Study On The Teaching Language Skills Training Of Normal University Students Based On Blended Learning

Recent years have seen an increasingly greater weight being attached by China,while promoting quality education in an all-round way,to the training and development of teacher education and teacher resources.Teaching language skills(hereinafter abbreviated as TLS),as one of the most basic teaching skills,has become the focus of teacher education programs as it is supposed to.However,the approaches adopted in the traditional TLS training programs,which are excessively focused on time-and-resource-limited class lectures,are insufficient to address the actual TLS-improvement needs of normal university students.To this end,a new round of teaching approach reform stands out as an essential solution.The Action Plan for the Revitalization of Teacher Education,issued in 2018 by the Ministry of Education and its peers,advocates to make full use of the latest information technologies,construct and apply more and better information-based teaching service platforms for teacher education,and embrace teaching approach changes characterized by autoinstruction,cooperation,and exploration.Under such a context,the concept of blended learning is in concordance with the government appeal.It blends the advantages of traditional teaching with those of information-based teaching to optimize the teaching effect.Taking a comprehensive consideration of the above,this study tries to apply the concept of blended learning to TLS training,and designs a TLS training program based on the blended learning,so as to effectively address the deficiencies in the TLS training,and eventually improve the TLS level of normal university students.First,through reviewing existing literature and research,the concepts of language skill,teaching language skill(TLS)and blended learning are defined,and the research progresses in relevant fields at home and abroad are sorted and summarized.Under the guidance of theories like the Community of Practice and the Theory of Constructivism Learning,together with the actual problems and reasons found in the questionnaire,a TLS training program based on blended learning is proposed.The program contains two stages: basic theory learning and individual skill training.Guided by the blended learning concept and centered at the TLS training process,in the stage of basic theory learning,group report is introduced to design online and offline learning activities.In the stage of individual skill training,the related online resources are called whenever necessary according to the need of classroom training.On the basis of further subdivision of learning activities,the two stages are divided into three links,namely pre-class,in-class,and after-class.The pre-class and after-class activities are mainly carried out on the platform of WeChat official account,while the in-class activities are held mainly in the micro-classroom or multimedia classroom.The three links have learning resources,learning activities and learning methods integrated,which not just expands the learning time and space,but also helps learners master the relevant TLS theories and techniques,and thus raises their TLS level.Then,by the method of action research,the blended-learning-based TLS training scheme proposed and the WeChat public platform is applied in the practical teaching of language speed and volume skills.In the practical teaching equipped with constructed real teaching situations,students are trained to give flexible control over language speed and volume.After the practice,the process of learning is constantly reflected and improved.Last but not least,through analysis of the online learning data,the experimental results and the questionnaire survey statistics,the learners' participation in the training process,their learning effect,and their attitudes toward the blended learning training program are comprehended on the whole.The following conclusions are drawn:(1)The blended-learning-based training programs are greatly empowered by the WeChat public platform.The combination of WeChat learning with classroom training not just bring the subjectivity role of students and the dominant role of teachers to full play;it also bring about more and closer teacher-student and student-student collaborations.(2)Methods of "Poetry recitation","Tongue-twister","Lombard effect" and "Recitation with music" were used for the fast speech group,the slow speech group,the low volume group,and the high volume group,respectively.As revealed by the experimental data: first,poetry recitation slowed down the speech speed of the fast speech group,but there was no significant difference in gender and grade under such an intervention method;secondly,Tongue-twister improved the speed of the slow speech group,and there was a significant difference in grade factor;thirdly,the Lombard effect method uplifted the volume of the low volume group by mimicking singers with high vocal pitch,and there is also a significant difference in grade factor;fourth,the method of recitation with music reduced the volume of the high volume group,and in this way normal university students felt easier to understand the volume conversion skills,according to the experiment.(3)The learners agreed with the WeChat-based blended learning and highly praised the learning resources and the learning activity design.The learners manifested strong interest and enthusiasm and achieved considerably good learning results,no matter the WeChat public platform and classroom training.At the same time,the practice teaching advanced not only students' TLS level but also their abilities like autoinstruction and cooperative learning.