Using DVD Films To Enhance English Teaching In Vocational School

Due to the increased senior high school enrollment and the current educational reforms, vocational schools in Beijing are facing a difficult situation. The overall competence and aptitude of vocational students are declining, making more difficult for teachers to accomplish real educational progress. Moreover, with the rapid increase of international exchange, English plays a more significant role as a global language of communication. Under the existing circumstances, the author made a study of exploring a more effective way of teaching English in her vocational school, with the aid of modern technology: DVD movies.Movies' application in English teaching has a long history. In recent years, the radical improvement in the movie industry has brought about DVDs, which have replaced traditional VHS as the movie medium of the new millennium. DVD has many functional devices, including interactive menus, theatrical trailer, behind-the-scene commentary, multi-language subtitles and immediate scene access. Equipped with these new functions, DVD movies provide more pedagogical options with rich resources of intrinsically motivating materials for learners. Studies both from home and abroad have shown the effectiveness of DVD-aided English teaching. (Lin, 2000, 2002; Markham, 1999)This study examines the effectiveness of DVD-aided English teaching in a Beijing vocational EFL setting. It balances "learner-catering" and "teacher-dominating" approaches in combination with a curriculum built upon DVD movies. The specific diagnostic focus of this work is to determine how the combined teaching method impacts student learning on: 1) motivation; 2) classroom performance and collaborative study; 3) language acquisition achievements; 4) cultural awareness development. And it creates the hypothesis that the mutual influence of a collaborative classroom management style and a movie-based curriculum will enable students to 1) acquire more efficient learning strategies and strengthen language learning motivation; 2) attain a positive and collaborative sense in both classroom and personal spheres; 3) achieve more success in integrated EFL skills; 4) adopt critically objective views on westernculture.This experiment lasted for a full 18-week semester, which covers 36 teaching periods. The subjects for this study were 68 new students from Beijing Financial and Business School, whose English proficiency was generally lower than those enrolled in senior high schools. The test examines students' pre-test and after-test results of: 1) integrated language skills; 2) language learning motivation; 3) understanding of Western culture. All teaching materials were six DVD films, including The Terminal, Finding Nemo, Home on the Range, Daddy Day Care, The Day after Tomorrow, and Dead Poets Society. Teaching activities were designed relevant to the content of each movie and the students' English level. The most important two examinations used in my research are the Cambridge Key English Test and Beijing Oral English Certificate (BOEC) Test. Students' results in both tests before and after the study are comparatively analyzed. Other instrumental tools involved in this study were questionnaires and interviews.The result of the study concludes that a semester's DVD-aided teaching can greatly improve students' English proficiency. Students gain not only confidence in a more relaxing and motivating learning environment, but also a broader vision of English world, and have developed a more mature and critical view of culture. In addition, they have realized the importance of negotiation skills, group and mutual support as part of a team learning project. Apart from language competence, these interpersonal skills will surely serve these young adults for the rest of their lives.All in all, the result of the current research is encouraging. It is the author's hope that it will inspire future researchers to examine the efficiency of the use of DVD movies in other aspects of language education.