A Study On The Effectiveness Of Autonomous-Cooperative Teaching And Learning Model Based On Large-class English Teaching In Higher Vocational College

It's a common practice to take the large-class English teaching as a strategy for the enlargement of enrollment and for the solution to the problem of the lack of teaching facilities in Higher Vocational College(HVC).Faced with the students of poor discipline and low achievement, teachers normally feel that it is impossible to provide such a large number of students with enough opportunities to interact in English between the teacher and students or among students during the limited class time. Therefore, the traditional whole-class teaching approach seems to be the only way to solve the problem caused by large classes, and thus English is still taught as a kind of knowledge but not as a communicative tool, which is a serious deviation from the basic rules of language teaching. Therefore, at present the first thing to do is to improve the English teaching approaches and the students' practical ability of English. With the teaching mode shifting from teacher-centered to learn-centered in recent years, great attention has been drawn to autonomous learning and cooperative learning on one hand, and on the other hand, constructivism learning theory has greatly influenced foreign language teaching and learning. Therefore, it is doubtless that the application of constructivism in foreign language teaching and learning will come out positive.Constructivism emphasizes cognition, independence, experience and environment included in the constructing process of knowledge. This thesis synthesizes this view and the features of autonomous learning and cooperative learning, attempting to combine, from a constructivism perspective, the two seeming contradictory learning methods, so as to form another new method, that is, autonomous-cooperative teaching and learning. A new teaching and learning mode has been designed accordingly and applied in practical teaching and learning for the purpose of seeking an effective solution to this problem.This paper just focuses on introducing the new model and testing its effectiveness in teaching English. Within this new model, both in-class learning and out-of-class learning are emphasized. In the out-of-class learning, students' autonomous learning is highly advocated. And cooperative learning is advocated both in class and out of class. Learners become autonomous ones, who actively construct their own knowledge through group working, and are put at the center of learning. The teacher's role is shifted from an authoritative knowledge transmitter to a more approachable assistant, autonomous learner, facilitator, instructor, manger and assessor, whose duty centers on task design, motivating and assisting learners to learn effectively and offering evaluation. Classroom activities are not dominated by the teacher's monotonous lectures but by interactions between the teacher and the learners, or among learners.In this thesis, an experimental study is conducted upon non-English majors to test the effectiveness of autonomous-cooperative teaching and learning model for college English teaching (CET). The experimental study has lasted for half a year. In the study, the autonomous-cooperative approach and the final English examination results are used as variables to test if there is some significant difference between the experimental group and the controlled group.Finally, from the experiment it can prove that the autonomous-cooperative teaching and learning model is feasible for English teaching and learning in large English classes in Higher Vocational College. It can improve English Teaching of Higher Vocational College and the students in the EG would surpass those in the CG in the performance of English learning.