The Application Of Micro-Lectures To Teaching English Listening In Vocational School

With the development of educational informatization,it has been an inevitable tendency to combine English teaching with information technology.Micro-lecture has been developed and spread rapidly in China since 2011.From then on,many English teachers attempt to apply micro-lectures in their teaching,such as grammar,oral English,etc.However,there are not so many teachers in vocational school having applied it in teaching English listening,so this study sheds light on whether the application of micro-lectures to teaching English listening can enhance students' listening proficiency as well as the teachers' and students' attitudes towards micro-lecrture in English listening in vocational school in combination with Constructivism and Discovery Learning Theory.In order to explore whether the application of micro-lecture to teaching English listening can enhance students' listening proficiency,this study conducted a pretest and a posttest in the experimental class and controlled class(43 students respectively and majored in Pre-school Education).The pretest(PETS-1 examination paper in March 2016)was conducted at the beginning of the semester,which aims to test the listening proficiency of the two classes before the experiment,and at the end of the semester,the posttest(PETS-1 examination paper in September 2015)was conducted in the two classes to test the students' listening proficiency after a semester's listening teaching:micro-lecture was applied in the experimental class,while the controlled class was taught as usual.The students' listening proficiency was mainly embedded in identifying pictures,grasping main ideas,recognizing key words,distinguishing details,giving right answers to the questions,etc.Then,the data of pretest and posttest were collected and analyzed by SPSS 19.0 and got the result.Meanwhile,the students in the experimental class and 60 English teachers from five vocational schools in Gansu Province who have taught English listening were asked to fill out the corresponding questionnaires on Wenjuanxing to explore the students' and teachers' attitudes towards micro-lecture in English listening.All these data were collected,and then analyzed by SPSS 19.0.It can be concluded that micro-lecture can enhance students' listening proficiency.The teaching is more effective with the application of micro lecture in teaching English listening in the experimental class than the controlled class.The students have been able to identify the pictures,grasp the main idea,recognize the key words,distinguish some details,give the right answers to the questions they have heard and have a general idea of the conversations better during their listening.Meanwhile,most of the students and teachers in vocational school think that micro-lecture in English listening does contribute to their learning and teaching,and both of them prefer to apply it in English listening.However,they are worried about the application of micro-lecture in English listening may increase burdens to them,so they are taking a wait-and-see approach to the application of micro-lecture in English listening.In addition,the reason why English teachers in vocational school make micro-lecture in English listening varies with their ages.Micro-lecture,as a connection of education and information technology,has great positive effect on English listening teaching and learning in vocational school.It is quite necessary to encourage and motivate teachers and students to apply it to their teaching and learning.However,more surveys should be conducted to generalize and deepen the application of micro-lectures in English listening,and explore more effective way of improving students' English listening proficiency in vocational school as well.