An Empirical Study On ESP Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

The rapid and continuous development of science and technology in the information age hasmade the employers put higher and more specific requirements on higher vocational graduates, thatthey should have a certain amount of expertise as well as other comprehensive skills, includingprofessional English. How to reform higher vocational English teaching and make it adapt to thetraining target of higher vocational colleges has become a major problem to be conquered. Atpresent, most of the graduates of higher vocational colleges can not realize the combination ofEnglish language theoretical knowledge learned in books with practical application. Therefore, howto reform higher vocational English teaching has become a major issue which bothers highervocational educators.As a teacher at the front line of English teaching in higher vocational colleges, the author ofthe thesis discovered that ESP (English for Specific Purposes, referred to as ESP) must beimplemented in higher vocational English teaching to change the current situation and meet theposition requirements for higher vocational English teaching. In order to further study theimplementation and development of ESP curriculum, the author takes Shandong Kaiwen Scienceand Technology Vocational College (in which the author teaches) as an example, to uncover themajor problems that exist and search for effective strategies to solve the problems. Combined withthe results of relevant research in the field of domestic and foreign scholars and after in-depth anddetailed study on the characteristics of ESP theory, the thesis gives an analysis on current problemsin ESP teaching, puts forward the feasibility to use the theory to guide ESP teaching, and activelyexplores effective methods to reform ESP teaching.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, three chapters are included and the contents areas follows：The introduction part illustrates the reasons and significance of the research, which paves away to discuss the main part of the thesis.The first chapter is an illustration of important concepts and literature review. First itdemonstrates relevant concepts and characteristics of higher vocational colleges, and then itdiscusses the definition, classification, the current status of the implementation and other relatedissues of ESP in higher vocational colleges.The second chapter is the empirical investigation and is the core of the thesis. In this part theauthor performs an empirical survey on the implementation and development of ESP curriculum inShandong Kaiwen Science and Technology Vocational College. Through the qualitative andquantitative experimental methods of tests, interviews and questionnaires, the survey covers many teaching aspects of ESP, such as the attitudes towards ESP, ESP syllabus and curriculum, ESPtextbooks, ESP teaching methods, ESP teachers and other issues. Results show that factors such asinadequate attention to ESP, unreasonable ESP curriculum, confusing ESP curriculum materialsselection, outdated ESP teaching methods and imperfect ESP curriculum assessment systems allcontribute to the problems mentioned above.The third chapter is the summary in which the author probes to find effective strategies toconquer the problems revealed in Chapter Two based on the further analysis of the survey data,literature review and personal experience.The conclusion part puts forward the inadequacies of the research. As we all know there is along way to go to improve the quality of ESP teaching fundamentally, although the thesis as a casestudy lacks of universality to some extent, the author still hopes to provide ideas and valuablereferences for higher vocational ESP reform and helps to establish a scientific and orderly ESPcurriculum system across the country.