A Study On Application Of Situational Teaching Method To Oral English Teaching In Secondary Vocational Schools

With the globalization of the economy and the cultural exchanges around the worldcontinued to increase, as a universal language, English is playing an extremely important rolein international communication. The need to the capabilities of oral English application iscontinuously soaring in society. Therefore, the teaching of oral English has become a veryimportant part of English teaching at vocational schools. However, the current situation oforal English among Chinese students is not optimistic. Many vocational schools still apply thetraditional teaching method in English teaching now, so the students’ level of spoken Englishis generally low.“Dumb English” has become the biggest obstacle in English learning. Inresponse to this situation, considering the nature of oral English and characteristics ofvocational school students, the thesis is an attempt to make a study on whether thesituation-based teaching method should be applied for in oral English courses. The objectiveof this thesis is to improve the practical value of the oral English course, to encouragestudents to actively participate in oral English learning, and to help the teaching of oralEnglish to serve society.In this paper, under the guidance of Constructivist Learning Theory, Krasher’s InputTheory and Situational Cognitive Theory, the author made an analysis of the current situationof English teaching and learning in the vocational schools, and the oral English teaching isinput effectively to the students with the Situational Language Teaching. In order to analyzethe application effects of the Situational Language Teaching in the oral English teaching ofvocational school, the author chose two classes from Shijiazhuang Rail and TransportationSchool whose English level are similar, Class1217(the experimental class) and Class1218(the control class) in Passenger Transportation Department. At first, the pre-test and thepre-questionnaire about students’ interests on oral English learning were given to the students.Then the author carried out a4-months teaching experiment. During the teaching experiment,the Situational Language Teaching was applied in the experimental class; while traditionalteaching method was applied in the control classes. At the end of this experiment, the post-test and the post-questionnaire were given to thestudents. The test figure and the results of the questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively andqualitatively with statistical software SPSS17.0. The empirical results show that: theapplication of the Situational Language Teaching helps to improve the students’ interest andself-confidence. The Situational Language Teaching can improve the students’ oral Englishcommunication skills and the communicative competence. Based on the findings, the authorproposed relevant teaching suggestions, and pointed out the limitations and shortcomings inthis study, and the direction of future research.