A Study On Application Of Situational Language Teaching In Pre-school Vocational English Ability Training At Vocational College

Over the recent years, it can be seen that vocational education has been attached much importance in terms of education policy, and in the meantime, China's vocational education has made a historic breakthrough, making up half of higher education. In the wake of globalization and China's reform and opening-up, foreign language talents have been in great demand. Since 1990s, low-aging of English language learning, which is one of the three tendencies arising in the international second language teaching reform, has incurred a boom in foreign language teaching for pre-school education. However, a critical shortage of qualified pre-school English teachers has become a bottleneck of pre-school education. Against this backdrop, the major of Pre-school English Education began to take shape and flourished. The core problem of training pre-school English teacher is that how to make students master more pre-school vocational English abilities and how to meet the demands of their future real-world job better in pre-school English teaching.It is debated that though the Situational Language Teaching (SLT) in its original sense has not been theoretically hot issues, it has for an almost equally long time at least potentially existed in a new form in our modern society, and continues to thrive. The aim of this experiment research is to find out whether SLT is suitable for vocational college English classrooms; whether SLT can improve classroom atmosphere and can help student master more pre-school vocational English abilities when SLT is employed. Under the guidance of constructivist learning theory and Krashen's input theory, the author made a survey as well as an analysis of the current conditions of pre-school English teaching and learning in Vocational College of Foreign Languages, and worked out the teaching scheme for SLT teaching, which is aimed at exploring new teaching methods, of which the SLT is regarded as the optimum model in pre-school vocational English ability teaching according to the characteristics of pre-school English vocational college students.In this study, the author employed a compound of research methods, including questionnaires, face to face interviews, and classroom observation. Questionnaires and interviews concern teachers, students, and kindergartens; as to observation, it concerns an ongoing situation-based teaching project. The author chose two classes,one being the experimental class (2008 Pre-school Education Class 5) and the other is the control class (2008 Pre-school Education Class 6) and Class 5 carried out situational teaching experiments. Based on the data collected and analyzed, the author observes that SLT applied in the pre-school vocational English ability training is theoretically well-grounded and positively appreciated by teachers, and that it can stir up students'interest, build up their confidence, and effectively cultivate their language proficiency and pre-school vocational English ability. Therefore, conclusion is reached that SLT is of high advantages to be applied in the pre-school vocational English ability training. This paper includes five chapters:Chapter 1 is introduction, which mainly provides the information of the foreign language education backgrounds in vocational colleges, and introduces the necessity and significance of this research.Chapter 2 is the literature review. This chapter provides the related theories for this thesis. It includes three parts: the first part is about some conventional teaching methods, including the grammar-translation method, the direct method and the audio-lingual method. The second part is about knowledge of the Situational Language Teaching. It introduces the definition, categories, features, theoretical foundation of the Situational Language Teaching. Meanwhile, the third part is that it emphasizes the studies on the Situational Language Teaching at home and abroad.In Chapter 3 the author makes a survey of the application of the Situational Language Teaching in pre-school vocational English ability (PVEA) classroom at vocational colleges. And it also introduces the methodology of the research, expounding on the research process, detailed question designing, subjects, procedure and methods.Chapter 4 analyzes the data in three aspects: students of two Classes, teachers and employers. The results show that the application of SLT greatly enhances students'language proficiency and pre-school vocational English ability, are positively appreciated by teachers and improves their teaching effect, and wins acknowledgement and support from the kindergartens in the neighboring cities.Chapter 5 is Conclusion. The study finds that SLT has its own advantages to be applied in the PVEA training, and it is also worthy of promoting in other vocational English teaching fields. The chapter also points out the implications and the limitations of the study.