| This paper reports on a study of Mastery Learning for adult students of non-English major in a Chinese vocational college in an attempt to find out the degree of its effectiveness compared with conventional English teaching methods in which students scores are mainly decided by the final exam, to find out whether poor learners can get better results than those with other teaching methods and to stimulate students' interests in learning English.Chapter One gives an introduction of the research. The author not only presents the aims and significance of the present research, but also reports the studies and implementations of Mastery Learning theory both abroad and in China. Similar researches for students in primary and high schools were done before and most of the results were favorable. Adult students are different from children and teen-agers in many aspects, such as in psychology, physiology and the motivation of study. Can the method be successful, if the targets are adults? It is the answer to that question that the current study wants to find out. If the results are positive, this method can be used in teaching extensively and more adult students will benefit from it.Chapter Two reviews an important learning theory, behaviorism, which paves the way for Mastery Learning. The author also gives a general introduction of the leading figures in Mastery Learning theory: J. B. Carroll, B. S. Bloom and J. H. Block. In addition, the basic concept of Mastery Learning is discussed in this chapter.Mastery Learning (also called Objective Teaching [目标教学] in China) is an instructional strategy based on the principle that nearly all the students can learn a set of reasonable objectives with appropriate instruction and sufficient time to learn. According to Mastery Learning theory, aptitude is the length of time it takes a person to learn; it is not how "bright" a person is. The Mastery Learning method divides subject matter into units that have predetermined learning objectives or unit expectations. Teachers give instructions according to the specified aims. They get feedback from students and make adjustment timely in teaching when necessary. Formative evaluations are given to the students at different stages to check their learning results. Students must demonstrate mastery on unit exams, typically 80%, before moving on to new materials. Students who do not achieve mastery receive remediation through tutoring, peer monitoring, small group discussions, or additional homework. Additional time for learning is prescribed for those requiring remediation. Students continue the cycle of studying and testing until mastery is met. Mastery Learning can shift the distribution of student achievement from the typical distribution when using conventional methods (20% of the students achieve distinction) to a distribution where 80% of students are achieving distinction level.Chapter Three discusses possibilities of the theory to be successfully used in adult learning. It seems that adult learners can do well in the implementation of Mastery Learning. First, the learning capacity of adult doesn't cease to move becauseof the physiological mature, and their learning ability doesn't obviously decline along with the development of age. Research shows that 25 is the best stage of learning. In vocational college, most of the students are around that age. That lays a solid foundation for the present research. Second, although adults' mechanical memory is declining, their memory of understanding is growing. Their critical faculty, logical thinking and the ability to solve problems are also getting mature. That is a great advantage for the adult students. Third, adults have strong desire to learn knowledge. Most of them have income and fixed jobs, the purposes of their going back to the college vary: ranging from satisfying their needs for higher education, learning more knowledge, improving working skills, promoting their cultural status, to transferring to a better job. In this situation, they want to study rather than being asked t... |
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