The Application Of Dual Coding Theory In The Teaching Of English Situational Conversations In Vocational Schools

Based on the experiment I conduced in this thesis reports a study in the setting of vocational schools on how to apply the Dual Coding Theory (DCT) to the teaching of English situational conversations.Since China opened to the outside world in the late 1970s, economic and intercultural activities in China have increased fast. The employment market requires potentially competent employees. Many companies state clearly that they want their employees to have a good command of English to communicate in English. So teaching English situational conversations has been an important aspect in vocational schools. However, students'communicative competence is far from satisfaction and cannot meet the needs of society. Most of them are poor at oral English, unwilling to, even unable to express themselves in simple English. Therefore, the application of DCT to improve learners'oral English through the improvement of comprehension and memory ability seems to be practical in English teaching.In this thesis, the definition and the principles of DCT are presented. DCT assumes that cognition in reading consists of the activity of two separate coding systems of mental representation, one system specialized in language, and the other system specialized in dealing with nonverbal objects and events, referred to as imagery systems. The verbal representation or logogens are arranged in sequential and hierarchical structures, while imagens have a different internal organization. It is more synchronous,which means all the information is available at one time. According to DCT, information is stored in memory in both verbal and nonverbal forms,and would be remembered better than information encoded in only one way. In addition, imagery systems can help the learners understand the occasion and the content of the conversations. And the learners'emotional responses are related to both of the two systems. It is assumed that all of these aspects can be applied to the teaching of situational conversations.Conclusions are drawn from the data achieved through long-term experiments. The statistics presented in the oral-testing, the subjects in EG obviously outperform the subjects in the CG. The students in the EG are more active participate in the role-play performance. They have less anxiety and shyness in speaking English. They have more courage to take part in the activity and express their ideas and emotions bravely. As a result, their oral communicative competence is improved. And the unique advantages of DCT have been testified. Based on the analysis and data collection of the students'performance, the application of image strategy is to be one of best ways to improve their communicative competence in the teaching of situational conversations.But we must realize the application of DCT is not the only strategy to improve oral English teaching. Other teaching methods have their advantages and this method also has certain limitations. When we apply any strategy in teaching, we must take Chinese students'real conditions into account and make full use of merits of the teaching methods.