A Study On Improving The Students’Motivation Of Vocational School Under The Complex Adaptive System

With the gradual improvement of China’s market economic system, and rapidly increasing international communication, the importance of English has become increasingly prominent. All walks of life need English talent of varying degrees. Many employers will also have the standard of English as one of the prerequisites for hiring personnel. Therefore, learning English has become a top priority of the current vocational English teaching. It can enable students to take advantage of this tool of the English to cope with general life, social and vocational needs.This paper studies how to seek the teaching methods for vocational students in English learning to stimulate their learning motivation. The starting point of vocational students in English is low and some is uneven. They are the poor basis, have low enthusiasm for learning, so it brings about certain difficulties for English teaching in secondary vocational schools. In recent years, the theory of Complex Adaptive System has gradually been known. It has been successfully applied in the field of economics, biological, philosophical, and social sciences. The monograph "Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics" published in2008; Larsen-Freeman and Cameron are the first people who apply the Complex Adaptive System into the Second Language Acquisition field. This paper is based on the Second Language Acquisition Theory, Motivation Theory, Complex Adaptive System and some similar theories. It analyzes the current situation in secondary vocational English teaching and discusses the study on improving the students’ motivation of vocational school under the Complex Adaptive System. This paper applies Complex Adaptive System into English teaching, and three questions must be answered as followed:(1) Whether the Complex Adaptive System can stimulate students’ interest in learning (2) Whether the Complex Adaptive System is feasible in English teaching (3) How to change the teacher’s role under the Complex Adaptive System Theory.This study selects the students from Benxi Mechanical and Electrical Engineering School as the study subject. The students are enrollment in mid-August2012. They are freshmen from two classes of electronic majors and two classes of computer majors. It lasts for more than four months by the end of December2012and the study is finished. At the beginning of the school, a questionnaire and a pre-test are taken by143students in all four classes for the first time. The study finds that the four classes of students, despite the different majors, their English levels are roughly equal. In this study there is an interview which interviews143people at one time. Because of the large number of the subjects, it is a little difficult. So the author takes6students of each class of different levels according to their results of the pre-test. There are two interviews that will be respectively held in the beginning of the school and at the end of the semester. The four classes are divided into two groups:an experimental group and a control group. Experimental group for the new teaching methods (Complex Adaptive System is applied) and Control group for the traditional3p teaching mode.143students of all the four classes have a post-test and the other questionnaire at the end of the semester. Through the data analysis of two tests, two questionnaires and two interviews, the author obviously does not find that students’ learning levels significantly improve through the traditional3P teaching mode, nor do their speaking or listening abilities. By constant, the students’ grades, speaking and listening abilities in the experimental class under the new teaching mode have significantly improved. From the two interviews, both the experimental class and control class have proposed the hope for the teachers and the teaching methods. They all like humorous and interested teachers and the modern multimedia teaching assisted methods.This paper concludes that the Complex Adaptive System is feasible in English teaching, and it can stimulate students’ motivation in learning. Because of the limitations of the study instruments and subjects, the conclusion of the study needs further improvement and development in the actual teaching.