Application Of Whole Language Approach In Xinjiang Class Of Preparatory School

With the further development of Chinese economic system reform and the ongoing process of western development, our country pay more and more attention to educational development of the northwest minority. In such situation, the government set up many preparatory schools for national minorities to adapt to the college life quickly. The Xinjang Uygur autonomous Region is the largest and most important region in the northwest of China. The government admits many Xinjiang national minorities to enter in the preparatory schools. The preparatory school is a kind of school where the national minorities can learn the basis courses in one or two years before they enter into the universities. It improves the minority students in various aspects. Since2003, the Nan Chang Institute of Science and Technology (NCIST) has become one of the main national minorities cultivation bases. It cultivates about more than ten thousand national minorities for colleges and universities of the whole nation every year. The teachers of NCIST have been engaged in minority education and training. They have been studied in the teaching methods of ethnic minorities in many courses. English, is one of the major courses and it is extremely important to study the teaching and learning of English."Whole language approach"(WLA) is also called "Learning language as a whole". This term began to spring up in the1980s by a number of US educators who concerned on the teaching of language arts. At first, it was used to teach the children whose native language is English to read and write; later, it developed into the whole process of English teaching; and then, it was introduced by Goodman and Freeman; within about thirty years development, it has developed into the second language teaching and has formed a whole set of theories and principles in the second language teaching. At present, it produces important influence.in North America, Britain, New Zea-land, Australia and other countries. Alone in Canada and the United States, there are more than400"Teachers Applied Whole Language" associations. In the past more than30years age, with a large number of scholars pushing of WLA, it has become one of the most extensive teaching methods of teachers. And Chinese scholars began to pay close attention to this teaching idea in recent years.At home, Qin Xiugui "Review of Whole Language Approach"and Shu Daping&Jin Qijun" the Exploration of Whole Language Approach "are introduced us the basic principles and functions of the whole language. Ming Guoying "the Application of Whole Language Approach in College English Texts", and Liu Jie "the Application of Whole Language Approach in High Vocational College English Teaching" put the WLA in application. Now, the WLA is rarely used in the Primary and secondary schools and even universities.This thesis tried to apply the WLA in the XJCPS, for the purpose of improving the students’ interests in learning English, learning ability and academic performance.Firstly, the author used the literature method to summarize the history, core concept, characteristics, principles, and significances of WLA. Secondly, the author did a questionnaire survey to understand the characteristics and English level of the XJP. Thirdly, the author separated two classes in teaching, and one-122X02used the traditional teaching method and the other-122X01used the WLA. Finally, the author compared the students in English learning abilities by the SPSS.The thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the background, the purpose and significance, and overview about the thesis. Chapter Two is literature review which introduces and analyses the theory of WLA, related studies on theoretical basis, characteristics, principles, functions and significance of WLA. Chapter Three is the case study that is the main part of this thesis, which contains the research objects and research methodology. The research objects describe the characteristics and English learning status of Xinjiang preparatory students, including psychological characteristics of XJP, English learning status of XJP, problems and causes of XJP’English learning. The research methodology describes how to apply WLA in the XJCPS. All the data were from the students’questionnaire. It is composed of22items, of which twenty are objective questions and two are open-ended questions. Chapter Four works out the evaluation of WLA in XJCPS. The evaluation was divided into two parts, the non-traditional evaluation and traditional evaluation. The non-traditional evaluation depends on the teacher’s daily observation and the students’ self assessment. And the traditional evaluation depends the analysis of the test. Chapter Five makes a conclusion of the whole thesis. It points out the findings, limitations, implications and tentative suggestions for further research.Through the teaching experiment of half a year, students’ learning initiative and enthusiasm have greatly improved. They are no longer afraid of learning English, and dare to put forward their own views. In terms of English learning, the students form the habit of preview to review. They can do supervision and evaluation by themselves. In the aspect of humanities, they can get along well with the teachers and other students. The teaching activities become interactive and interesting, and students’ learning abilities have been improved. But the scores of the two classes are similar. It means the WLA doesn’t have obvious advantage to the traditional teaching approach on the scores at the primary stage. There are two reasons:the first one is that the time of experiment is short, it can’t reflect the advantages of the WLA; the second one is that the content of the test is not equal to the content of all the learning materials. The content of the WLA is often more than the traditional approach, and the test paper which is only according to text-book can not reflect this, so the scores of the WLA don’t have large significance.