The Application Of Immersion Teaching Patterns In The English Class Of Secondary Vocational Schools

The existing problem in secondary vocational schools is that the students spend much time learning English, but make a little progress in language learning. Another common problem is the lack of communicative competence and listening ability. To solve the above-mentioned problems, I first devised a questionnaire guided by the theory of second language acquisition in order to find out the current conditions of the students' English learning environment. The survey involves the students in three different secondary vocational schools (a national key one, a provincial key one and an ordinary one ). It tries to find out the answers to the following questions: 1. What is the current classroom environment in English learning ? 2.What is the English learning environment after class? 3.Do the affective factors influence the students' second language acquisition?The investigation shows the major problem in English learning environment comes from the following sources: the lack of learning environment outside classroom; the English class as the major, and in many cases, the only available learning environment; the lack of a good learning environment in traditional English class. This paper, according to the current conditions of the students 'English learning environment, aims to improve the environment for English acquisition, with its emphasis on the study of classroom environment, whereas the learning environment outside classroom.In traditional English class, the teachers tend to emphasize the teaching of knowledge skills. They therefore produce students lacking comprehensive skills. In class, the teacher talks too much of the time, thus taking away valuable practice time from the students. So learners are passive knowledge receivers. No interactive activities exist between the teacher and the students. As a result, the students' creative ability and individuality are ignored. It shows that the English learners in secondary vocational schools are short of real communicative surroundings whether in class or outside.For this reason, the author, based on the theory of second language acquisition and combined with the investigation of English learning situation in second vocational schools, applies the comparative method to the experiment. I apply the "immersion teaching method" to the experimental group in class, while simultaneously use the traditional method for the comparison group which is initially identical to this experimental group. At the beginning of the term, I pretest these two groups on listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities. And then at the ending of this term, I posttest the two groups again on the same four items. The outcome shows that students in the experimental group make greater achievements in four skills than students in the comparison group. Why do the students in experimental group develop better? There are two reasons for this: The first one is the teacher for the experimental group pays more attention to affective factors, such as motivation, interest and anxiety, etc; The second reason lies in the creation of the "immersion learning environment" . I create "immersion learning environment" in the following ways: comprehensible input, audio-visual method, situational method, aural-oral method and task-based language teaching.According to the outcome of the experiment, the author of the thesis makes a series of suggestions for the creation of a better English learning environment in order to improve students' comprehensive skills.