A Case Study Of Influences On English Teaching Modes Caused By Class-size And Student-type

In this research, the writer conducts a one-year follow-up case study of a college English teacher who not only teaches an English-majored class (small class) but also a non-English-majored class(large class), meanwhile she makes investigations and classroom observations of the teacher’s teaching modes from the perspectives of perception, psychology and society. Moreover,71students, including23English-majored, and48non-English-majored, taught by the teacher-subject are surveyed by the way of questionnaire investigations.This survey lasts from September of2011to July of2012, in which qualitative and quantitative data are collected. Qualitative data are analyzed at first, and then the analyzing results are obtained through a linear analysis model. At the same time, quantitative data are analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis, and differences among groups are analyzed by paired T-test. Finally, results from statistical analyses are deeply analyzed with qualitative data, while quantitative data are used as supplementary illustration, so as to know the teacher’s preferences for teaching modes in the English-majored class (small class) and the non-English-majored class (large class), and the changes of teaching modes from the first term to the second term, and the differences in teaching modes between the two classes.The results of the research indicate that:auditory teaching mode is the most liked one by the teacher in the two classes. Kinesthetic, reflective and cooperative teaching mode has been reinforced by the teacher from the first to the second semester in the small class, but they are weakened in the large class. Moreover, there are no significant differences in all English teaching modes between the two classes in the first semester, and there are also no significant differences in English teaching modes between the two classes except kinesthetic and cooperative teaching modes in the second semester.Finally, according to the preferences for some English teaching modes in the English-majored class and the non-English-majored class, and English teaching modes caused by class-sizes and student-types, the writer presents some teaching suggestions. This study is not perfect, but it may be helpful to English teaching and learning.