Causes And Countermeasures Of English Learning Difficulties At Secondary Vocational Schools

Vocational education is a key component of China’s educational system, and an importantmeans to promote employment, economic growth and social advancement, according to TheVocational Education Law of People’s Republic of China in1996. Premier Wen Jiabaoannounced to the People’s Congress in March2009that China will promote vocational educationwith greater efforts in the annual report. Priority will be given to secondary vocational education,particularly vocational education in rural areas. Vocational education programs in China havemade marked progress in recent years. However, vocational education has been identified by theChinese government as a weak area still.According to the English Teaching Syllabus for Secondary Vocational Schools, EnglishCourse is a public compulsory course for secondary vocational school students. The task of thiscourse is to enable students to master certain basic knowledge and skills of English, to cultivatestudents’ English applying ability in daily life and professional scene and to pave the way forstudents to continue learning and lifelong development. English teaching is a very importantsection in the teaching process of secondary vocational school. Only when students at secondaryvocational schools learn English well, can the English teaching quality be improved at secondaryvocational schools. However, according to some relevant investigations, the number of thestudents with learning difficulties in English at secondary vocational schools is more than70%,which severely hampers the development of students themselves and vocational education aswell.What are the main causes of students with learning difficulties in English at secondaryvocational schoools? How to promote students with learning difficulties in English? In order tofind some solutions to these problems and improve the current English teaching situation atsecondary vocational schools, the author conducted a research in order to find answers to thesequestions:1. What is the students’ attitude towards English learning?2. What is the currentsituation of students’ learning habits and learning methods?3. Do the students have difficulty incommunicating with their English teacher?4. What is the students’Chinese level?Based on the relevant literature and theory foundations both at home and abroad, the authordid a questionnaire survey in grade2009, grade2010and grade2011at Linyi Normal School. According to students’ answer to the first question in the questionnaire,296students withlearning difficulties in English were selected as the research subjects. Then the author collectedthe information and figured out the statistical results. The results are as follows: Among thestudents with learning difficulties in English, the number of boys is larger than that of girls. Moststudents with learning difficulties are not interested in English. The learning methods and studyhabits of students with learning difficulties are poor. Students with learning difficulties lackeffective communication with their teachers. Through the questionnaire survey and combinedcurrent English teaching practice, the author analyzed the following causes of students withlearning difficulties in English at Linyi Normal School:1. Lack of learning interest and learningmotivation.2. Lack of good learning habits and appropriate learning methods.3. Lack ofeffective communication between teachers and students.4. Low level of Chinese learning.Next the author tried to put forward some corresponding countermeasures and put them intopractice. The strategies are as follows:1. To design the English classroom teaching according toone’s personality.2. To cultivate good learning habits and appropriate learning methods.3. Tomaintain harmonious relationship between teachers and students.4. To learn English with thehelp of Chinese learning.5. To pay attention to the gender differences between boys and girls.To know the effect of the promotion strategies, the author interviewed ten students. Meanwhile, acase of change in a student was also presented to show the effect of the implementationstrategies. These countermeasures have achieved success with the cooperation of students withlearning difficulties. The study proved that the problem of students with learning difficulties inEnglish at secondary vocational schools can be solved to certain extent.