A Survey On College Intensive English Teaching And Analysis Of Issues In The Process

This thesis is a case study mainly based on 1) the theories of Communicative Language Teaching and Task-based Teaching Approach, 2) Roger's humanistic psychology with an affective focus and 3) Dell Hymes' concept of Communicative Competence. In order to study what College English Intensive Reading teaching is truly like, the author handed out the questionnaires to 550 first and second year non-English majors who involve over 30 majors at Northwest University and interviewed some of them and their English teachers afterwards. 489 valid questionnaires were returned and they were analyzed with SPSS software. The supposition of this case study entails the following four aspects. 1) The teaching approach generally adopted in College English Intensive Reading class is out of date and reduces students' interest in English learning. 2) In class the majority of students are passive learners. 3) Students are looking forward to a change in teaching approaches. 4) In the teaching process, many issues on the part of teachers and students and other aspects prevent learners from achieving evidently good results from the reform of teaching approaches that has been conducted for many years. Through the analysis of the questionnaires and the interview afterward, the author has discovered the following serious issues that refrain students from achieving optimum learning outcomes in class: 1) Students lack motivation to participate in class activities; 2) Students are of different proficiency levels, thus large-class teaching cannot show good results; 4) Too much pressure from CET4&6 disturbs the normal College English teaching; 5) Teachers usually dominate the class; 6) The relationship between teachers and students is not satisfactory; 7) The coursebooks cannot fulfill students' needs; 8) The introduction of culture has not been given enough emphasis although language and culture are inseparable. The questions are very rational because they were decided after the author had observed the real class teaching, thus the results of the field study are practically in line with the suppositions.The thesis analyzes those issues and provides solutions accordingly. It also reminds teachers of some weaknesses of the teaching approaches preferred by scholars and teachers. In the end, it concludes that to obtain good teaching results, teachers should do well in these two tasks: 1) Try to improve students' whole-person development and satisfy their emotional needs. 2) Ideas and suggestions of students should be considered. In conclusion, the thesis elaborates or mirrors what students think College English Intensive Reading class should be like. For various reasons, the data is collected from one comprehensive university; thus the thesis cannot reflect the situation in all universities, but it is representative to a certain degree. The suggestions must be helpful in improving College English Intensive Reading teaching.