The current situation and corresponding strategic approach for polytechnics stud

Abstract：a brief description of the current situation and corresponding strategic approach for polytechnics students whose is not specialized and not major in English.

Key words：polytechnics； Not Major in English； Current Situation； Strategic Approach

中图分类号：H315.9 文献标识码： A 文章编号：1672-1578（2012）10-0008-02

Learning English is not an over-night process， it is more of a progressing and sediment process. Perhaps we do not have a practical environment here in China in using English， but there are still quite a bit of channel that we could make used of in a daily manner， apart from the interference opportunity in the classroom among teachers and classmates， there are commercial channels， like， newspaper， magazine， TV， movie， they could also be treated as proper English learning channels as well. When there is a practical phase， sentimental sentence， or English sense of knowledge， it would be not too much of effort remembering or recording them down， there is always a chance of using them somehow sometimes in the future. As long as the student is being more alerted to beautiful sentence， phase of expression， appearing chance by change， from time to time， then it would be more beneficial to remember them firmly by recalling them several times， as long as being more alerted to new phase discovery， remembering them， that would speed up overall English advancement capability.

Perhaps， we all realize English is a communication tool， but it might not be the case that all the English learning student realize “communication is a kind of skill”. So， in order to manage such skill properly， then student would have to focus intensively per different practice perspective， listening， speaking， reading and writing. Apart from reading text book， student should extend his/her reading coverage in all sort of extra-curriculum books， and understand and familiarize English more from the historical and all relevant perspective.

Phase expression and word in writing are so different between Chinese and English. There is no time and tense expression in Chinese， but there is always a time dimension embedded in English， and that is the main reason why student who is more familiar with Chinese finds it hard to get used to the time dimension way of expression in English. We could listen to English lesson tape， listen to favorite English songs， and also listen to the English Program broadcasted in radio， … etc， to cheer one to be more interested in learning English and to be more familiarized with the phase expression and language characteristic in a more progressive manner from time to time.

In listening， speaking， reading and writing， these four major language skills， listening and speaking play a more dominant role than others. Improving the Speaking capability is a progressive process， only using the correct and appropriate verbal method in learning and practicing， would result in the further advancement of the overall conversational capability.

1 The current situation of the polytechnics students whose major is not in English

At present， the number of polytechnics students keeps on increasing， to cope with the development of the society； Polytechnics Institutes focus more on the overall development of the student in an integrated manner. By all mean， English is treated extremely importantly as a Communication tool and skill. In a normal daily classroom interferencing among teacher and students， we have found the present situation of English Leaning attitude is not optimistic， especially of the followings：

1）English foundation is not concert， and knowledge level is so deviated among students

2）Psycho-obstacles was formed in the learning process

3）Lack of understanding towards the British culture background

English is mostly taught in a traditional teaching model established in China

1.1 English foundation is not concert， and knowledge level is so deviated among students

The English Language foundation of the Polytechnics Student was found to be a weak. The cause is considered to be complicated. Some of the students are originated from Technical College， and causing the deviation of the language knowledge level. Due to the locality， and being influenced deeply by the local dialects， causing the English pronunciation is not up to the standard. Even a very simple sentence， student would not able to understand because of the un-familiarization to the vocal expression and pronunciation. Also， students are not contented with much vocabulary. All these are considered hindering the most of the student’s English language advancement.

1.2 Psycho-obstacles was formed in the learning process

It is believed that Polytechnics Student would find it more challenge in listening and speaking than reading and writing， even though a really simple sentence， cannot manage to understand and speak it out. One of the main reasons is， they have not built up the confidence， especially， it introduces some kind of mental burden or nervous in the conversation process， and in a long run， it would induce some sense of resistance in learning English.

1.3 Lack of understanding towards the British / English culture background

As before， learning English is considered to be a passive receiving process， so learning English is being treated as some kind of skill transferring passive process. However， as a result from the Psycholinguistics experiments， learning English is considered to a very active and self-initiative process. In the learning process， student should make used of any chance to get hold with all linguistic and non- linguistic knowledge， and try to preserve， process in order to fully understand the true intention of the conversation. As student does not have much exploration of the western culture， this would be no doubt becoming a obstacle of learning English.

1.4 English is being taught in a traditional teaching model established in China

According to the time allocated to English tuition in University， it is around 4 hours per week in average， and conversation lesson would take one third out of the 4 hours， and due to the time constraint， the conversation training was hindered quite a bit. Listening capability training is more on a dull learning model like， “say the word – listen to the recorded – match with the answer”， and it may not be able to stimulate student’s enthusiasm towards learning English. The availability of listening capability training material In these days is not that much for non English specialized.

2 Proposal of improving the non English major Student approach

2.1Strengthening the fundamental knowledge of learning English

The fundamental English knowledge for Non English major student is considered to be shallow， so hindering a greater degree in the advancement of the English standard. Instead， in the class room training， teacher would assist student to establish a concrete foundation of the English language. In between， the most essential is the strengthening in usage of vocabulary. Vocabulary is the fundatation of a language， without adequate vocabulary coverage， communication in particular language may not be able to proceed.

The vocabulary coverage of a typical English student is considered to be less than the vocabulary being used in reading， which is because of the pronunciation， meaning and writing system are being used while doing the reading， instead， pronunciation and meaning storage system are being used in listening， as there is situation vocabulary could be recognized in reading but not in listening. So a “integrated study model” should be introduced and used in the overall teaching process， which is while learning vocabulary in the listening and speaking， having the learning of reading， writing and translating integrated together into a more amalgamated language technique learning process， and also strongly emphasis in remembering the pronunciation， shape， meaning and and usage.

2.2 Assisting student in overcoming the mental obstacle，adjust the student’s proactive motivation in learning English

English teacher in the class should build up a relax， nature and harmonic environment， to relief the learning tension from the student， also should let student to understand， using English as a second language， it is unlikely be that fluent and comfortable as expressing in month language. Soothing from a mental angle in order to overcome the fear of learning English. Also， utilizing conversational approach to embed into the teaching English process， to let student bear with the language technique via the inter-communication.

Like， distinguish discussion topics， pessimistic expression， extend the conversation， raising question， resume communication， … etc.， and letting student being switched from passive， single direction listening to a proactive， initiative， and interactive conversational manner. This would extremely advance further the listening ability.

2.3 Altering the traditional English teaching and learning model

Due to limitation and resources constraint， student who is not specialized in English would be continued with traditional English teaching model， which lacks of inter-action between teacher and student， and students are bored and not interested at all. Such dull and plain teaching approach would be hard to raise the interest in learning English. So， it really requires teacher in the class try to find a breakthrough of the traditional learning concept and model. A inter-active teaching approach could be used to adjust self-initiation of student， perhaps， watching a traditional English movie and or listening to a beautiful English song， are both good technique to improve Student’s English capability. Moreover， it would also enhance student the knowledge towards western culture by watching English movie at the same time.

3 Conclusion

Regarding of Listening， Conversation，Reading and Writing， they all are considered to be very important language skill. In learning a foreign language， improving the conversational ability is very essential， and the overall development of the conversational capability is a progressive process， only being practiced and learned by using a correct approach and precise attitude would only be able to advance the student actual capability to cope with the language.