The Optimization Research On Web-based College English Classroom Teaching

The information technology assisted English teaching has witnessed fastdevelopment and entered the classroom through course integration process. Theintegration radically changes the essence of college English teaching, and thereforethe traditional teaching mode, which simply includes teachers, textbooks, and students,has been challenged. Emphasis is gradually placed on the new teaching mode, whichintegrates information technology with the traditional classroom teaching. In otherwords, information technology has become an integral part in today’s web-basedcollege English teaching classroom.College English Curriculum Requirements, issued by the Ministry of Education inAugust,2007, explicitly points out that colleges and universities should make full useof modern technology, and adopt computer and classroom-based English teachingmode. As a new teaching mode, web-based English teaching can cause great changesin many teaching components, such as teaching philosophy, methods, and mode. Asits core part, classroom teaching plays an important role in the teaching process. Thefactors that influence the teaching are students, teachers, and teachingenvironments. Web-based English teaching is the application of modern technology toteaching, and nothing makes the perfect combination of teaching and technology thanthe integration of technological environment and teaching objects (teachers andstudents). Undoubtedly, changes in teaching components have triggered mismatchesbetween teachers, students, and teaching environments during the process of teachingreform. Thereby, this dissertation aims to explore and analyze these malfunctions inorder to build an applicable framework of optimization in college English classroomteaching. This research focuses on the optimization study in web-based collegeEnglish classroom teaching. The whole research aims to answer following questions:First, what changes will be brought about in English learning classroom afterweb-based teaching reform? Second, what are the factors of mismatches? Third, whatare the manifestations of these mismatch factors, and how do they happen? Fourth,what are the theoretical basis and principles to solve these “mismatches” in web-based college English classroom teaching? Last, how to build a framework of optimizationin college English classroom teaching?Based on Behaviorism Learning Theory, Cognitive Theory, and Constructivism,this dissertation utilizes both qualitative research and quantitative research. At thebeginning, this dissertation explains the research background, the significance ofresearch, the general review of relevant literature, and the development of integrationof information technology into college English Curriculum. Then, this dissertationexplores the current situation and problems in Jiamusi university during the process ofintegration of information technology into the college English curriculum throughquestionnaire, field study, school-based teaching reform documents, depth interviewand classroom observations. The mismatches in web-based college English teachingreform from the aspects of teacher, student, as well as teaching environment are alsodiscussed. To be more specific, web-based autonomous learning classroom,PPT-assisted classroom, and web-based elective course classroom are chosen asclassroom observation targets. From the above three perspectives, the reasons ofmalfunctions, as well as the restriction factors of web-based teaching mode areanalyzed. Meanwhile, the assessments results from the author, as the expert in collegeEnglish curriculum evaluation of Heilongjiang Province serve as an importantreference.Through empirical research, this dissertation points out there are mismatches interms of teachers, students, as well as teaching environment. The mismatches atstudents’ level include following aspects:(1) students’ autonomous learning beliefsand abilities are weak;(2) students lack good information literacy;(3) autonomouslearning is proved to be not effective. To be specific, there are four subcategories forthe third mismatch: students’ learning motivation is mainly instrumental motivation;students are lacking in metacognitive strategies for autonomous learning; studentshave the problem of emotional anxiety when they are doing autonomous learning; andstudents’ autonomous learning is inconsistent with teachers’ external-monitoring.The mismatches at teacher’s level are as follows:(1) teachers’ beliefs do not matchactual teaching process;(2) teachers’ information consciousness do not match their information knowledge;(3) teachers’ teaching methods do not match moderninformation technology (such as the lacking of application innovation in multimediatechnology, teachers’ over dependence on PPT, and the lack of flexible application ofthe reformation model). The mismatches at the teaching environment level are asfollows:(1) network teaching hardware environment do not match with new model;(2) network teaching resources are not fully utilized, such as the inadequateindividualized teaching resources, and the low intelligence of teaching platform;(3)the formative evaluation on web-based college English teaching is far behind theactual situation of teaching;(4) the college English curriculum is inconsistent withteaching objectives and the application of information technology.From the perspective of Education Ecology, this dissertation argues thatweb-based college English classroom should be viewed as a teaching ecosystem:when new technology is introduced, it conflicts with the ecological factors in theecosystem, which causes mismatches in teaching operation. Thus, through applyingthe ecology of education theory into college English teaching, we can build acomplete academic system of ecological college English (Chen,2010). Based on theanalysis of each factor’s current situation and their development in the ecosystem ofEnglish teaching, this dissertation points out that dynamic balance in the ecosystem ofcollege English classroom teaching can be maintained, and web-based college Englishclassroom teaching can be optimized.Based on the previous research results and five principles, this dissertationtries to build an applicable optimization framework of college English classroomteaching, which centers on teacher development, student autonomy, and the support ofecological teaching environment.To reconcile the mismatches in web-based collegeEnglish classroom teaching, this dissertation argues that the framework should includethe aspects of teacher development, student autonomous learning, and classroomteaching environments. According to this framework, the teacher development shouldinclude the modernized teacher development framework with the core ideas ofoptimizing the teachers’ perception, teachers’ information literacy, and diversifiedteaching methods, in which the concepts of teachers’ self-development and life-long learning are emphasized. Moreover, the four important supporting contents wereproposed: the teacher autonomy, the construction of intelligent teacher developmentplatform, perfecting the training organization, and the informationization of teachers’training. This dissertation also proposes that student autonomy should be a frameworkof cultivating student autonomous learning abilities, which includes students’autonomous learning, information literacy, and autonomous learning strategies as thecore. At the meantime, the reinforcement of external-monitoring should play the roleof ancillary service. The suggestions are made in this dissertation that students shouldbe trained in their learning strategies and theories, and regulated in their mood fromimplicit and explicit aspects. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a multi-monitoringsystem, which includes teacher, head teacher, teaching administrator and platformtechnician. Moreover, a strategic group of autonomous learning based on network isconstructed, which consists of five major strategy categories as well as twelve minorautonomous learning branch strategies. This dissertation also proposes that theconstruction of ecological college English teaching environment should includehardware environment construction and service as well as the construction of thediversified, personalized and ecological software environment.This dissertation conducts a comprehensive and systematical study on collegeEnglish classroom teaching from the three dimensions of teachers, students andteaching environment through the empirical research by taking the mismatches in thenew teaching model as the focus. It is hoped that by applying the theory of educationecology to optimize classroom teaching and building an applicable optimizationframework of college English classroom teaching, this research can provide guidanceand reference to the improvement of teaching quality and teaching reform model inweb-based college English classroom, and promoting the concepts of the students’lifelong learning and teacher development.