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Teachers' Roles in College Oral English Inquiry-based Instruction

Author: ZuoNi
Tutor: YangTingJun
School: Ningbo University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: college oral English inquiry-based instruction role expectation actualrole discrepancy
CLC: H319.3
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2013
Downloads: 1
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Abstract

With the soar of China’s economic and political position in the international background, theurgency of learning English well is increasingly realized by Chinese. In the meantime, when facingall kinds of challenges and opportunities globalization brought to China, Chinese feel it urgent tocommunicate efficiently with the whole world in English. Thus, English learning and teaching,especially oral English teaching are also challenged under this circumstance. In2007, the Ministryof Education P.R.C enacted College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR) which urgentlycalls for the advent of new teaching model. Inquiry-based instruction is the very new model thatmeets his requirement. Accordingly, teachers’ roles in this new model are greatly challenged, whichgenerated numerous researches in this field; however, the study on college oral English teachers’roles in inquiry-based instruction is rare.On the basis of constructive, cognitive development and role theory, with the combination ofthe practical experience of college oral English classroom instruction and with the application ofinquiry-based instruction model, this study focuses on the following questions:1) In the applicationof inquiry teaching in college oral English classroom, what roles of college oral English teachers areexpected by the students and how are these roles distributed?2) What are the actual roles teachershave played in the teaching process?3) What are the specific discrepancies between students’expectations and teachers’ actual roles, and what are the causes of these discrepancies?This research is mainly carried out through classroom observation, questionnaires andinterviews in the teaching process. The participants chosen for this study are160non-Englishmajors and35English teachers from a college in Ningbo. Both qualitative and quantitative methodsare adopted in order to guarantee the objectivity and accuracy of the analysis. Observation of theteaching process is mainly conducted for4months in the class of one college oral English teacherwho employed inquiry-based instruction. SPSS is available for the quantitative analysis of data from questionnaires in order to inquire the differentiation in students’ expectation and teachers’ actualroles, which is effectively supplemented with interview to probe into the causes for thesediscrepancies and classroom observation to supply valuable practical data to the research and a validsupport to the findings of questionnaire and interview.Findings of the research run as follows:1) in the college oral English inquiry-based teaching,students expect teachers to play the role of “motivator” most. The role of “creator of classroomclimate” lies in the second place while “learning guide” is the third role that students expect fromteachers. The three least-expected roles are classroom manager, assessor and moral and conductguide.2) In the teachers’ mind, the top three roles are respectively “moral and conduct guide”,“designer” and “organizer” with a declining frequency. As for the roles of partners in inquiry processand friends, students hold comparatively high expectations but teachers in actual teaching seem notto fulfill the roles well.3) There exist big discrepancies between students’ expectation and teachers’actual behavior on such roles as designers, organizers, assessors and moral and conduct guides.Teachers hold the perception that designers, organizers and assessors---these three roles occupyimportant places in inquiry-based teaching. However, students just have the opposite expectations.4)There exist big discrepancies between students’ expectation and teachers’ actual behavior on suchthe roles as partners, friends and learning guides. Teachers perceive these roles as less important ininquiry-based teaching while students hold comparatively high expectations on them.In the end, some suggestions to college oral English teachers are put forward:1) Teachersshould abandon their absolute authority in teaching, change the teacher-dominated role to thestudent-dominated one and give students more opportunities to design their activities freely.2)Teachers should care more about students’ learning needs, especially their psychological needs; thus,it will be easier for teachers to fulfill the roles as motivator, participant, friend and creator of climate.3) Teachers should become lifelong learners; in this way they can keep up with the era and obtainwide-ranging knowledge storage and improve their professional quality by constantly learning somelearning strategies, such as motivating strategy and assessing strategy.

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CLC: > Language, writing > FOREIGN > English > Language teaching > Teaching method
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