The Application Of Research-based Teaching Model To Business English Reading Teaching In Vocational Colleges

With the rapid development of economic globalization and international business activities,China is now in urgent need of innovative talents skilled in business operations and Englishcommunication. As a result, Business English (BE) major or related courses have been set inmany universities and colleges, including vocational colleges.It is well-known that reading is an essential approach of information and languageacquisition, therefore, a lot of attention is being paid to BE reading teaching. But for a long time,BE reading teaching is not to our satisfaction, especially in vocational colleges, where teachersadopt traditional teaching approaches, and students lack learning motivation.In recent years, research-based teaching is being mentioned frequently. The most noticeablefeature of research-based teaching model that distinguishes it from the previous teaching modelsis that talents trained in this way possess strong self-educating abilities. The research-basedteaching model focuses on students and research-based learning, in order to cultivate andimprove their research and creative abilities by means of research, discussion and case study. It isteaching supported by modern education technology—multimedia.Many scholars and teachers are particularly interested in it and start to conduct lots ofresearches into it. Furthermore, teachers from universities, middle schools, or even primaryschools apply research-based teaching model to their respective teaching practices, as a result, agreat number of teaching approaches come into being. However, few studies are focused on BEreading teaching in vocational colleges. Research-based teaching is suitable to researchuniversities, where there is a better atmosphere of research. However, Lu Dexin (2005), aprofessor from Nanjing University, points out that many elements of research-based teachingmodel are commonly applicable to all and he expects to see experience of practice in other typesof schools. On the basis of a detailed description of research-based teaching model, this thesis,targeting BE students in vocational colleges as subjects, probes into the application ofresearch-based teaching model to teaching BE reading in vocational colleges.An experiment is designed to test the validity of research-based teaching model which isapplied to BE reading teaching of BE majors in vocational colleges. Altogether 98 second-yearBE majors from Qilu Normal College are randomly chosen as an experimental class and acontrol class. The experimental period lasts for 16 weeks, during which the experimental class istreated through applying research-based teaching model to BE reading teaching, and the otherclass is taught in the previous way characterized as teacher-centered, grammar-based andword-by-word explanation. The experiment consists of four stages: pre-test, teaching process,post-test and post-experiment questionnaire. With the aid of SPSS (13.0), the results of pre-test and post-test are statistically analyzed. Positive conclusions demonstrate that compared withtraditional approach, research-based teaching model has a positive effect on the teachingstandards and BE reading comprehension. Reflections on the empirical study for teaching areconcluded as well, such as reorientation of teachers’and students’roles in BE reading teaching,and reorganization of teaching content by carefully choosing appropriate teaching materials.This study has attempted to serve as a tentative study of research-based teaching modelapplied to BE reading teaching in vocational colleges. It is also expected that this thesis, as arough guide, could provide more insight into BE reading teaching in vocational colleges andserve BE reading teaching which could meet the needs of students and help to achieve the goalof vocational education.