A Study Of Project-based Approach To English Reading Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

The aim of Higher Vocational Education is “to serve students as a purpose and to beemployed as a guide", which requires Higher Vocational Colleges to cultivate applied talentsand supply labor force to compete successfully in world market. In The Basic Requirementsfor FIVE English Course (2000)，issued by the Department of Higher Education of StateEducation Ministry, the English teaching goals are stated as “adhering to the pirnciple of’being applied and ade’quate in the English teaching of higher vocational colleges”，whichis in keeping with the educational objectives of Higher Vocational Colleges and the socialneeds. The principle of "being applied and adequate in English teaching" shows that Englisheducation should pay more attention to promoting students’ practical language competenceand professional skills. So the English teaching of HVE should focus on students’ practicalability of English, especially on reading ability, which is a basic and important skill to obtaininformation from outside world. However, there is a serious conflict between this objectiveand the present teaching methods and the true reading situation of Higher Vocational students.As we know, reading is usually regarded as the most direct and effective way for us toobtain information among many approaches to language learning. That is to say, reading cankeep people informed and cultivate their taste atfer they are equipped with basic culturalqualities. So the importance of reading teaching in English teaching cannot be neglected,particularly in Higher Vocational Colleges. However，the current teaching model leads to thesituation that most students in Higher Vocational Colleges still have some problems in English reading, including low interest in reading and lack of vocabulary, background knowledge aswell as reading skills. Because this traditional teaching model concentrating on teacher,textbook and examination cannot meet the social needs for applied talents in English, it isimperative to explore a new teaching model in English reading teaching of higher vocationalcolleges.Project-Based Approach (PBA) is not onJy a new teaching model but a new teachingmethod which focuses on cultivating students’ comprehensive quality of autonomy, inquiryand cooperation, with the textbook as the basis, the project as the extension, the students’independent completion as the study methods and products presentation as an assessmenttool.Consideirng the problems existing in students’ English reading, this thesis expects toinspire students’ interest in English reading, promote their competence of autonomouslearning and cooperative learning, and improve their reading skills and reading ability byapplying PBA to English classroom teaching.This research chose two parallel classes in Jincheng Institute of Technology to conductthe PBA expeirment. In this study, the author first adopted questionnaires and interviews tolearn the differences in HVC students’ English reading interest, autonomous and cooperativelearning, their present learning situation and their opinions of current teaching approachbefore and atfer the experiment. The author also tired to find out PBA，s effect on HVCstudents’ English reading marks through the pre-test and post-test. By comparative analysis tocollected data, the author found that there was a significant difference in HVC students’English reading interest, autonomous and cooperative learning and their English readingscores before and after the expeirment. The results indicate that PBA can greatly inspirestudents’ interest in English reading, promote their abilities of autonomous learning andcooperative leanring, and improve their reading skills and reading ability to some extent justas expected before the expeirment. Finally, some limitations, implications and suggestions forfurther research are pointed out in the thesis.