Research On The Application And Optimization Of U Campus-Based Blended Teaching Model In College English Teaching Of The Colleges And Universities In Tibet

The College English Teaching Requirements issued by the Ministry of Education in 2016 suggested that the new era of information technology has provided new learning methods and various teaching resources for foreign language teaching,therefore,it is necessary to vigorously promote the integration of the latest information technology and curriculum designs in college English teaching to take the advantage of the information technology,so as to achieve the ultimate purpose of developing students’ active learning,autonomous learning and personalized learning.In 2017,the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press(FLTRP)built the U Campus platform.As an online learning platform specially designed for college foreign language teaching,it has been widely applied in college English teaching of many colleges and universities in China within a short time.In 2020,some universities in Tibet started to apply the U Campus platform in college English teaching,and began to explore and practice the U Campus-based blended teaching model.Since this teaching model has been applied in college English teaching of the colleges and universities in Tibet for only a short time,the teachers and students are not quite familiar with the application of this model and inevitably have been confronted with certain problems and difficulties.However,no researchers have investigated the actual situation of the application of this teaching model in college English teaching of the colleges and universities in Tibet before.Therefore,based on combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis,an investigation has been done on the application of the U Campus-based blended teaching model in college English teaching of the colleges and universities in Tibet by using a questionnaire survey method,an interview method and a text analysis method,in order to find out the situation of the usage and if there are any problems existing in the application of the U Campus-based blended teaching model,to analyze the causes of the problems,as well as to provide some strategies for optimizing this blended teaching model,so that corresponding references can be provided for the colleges and universities in Tibet to make more effective use of this blended teaching model for college English teaching.The research questions of this paper include:(1)What are the main problems in the application of the U Campus-based blended teaching model in the colleges and universities in Tibet?(2)What are the causes of the problems?(3)How to solve the problems and optimize this teaching model?The teachers and students,who are using the U Campus platform for blended college English teaching in Tibet University and Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University,were selected as the research subjects.The researcher investigated 1187 students and 36 teachers from Tibet University and Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University,and interviewed some of the students and teachers.The results show that the problems existing in the application of U Campus-based blended teaching model of the colleges and universities in Tibet include: 1)Though with a high acceptability to the U Campus-based blended teaching model,the students’ U Campus online learning participation is relatively low,and the students of different genders,different grades,different nationalities and different National Matriculation English Test(NMET)scores have significant differences in learning participation;2)The students’ satisfaction with the U Campus platform and learning effects is relatively low,and the students with different nationalities and different NMET scores have significant differences in satisfaction;3)Though with a high acceptability to the U Campus-based blended teaching model,a majority of the teachers seldom use the U Campus platform,and the teachers with different teaching years have significant differences in frequency of using the U Campus platform.The reasons for students’ low participation in U Campus online learning include factors from the students themselves,factors from teachers,factors from the U Campus platform and factors from network,wherein students’ poor autonomous learning ability,insufficient learning resources of the U Campus platform and teachers’ insufficient emphasis and supervision on students’ online learning are the main reasons for students’ low participation in U Campus online learning.The main reasons for the low usage rate of the U Campus platform in teachers’ teaching include: 1)Most of the teachers are not familiar with the functions of the U Campus platform;2)Teachers’ workload is increased under the U Campus-based blended teaching model;and 3)Some teachers focus more on offline classroom teaching.To solve the problems found in the investigation and to optimize the U Campus-based blended teaching model,the researcher provided the following optimization strategies from the perspectives of the teachers,the colleges and universities and the U Campus platform,respectively:Firstly,the optimization strategies for teachers: 1)Take different measures to improve students’ online learning on U Campus;2)Take different measures to improve students’ classroom learning participation;3)Cooperate with other teachers to reduce the workload;and 4)Improve the blended teaching ability.Secondly,the optimization strategies for colleges and universities: 1)Provide professional training for college English teachers on the application of the U Campus platform and the U Campus-based blended teaching model;and 2)Improve the network of the campus to provide a convenient online learning environment for students.Thirdly,the optimization strategies for U Campus: 1)Provide more learning resources that students require;and 2)Provide more functions,such as a vocabulary learning module and a translation function.