reflective teaching practice creates a cyclical process that allows time for reflection, implementation, and follow-up. It centers on development and exercise of skills and attitudes that eventually become a regular part of good teaching. Reflective teaching is therefore a means of professional development which begins in classroom. Implementing reflective teaching into college English teaching may lead to changes and improvements in teaching as well as in teachers' professional development.