A Study On "Listening And Speaking Centered, Computer-based" Graded Teaching Model Of College English

In 2007, College English Curriculum Requirements (Requirements hereafter) was formally issued and it indicates college English education enters into a new phase of development. Requirements points out definitely that "As China is a large country with conditions that vary from region to region and from college to college, the teaching of College English should follow the principle of providing different guidance for different groups of students and instructing them in accordance with their aptitude so as to meet the specific needs of individualized teaching". Meanwhile, it proposes basic, intermediate and higher requirements.Graded education is the basic character of Requirements, which concretely shows the flexibility. Under the system, students are divided into A, B and C levels and taught respectively by using different teaching methods and materials. At the end of each term, all of the students participate in the same final examination. 10% of the students from class B or C could go on the more advanced classes to study respectively or vice versa, namely those students of classes A or B who failed to pass the examination would be descended to the lower classes. Graded education adapts to the current English education situation, accords with teaching rules—from simple to complicated and from easy to difficult and fully displays the principle of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude.In addition, as the popularization of higher education and information technique, the objective of college English is to develop students' ability to use English in a all-rounded way, especially in listening and speaking. The Requirements also point out to remould the existing unitary teacher-centered pattern of language teaching by introducing computer-and classroom-based teaching models. Therefore, combined with the new requirements, "listening-centered, computer-based" College English Graded Teaching model is proposed.Graded education is carried out successfully, but it also has problems, which are especially on low-proficiency students in Class C. First of all, it is unavoidable to have an affective influence on students in Class C, such as confidence, initiative and so on. How can the negative effects be lowered to the minimum? Second, if students in Class C can't achieve improvement, they will oppose the model and even give themselves up to despair. How can students in Class C take advantage in this model to maximum? The research aims to solve the two problems mentioned above.The author did a questionnaire and found that the biggest obstacles of English learning were vocabulary, listening and speaking for Class C. Vocabulary teaching can be conducted mainly in two ways: direct and indirect teaching. The present research compares two C classes' vocabulary learning and finds direct vocabulary teaching conduces to break through the critical vocabulary level. And activities related to vocabulary, such as vocabulary competition, is helpful for memorizing words. But in the further investigation, the research finds the efficiency of direct teaching to improve productive words is not obvious. So based on the research, the author proposes teaching methods in class, combining direct and indirect learning.As for the improvement of listening and speaking, first of all it is about in-class teaching. The biggest problem of listening and speaking-centered class is the dreary atmosphere due to affective factors. Because of low language proficiency and dynamic management, students in Class C are always in the state of anxiety, causing inactive in-class atmosphere. Affective factors involve quite a lot, such as motivation, anxiety, confidence, personality and so on. In order to better organize the teaching, the author puts forwards three methods to reduce anxiety. Secondly, it is about after-class teaching. Students in Class C lack learner autonomy. In order to improve their listening and speaking ability, another 2 class hours is arranged to do listening and speaking practice in learner autonomy center. Individual instruction is offered according to the computer record of students' score. The research compares two C classes and finds after one term the oral performance of Class C undergoing learner autonomy learning is superior to that of control class. After one year, both oral and listening performances are superior to those of control class.By concerning on anxiety, vocabulary, listening and speaking, the Band-4 pass rate of the whole grade reaches a new climax of 91.4%. Thereinto, the pass rate of Class C is 87.5%. Compared with Class A, the gap between them is obviously shortened.