A study on the current college English teaching and learning in China

【Abstract】It is universally known that English is the lingua franca and most of countries in the world are teaching and learning English in terms of economic development and globalization. English in China， strictly speaking， is regarded as the foreign language and China has carried out English teaching for several decades but the learning outcomes do not match the efforts that we have made. This paper tries to develop the topic and explore the weaknesses and limitations of college English teaching and learning.

【Key words】English teaching; student-centered; task-based strategy

【作者簡介】何晓彤，内蒙古民族大学大学外语教学部。

China has been teaching and learning English for many years but the learning outcome of college English are not satisfactory. The main problem of the university English teaching is that it has no clear and explicit objectives which should be one of the important characteristics of syllabus. The majority of students learn English only because they need to prepare language tests， for example， the College English Test Band 4 or Band 6， postgraduate entrance test， etc. Therefore， they learn English not because of the practical use in their future life but because of the requirements from universities and employers. On the other hand， for those who do not need to pass the test nor have interests in English， they have no incentive and initiative to learn English， so they either pay no attention to classroom instructions or skip the English class directly. That is also one reason of the inefficiency of College English Teaching.

The second problem is that the college English syllabus ignores the individual differentiation. It is known that different majors of students are required different extent of English proficiency. For example， the students who major in international finance or computer， they need to be equipped with higher proficiency of English and these different subjects also have their respective technical terms; on the contrary， the students whose profession is History or Chinese， it seems not necessary for them to spent too much time and effort on English， for they may have little chance to use it in their future study and work.

In addition， the English classrooms mainly apply the structural syllabus which also called formal or grammatical syllabus. It is a traditional syllabus which focuses on the grammatical forms， description and analysis of classical languages. The content of this type of syllabus tend to be boring for students. Teachers mainly use the certain textbooks and teach students the forms and structures of important sentences and grammars. Teachers take most of the class time and can not provide students sufficient opportunities to practice or use the language which students have learned. Even though， teachers sometimes will organize some group works and discussion tasks for students， while some students doubt the effects of these activities and will not participate in them initiatively. Therefore， in this process of teaching students tend to accept the knowledge of English passively and they cant join the English learning actively. It is an entirely teacher-centered classroom.

In terms of the weaknesses analyzed above， it is urgent to implement measures to solve these problems. First of all， teachers should alter their teaching syllabus and methodologies. Teachers can use more than one type of syllabus and combine them in integrated ways， because there is not a single type of syllabus that can be appropriate in all teaching settings and each syllabus has its own advantages and defects. Secondly， teachers may also change from teacher-centered， grammar-translation approaches to student-centered， communicative， and task-based strategies which focus more on the students abilities and skills of language， especially the speaking and listening.

As for the students whose majors demand higher and more specialized English knowledge， teachers can be trying to apply the content-based syllabus whose content is selected by considering the English learners other subjects. For example， teachers teach the international finance class in English. But this might be high demanding on teachers ability. From this perspective， it can be seen that choosing the appropriate syllabus in English teaching and learning is really vital for both teachers and students.

References：

[1]Kumaravadivelu， B. （2009）. Understanding language teaching： From method to postmethod. New York： Routledge.

[2]Ramirez， A.G. （1995）. Creating context for second language acquisition： Theory and methods. New York： Longman.