An Eclectic Approach To The Teaching Of English For Secretary In A Vocational School

It is argued in this thesis that for teaching English for Secretary (EFS in short) in a vocational school, an eclectic approach is more effective in developing the students' communicative competence. However, due to the complexity and optional characteristics of the eclectic approach itself, there exists no a ready-made framework to follow. The writer aims to bring forward an eclectic method which combines the communicative method as a kernel and grammar-translation method, with modern technologies as teaching aids which include pictures, tape recorder, slide show, video materials, courseware, computer, multimedia education software, and so on.Chapter one introduces the current teaching situation in vocational schools including the present quality of students, the present qualification of teaching staff, teaching environment, teaching materials and teaching approaches. Improving the students' communicative competence is the final teaching objective. Considering the contrast between the students' poor communicative ability and the high requirements from the employment, the author proposes the feasible solution and states the significance of the thesis.Chapter two reviews the beaten track of teaching approaches which include the grammar-translation method, the audio-visual method, the cognitive method and the communicative method. Both advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed when applied in EFS in vocational schools and the conclusion is: none of the existing methods alone is applicable to the special teaching situation. The trend, eclecticism is especially expatiated from four aspects: its background, definition, development and characteristics. Its strengths have been dissertated and its limitation, which is criticized for 'not offer any guidance on what basis and by what principles aspects of different methods can be selected and combined' (Stern, 1983), is inevitably a big challenge when applied in classroom.Chapter three holds that since the eclectic approach better reflects the nature of language teaching and process of language learning, it should be introduced into the...