The Application Of Appreciative Education In English Teaching In Secondary Vocational Schools

Appreciative education is a kind of teaching strategy with which educators motivate their students by positive stimulation in order to encourage them in their studies. It is proper for the learning and teaching of English according to the results of existing research findings in psychology and pedagogy.This thesis discusses the necessity and applicability, as well as the strategies, of appreciative education applied in English teaching in secondary vocational schools whose students are different from those of other schools.This thesis consists of the following parts.The introduction is a statement of the purpose, objectives and methods of the research.The second chapter is a literature review of the previous research on appreciative education. It first introduces the definition , the origin, the nature and the principles of appreciative education and then analyzes its basic theories: Rosenthal effect (Pygmalion effect) and motivation theory, and finally it discusses the students' English learning and learning psychology, as well as the necessity and the feasibility of appreciative education in the teaching of English in secondary vocational schools.The third chapter is the core part of the thesis in which I try to find out whether appreciative education can help improve the students' language learning and motivate them. The method of studying the literature is used to get a clear picture of the theories and practice of appreciative education, particularly the status quo of English teaching in vocational schools in China. Through an experiment and questionnaire research, the thesis concludes that teachers will be able to enhance the students' general knowledge and ability as well as improve the non-intellectual aspects of their character such as will, motivation, and interest in English if appreciative education is applied in the classroom. The thesis also shows that, to some degree, appreciative education is an effective strategy not only for language teaching but also for the improvement of the relationship between the teachers and the students.The last chapter is a restatement of my findings as well as my retrospection on my research. It is pointed out that appreciative education is conducted mainly on individual basis and as such it may produce different results with different individuals and that it may not produce desired effect on certain individuals.