A Study On The Cultivation Of Students' Interest In English Learning In Secondary Vocational Schools

In recent years, with the senior high school enrollment expansion, the constitution of students in vocational schools is getting more and more complicated. The quality of the source of the students results a great impact on English teaching. The English teaching of vocational schools faces unprecedented challenge. In vocational classrooms, the students coming from junior schools lose their self-confidence in English learning because of the low level of English knowledge and the poor scores they got in tests. They don't have positive attitudes and motivation toward English learning by acting passively in English class, though the teachers manage to motivate them. On the contrary, having positive attitude, but some students are still unsuccessful with the absence of method or direction in English learning. The students themselves express the desire to improve their English, yet little effort is made by any students to use English to communicate with each other. Students are fewer interests in learning, especially in English study.Many studies show that interest plays crucial roles in English learning. What's interest? It's something that can make you willingly draw much attention to what you do; it's something that can bring you much joy and excitement; It's something that may lead that has the magical power to get you into energetic and vital; It's something that may lead you to greater success. As long as the student learns with interest, he can enjoy the learning process. That is the essence of learning. In fact, the topic about study interests has been the concern of many researchers, but the secondary vocational education is often neglected by the researchers, and there have been few studies on their learning. That's just what I'm trying to find out here. This thesis is attempting to expound on the ways of cultivating the interests of students in secondary vocational schools and to study the methods of cultivating students'interest, in the hope that the finding can establish a convincing and scientific reference work for English teaching in secondary vocational schools in China.From the teachers'perspective, they should try to be facilitators; they should have a clear idea about what real language teaching success is, take part in the process of curriculum development and care for the students'psychological needs. Teachers should pay a role not only as instructor, but also as a friend. According to the principle of person-centered education, the teachers should be to build a positive, friendly, supportive relationship with their students. Secondary vocational students are quite different from high school students, they have their own characteristics. Owing to the students'particular characteristics, teachers should realize the significance of interest in English learning. It is quite necessary to explore methods to cultivate their interests that may be more effective for the English teaching in vocational schools.The thesis analyses the student sources, their features and the present English teaching in vocational schools, the ultimate aim of the writer is to find some effective ways to help the students to rebuild up their confidence, to cultivate their interest in English learning, so that English will never be a nightmare to them and they will never be a headache to their teachers. The study began with a questionnaire. The result shows that the students in secondary vocational school lack interest in English learning. Then the author did further research. The subjects were 92 students from Qingdao Finance Business Vocational School. From the beginning of the autumn semester of 2008 to the end of spring semester of 2009, the researcher regularly designed lessons for the chosen class, especially to cultivate their interest. In this study, the students were asked to test two times. The scores were collected and analyzed by SPSS. Through the score collection and analysis, the findings are summarized. By means of experiment in Business Class 2 Grade 2008 for a year, we can find 1) the experimental class learning interest is promoted than the control class. 2) The experimental class has made more progress in English study than the control class. The experiment shows that adopting variety teaching methods are superior to the traditional one, on the other hand, the students'interest in English learning benefits their achievement and they can improve their English competence. As a result, English teaching and learning are coming into a benevolent style.The study does provide evidence that variety teaching methods can arouses the students'interest. Therefore, it is advisable for teachers to be aware of cultivating the students'interest in vocational classrooms. Teachers are advised to stimulate learners' motivations, cultivate interest in English learning.Getting interested doesn't mean doing something well, but it's key point to improve the students'study in English. It is hoped that this study can benefit language teachers, learners and researchers to a certain degree and can spark more research in this area in the future.