Research On Project-based Learning In College English Practical Teaching

With the further reform of higher education in depth, the focus of English teaching has been gradually changing from the previous exam-oriented education to the quality education whose focus is ability development. In recent years, with the multi-level, multi-dimensional, diversified development of global foreign language, project-based learning, a very popular educational mode in foreign countries, has become increasingly important in China. If the project-based learning can be introduced appropriately in English teaching, with existing knowledge and skills, it would stimulate students to carry out active and explosive learning and to share their ideas,knowledge and problem-solving strategy, and thus improve the students'overall practical ability.Project-based learning is one of the inquiry study modes. In this learning mode, the students can make use of resources to carry out exploration activities which are related to real life under the guidance of teachers. Typically, students work to bulid knowledge through their final work. Project-based learning is student-centered, it not only can cultivate the students'innovative capacity but can promote the students' independent learning ability and prompt them to conduct research study through combing their own experience and resources. During the process of project-based learning, students can share their ideas, knowledge, and find the best solution to a certain problem by discussion, thus this cooperative learning can greatly improve their practical ability and overall ability of using language.The activity of PBL refers to the deep and direct understanding and observation toward a thing (with the value of learning and research and that students are interested in) in real life; it's also a student-centered educational activity which gained the experience and learning from their personal experience. During the process of project activities, under the guidance of teachers, the learners can choose to complete the project tasks independently or in groups. This learning mode not only can improve the learner's interest in active learning, but also can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of learning.Project-based learning is based on constructivist learning theory. Constructivist learning theory encourages students to construct active knowledge based on the combination of their own experience and the real environment. And what the project-based learning emphasizes is just to build personal knowledge in real situations through the design of learning scenarios.PBL teaching method has many characteristics that make it different from traditional teaching methods. First of all, project-based teaching method is student-centered, teachers just guide and cooperate with them. In project-based learning process, teachers provide the learners with topics relevant to the content of classroom teaching and collaborative communication task instructions, the students are the real center. Generally, learners seek the way to solve problems together through data collection, research and discussion. In this process, the integrated practical ability, innovative ability and cooperative ability have been improved. Second, PBL can give full play to the students'autonomy. An important principle of PBL is that students can choose the theme and content of learning according to their own interest, which means students have full right to choose what they would like to learn. Since learning topic and content is selected according to their interests and expertise, then students can maintain a high level of passion for learning throughout the whole process and they will actively seek to explore, to discover and to solve problems. Throughout the learning process, students can truly demonstrate self-confidence, self-reliance, and the principle of autonomy can be embodied too. Therefore, this learning activity is a real sense of self-study. Students with self-awareness can constantly keep their passion for learning in learning activities and their initiative and creativity can be developed too. Third, PBL emphasizes the combination of learning and real-life. Because PBL research problems are some problems closely related to the learner's practical life, it pays much attention to the connection between discipline knowledge and the real life. Furthermore, it can overcome the tendency that the current basic education curriculum has divorced from the reality. Compared with the traditional teaching, PBL is an effective way to break through the constraint of classroom, in this sense, it's a really practical teaching method. Moreover, because PBL needs the help of many social resources, this just requires students to research the real world outside the classroom through a series of activities such as data collection, observation or expert interviews.Selecting a topic, making plans, gathering materials, developing products, sharing results and assessing the project are the main procedures of project-based learning implementation. First, because of students'different interests and hobbies, their topics are also not the same. In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of learners, the students can be divided into several groups, so that they can determine their own leaders and their respective role assignments. After selecting topics, each group needs to make plans for the project to implement the project. At the same time, they also need to design the tools, methods, means, time and consider possible issues that may arise. Then the team members begin to collect information to help answer or solve the major problems. The Internet, newspapers, magazines, radio,television and experts interview are all the sources of data collection. After the collection of materials, each group can select certain ways to present research results, such as reports, PPT, role play, etc. At the same time, the learners should be encouraged to communicate with each other about their learning outcomes, so as to promote the learner's reflection on the learning process. At last, the project should be assessed, including teacher evaluation, peer evaluation, self-evaluation, etc., these evaluations will help students further improve their learning outcomes, so as to continuously improve their learning ability and effectiveness.The practical data analysis indicates that the project-based teaching approach is beneficial for stimulating the students'learning interest and improving their learning initiative; in addition, college English project-based learning provide students with many learning opportunities to interact with each other, therefore, their language skills could get improvement in a real sense; moreover, in the practical experimental process, either the student's thinking skills, oral presentation skills, courage, or their information technology, innovation and cooperation skills have been trained and improved to different degrees.Although the project-based learning has just started its theoretical and experimental research in the field of English teaching in China, with its constant spread and effective implementation in English teaching, PBL would gradually become an effective way to motivate students'learning, to improve their language proficiency and to develop their cooperative ability, independent learning ability, innovative ability and integrated practical ability.