Professional Ability-Oriented Teaching Reform On Tourism English Curriculum For Higher Vocational Colleges

The central government of China calls for a further development of higher vocational education. The"development"not only means quantity but also means quality. The fundamental task of China's vocational education is to cultivate skilled professionals and qualified laborers who are suitable for the construction of the four modernizations, so for the vocational education, the judgment of educational quality bases on whether the graduates can master the professional abilities to meet the needs of the demand of industry and society rather than how many scores they get.English communication ability is one of the necessary professional abilities to the higher vocational colleges'students who major in Tourism. As a compulsory curriculum for tour major, Tourism English curriculum in higher vocational colleges should emphasize on developing students'professional ability—English communication ability. But now the training of professional abilities in this curriculum is still in low level. In order to improve the English communication ability efficiently, we should take a professional ability-oriented teaching reform on Tourism English curriculum.The theories of Constructivism and Competency-Based Education affect this reform strongly. This paper which follows the research way of asking problems, analyzing problems and solving the problems and applies the theory of pedagogy, pedagogy on English and vocational pedagogy and the research methods of document study, interview and questionnaire discusses the background, present situation, theoretical basis, content and effects of professional ability-oriented Tourism English curriculum teaching reform of higher vocational colleges from the aspects of theory and practice.Firstly, write a document review through sorting out and classifying the related documents and find the limitations on the basis of referencing the results of previous studies to begin a further study.Secondly, get the first-hand information about the present situation of professional abilities training in Tourism English curriculum, the existing problems and the English personnel demand of some tourism enterprises through interviewing and doing questionnaire survey to some students and teachers of some Higher Vocational Colleges and some tourism enterprises in Jilin Province, which can enable the study to be target-oriented and authentic. Thirdly, elaborate the theoretical basis of tourism English teaching reform in detail and then put forward to the specific strategies of professional ability-oriented teaching reform on Tourism English curriculum. And the strategies are composed of the application of communicative language teaching method, multi-media classroom, a variety of teaching materials, the evaluation method which emphasizes the importance of both process and results in students learning and training high-quality Tourism English teachers.Finally, test the effectiveness of the reform by carrying on the questionnaire and the interview to the class which has accepted the Tourism English reform for almost one year to make the study theoretical as well as practical. The results show the above reform strategies not only can improve students'positivity to learn Tourism English but also can train and enhance the students'English knowledge and professional abilities.