A Study Of The Current Situation In English Teaching At Higher Vocational Colleges And Its Solutions

With the rapid and extensive economic and social development in China, higher vocational and technical education is boosted up so as to foster a new generation with practical skills and abilities to meet the needs and challenges of the fast progress of world science and technology. English language teaching, as an important component of the higher vocational and technical education system, should also focus on professional purposes, specialty-related skills and language applicability. However, its achievements so far are not totally satisfactory owing to both intrinsic deficiencies and external influences. To extricate itself from the predicament, ELT in higher vocational and technical education has to form its unique idea and perception of teaching, self-contained teaching mode and systematic contents and approach.In view of the vocational and practical orientation of ELT in higher vocational and technical education, this dissertation attempts to quest for effective and vocational-featured English language teaching mode from an ESP perspective. The core of ESP is to identify learner's learning needs and tailor the course centering on them, which makes it fit in with the vocational and technical education. And in this dissertation, it is regarded as a guide to practice in the tentative study to explore the possibility of reform the ELT in higher vocational and technical education from an integrated course design perspective. The approach of ESP course design is adopted to investigate and analyze the situation that the author is faced with in her teaching experience. And based on the analysis of the data collected in this specific setting, an academic-occupational integration teaching model is framed as a general proposal for innovation so that the research result can be translated into practice in the form of curriculum content and teaching method in the future.