| With the rapid development of information technology,the traditional teaching and learning methods,which are largely limited by time and space,cannot fully adapt to the new demands of network-era teaching.Therefore,a new teaching model combining modern information technology with traditional teaching has come into being,and various online teaching platforms have emerged.In particular,the "MOOC Storm" starting in 2012 has caused a new upsurge in online learning.However,the application of MOOC is still far from the expected effects,as manifested in the problems of high dropout rate and high management cost of the platform.To deal with various problems presented by MOOC,scholars at home and abroad have turned to another teaching mode,SPOC(Small Private Online Course).At present,while the application and research of SPOC are mainly focused on college education,few studies are concerned about its application in secondary vocational schools.In view of this situation,the present study is to conduct an empirical research on the application of SPOC to English reading teaching in secondary vocational schools,intending to find its feasibility and effect.The research questions to be addressed are as follows:(1)Can the use of SPOC model improve the English reading ability of secondary vocational students?If it can,what are the differences in the progress of students with different English levels?(2)Can SPOC-based blended teaching mode have an impact on other aspects of English learning?If it can,what are they?Considering the characteristics of students in secondary vocational schools,this study chose two parallel classes taught by the author as the research subjects.The experiment lasted for four months,and the students took two tests respectively before and after the experiment.The results of the pre-test and post-test of EC and CC are respectively analyzed by SPSS software for independent sample t test,paired-samples t test and frequency analysis.In addition,through observing students’ classroom performance and analyzing the results of relevant questionnaires and interviews,the following findings have been obtained:(1)The SPOC-based blended teaching has a positive impact on the improvements of English reading ability of secondary vocational school students,and their English reading scores have improved a lot.Compared with the pretest scores,the number of students with scores below 60 in the EC has decreased by two-thirds,the number of students scoring between 70 and 79 has increased by 30%,and the number scoring between 80 and 100 has increased by 20%,and those with scores between 60 and 69 have decreased slightly.This indicates that with the practice of SPOC teaching,students with scores below 60 have made the most obvious progress,whose number has decreased by more than half,and the number of students with high scores is relatively increased.In addition,frequency distribution of scores above 60 is more balanced than that of pretest.(2)The application of SPOC in English reading also has a positive influence on other aspects of English learning of secondary vocational students,which is mainly reflected in the improvements of their learning interest,learning methods,learning habits and some other aspects.Due to the short history of SPOC,scarce relevant researches at home and abroad,and the small samples of this research,the present study still has many limitations which need to be overcome in future studies. |
