Research Into English Curriculum Integration: A Case Of Visual-Audio-Oral Course

Seeing from different perspectives, different scholars have different interpretations of curriculum integration (CI). Fogarty (1991) CI identifies ten models of integration which fall into three general categories, i.e. integration within single disciplines, integration across several disciplines and integration within and across learners. At the same time,Drake (1993) provides three frameworks of CI, including multidisciplinary approach, interdisciplinary approach and real world approach. In addition, educator James A. Beane (1997) argues that curriculum integration (CI) is a kind of curriculum design, using real-world issues as organizing centers without regard for subject-area lines. Besides, Ingram (1979) stresses the interrelation between schooling and the development of society as well as personality development. Applying the above viewpoints of CI to the field of English language teaching in China, first of all, it is found that English as a language, for its unique functions, can be taken as a tool of CI to integrate disciplines of knowledge and, in reverse, CI can be used as an approach to achieve the goals of English language teaching through integrating its various courses. Therefore, visual-audio-oral course is the one to integrate courses like video watching, listening and speaking in form by which to integrate disciplines of knowledge in nature. In a word, visual-audio-oral course can be reasonably established as a typical case of English CI. To study this case, on the one hand, this paper explores the necessity of such integration from the internal areas such as the nature of language and language learning, theories of second language acquisition, theory of multiple intelligences and intercultural communicative competence. In contrast, visual-audio-oral course instead of audio-visual course can reflect the real life communicative model and the communicative nature of language and language learning, in which listening and speaking are simultaneously integrated but not artificially separated into two. Besides, with the help of audio-visual media, visual-audio-oral course rather than its division can greatly facilitate second language acquisition by creating more comprehensible input, lowering learners'affective filter, enhancing interaction and increasing comprehensible output. What is more, visual-audio-oral course can play an important role in integrating multiple intelligences through all kinds of class activities, which can also be taken as a part of education for all-around development for college students. Most importantly, visual-audio-oral course makes full use of audio-visual media to vividly present various culture phenomena to learners so as to promote learners'intercultural communicative competence. On the other hand, in terms of the necessity of integration, this paper concerns about the external areas such as college English curriculum setup, the market demand, and optimization of resources. Traditionally, the curriculum setup seems to put the cart before the horse, laying much more emphasis on the input courses such as reading rather than the output courses such as speaking. To reform such illegitimate curriculums setup, it is necessary to integrate the input courses and output courses. Then, it is also very important to take the market demand on graduates into account when setting a new course. Finally, as a kind of investment, the setup of visual-audio-oral course is also to optimize the resources, lower the cost and achieve many curriculum objectives at the same time. Apart from the necessity of English CI, this paper also tries to explore the practicability of such integration. With audio-visual aids, visual-audio-oral course can transcend the traditional physical constraints of time and space and creates an optimal language-learning environment in form of hypertext. Then, audio-visual media work as a curriculum tool to integrate listening and speaking. That is to say, the practicability of English CI such as visual-audio-oral course can be promoted by integrating technology into curriculum. Another extremely important factor concerning the practicability of English CI is the learners. According to the author's survey results, most students are very confident with their reading ability but not listening and speaking ability and lack of basic intercultural communicative competence. Besides, they are in favor of the idea to integrate listening and speaking so as to set visual-audio-oral course and they have their own preferences to selecting types of materials and activities for visual-audio-oral course. Inevitably, the practicability of English CI can never overlook the learners'needs which are fundamentally the base for developing any curriculum. All in all, visual-audio-oral course can be established as a typical case of English CI and the setup of visual-audio-oral course is quite necessary. To a great extent, based on the explorations of the integration of technology into curriculum and the learners'needs, it is found that, as a case of English CI, the setup of visual-audio-oral course is practicable, even though there are still some other conditions to be considered. Eventually, all these explorations contribute to the author's establishment of a tentative definition of English curriculum integration which views English CI as a language curriculum design and whose purposes are for facilitating learners'second language acquisition and developing intercultural communicative competence and ultimately enhancing education for all-around development. Of course, as the development of modern information technology and new thoughts of language teaching and learning, the teaching models and assessment of visual-audio-oral course as a case of English CI need to be further studied.