A Study Of Constructing Interactive English Classroom Teaching In Vocational School

As the importance of English teaching is gradually valued by the whole society in recent years, English language, as a compulsory course, is making itself into vocational schools. English language teaching usually starts with knowledge and is intended for competence, which requires a lot of skill practice. The thesis begins with an introduction of present conditions vocational students in English learning and research questions: based on interactive theory and practical study, this thesis aims how to enhance the students' interest and motivation, develop their communicative competence and overall language abilities by adopting interactive classroom; how to construct interactive English classroom teaching effectively in Vocational schools. It is expected to help to build a better perspective for future Vocational English teaching.In chapter 2, the definition of interaction is firstly given. Interaction means to act mutually and perform reciprocally. Then from language acquisition point of view to analysis why and how to adopt interactive teaching approaches. Further concern is the relationship of interaction and communication, interest and motivation. Once students' interest and motivation are aroused in English learning, they will not take it as a burden. Finally a detailed review about effectiveness of adopting interactive teaching is listed: firstly, to train students to acquire communicative ability in English. Students should realize English as a living language; secondly, to shift from a teacher-dominated to a student-centered classroom. The students are real masters of learning; thirdly, to promote cooperation as well as competition, which is beneficial to cultivate effective communicators.Chapter three is three main parts of this thesis, which is composed by the research design of English interactive classroom teaching experiment.The experiment was carried out at the Hebei Commercial and Technical School for three months (Sep,2004--Nov, 2004) . Two classes are chosen. One is the experimental class taught by interactive approaches and the other is control class taught by traditional way.Firstly an interview was made to gather basic, general information about the English course and students' needs. Generally speaking, the vocational students expect to learn English well but their foundations are too poor; they appear to recognize the importance of English competence to the future career and future education but they can not put what they learn into practice; it is worth noticing that some vocational students' interest is declining or low interest in English learning. They hope to change monotony of teaching materials and spoon-feeding style of teachers: they wish to obtain the language competence in a more lively atmosphere.In the experiment, evaluation of students' achievement is conducted by comparison times statistics about speak voluntarily when being given lessons in two classes; a questionnaire is designed to get a whole idea of the students' interest, motivation, and attitude in English learning; tests including listening, speaking, reading, and writing are given twice, as both pretest and posttest. The findings and the analysis are followed.In chapter 3 some important activities are introduced: questions and answers, role-play, games and discussion. It has also explored the techniques of designing activities through concrete examples. Teachers should encourage students to ask more questions, bring students into full play, games can fully stimulate student-student interaction and create situations to attract them to discuss questions. Teachers should inspire the students' interest, motivate and enthusiasm so that the students can learn vividly and energetically. The teachers should not always insist on accuracy in language use.What follows in Chapter 3 is the ways to adopt in interactive English classes, which includes teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction even students-teacher interaction and student-computer interaction. Teachers should change their roles and teaching concepts. Teachers are no longer in their dominant position while students are not passive receivers any more. Teachers should give moderate regulation and guidance, and gain the best effect of interactive classes. Multi-media computers are widely used in classes, which can enlarge the teaching contents, quicken the teaching rhythm and help the students understand teaching materials more easily.