The Research On Students With Difficulties In English Learning In Higher Vocational Colleges:Problems And Strategies

Higher vocational education has become an important part of higher education. With the expansion of enrollment and the decline in the quality of students, a large number of students with learning difficulties inevitably turn up in higher vocational colleges. English as an important basic course in higher vocational colleges, its status is too worrying. The students have difficulties in English learning with low self-efficacy and disengaged in study, thus they perform poorly in study, mind and behavior more or less. The problems generated from these students not only are unfavorable for their self-improvement, but also pose huge obstacles to advance higher vocational education teaching management if they are not handled properly.The phenomenon of passive learning in higher vocational colleges is common with regard to the students’English classroom performance. This is no exception in Changsha Vocational and Technical College. As a teacher with many years’teaching experience, the author has been confused with her colleagues by this phenomenon for a long time. With such background information, the author conducted research seeking answers to the following questions:What are the major problems of students with difficulties that exist in English learning? What makes them feel English is hard to learn? And what measures can teachers take to transform them into active learners? To try to answer these questions, the author conducted a questionnaire to investigate the present status of 220 students in English learning in Changsha Vocational and Technical College and explore the problems they had in English learning, as well as its relationship with their exam grades. Moreover, a successful case study in transforming three of them was carried out.The data analysis indicates that there are some problems existing in students with difficulties in English learning in higher vocational colleges. They can be mainly summarized into seven aspects, namely, lack of interest in learning, weak learning foundation, fuzzy learning motivation, negative learning attitude, unsatisfactory learning atmosphere, inappropriate learning methods and strategies and poor autonomous learning ability. There are several reasons for this. But for now, one is mainly due to the students’poor foundation, their passive attitude as well as their weak autonomy learning ability which results in being an unaccustomed situation in college learning; the other is caused by the teacher’s insufficient attention to them and traditional and boring teaching methods which can not meet the requirement of teaching. It is crucial for the teachers to help students with difficulties in English learning change for new ideas and apply appropriate strategies to boost learning according to different features of individuals.There are some considerable limitations because of the small scale of the subjects in the thesis. However, it provides some feasible strategies for transforming students with difficulties in English learning in higher vocational colleges and offers references for college teachers on how to enhance their English learning.