The Use Of The Length Approach In English Language Teaching In Vocational Colleges

Writing, as one of the four main basic skills, can reflect how well a language learner can use the target language but it is long neglected in China. The Length Approach, initiated by Wang Churning from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, is a new approach to the foreign language teaching of writing. The approach has been put into practice in several universities and proved a successful new teaching method for helping students improve their language learning as well as writing but it was seldom used in vocational colleges.The study tries to introduce the approach into a vocational college and prove that it can also benefit the students there by improving the writing skill, forming a good habit of learning English, etc.In the first two chapters, the thesis states the importance of writing and relevant theories of Constructivism and Comprehensible Input. In the third chapter, the details about how to do the research are given. The students involved in the experiment were the students from Suzhou Early Childhood Education College. In the fourth chapter, the results of these tests are analyzed and discussed. The result analyses show that the experimental class can achieve much more improvement in their English writing and learning than the controlled class can at the end of the term. The students' confidence and interests of the experimental class in leaning English have been greatly enhanced. The research findings show that the length approach can also be a successful one used in vocational colleges. Chapter Five draws a conclusion of the whole study and gives some suggestions for the future English teaching.Some problems still remain unsolved because it is the first time for the writer to apply the approach to vocational colleges. For example, how long can a composition be called a long one for the students? Some suggestions are given at the end of the thesis for further study.