For many years, Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL) in China has been an exhausting and consuming project for many EFL teachers and policy makers. This situation is getting more and more severe at higher Education level because it impacts more and more students who benefit from the enlargement of enrollment in universities and colleges but at the same time face an unprecedented problem as well. How should EFL education at this level adapt to the large class situation and large enrollment without decreasing its quality? How should teachers prepare to play a different role in the process of managing large classes? How should undergraduates be accustomed to large EFL class environment and take good advantage of the facilities available to serve their academic needs? So many questions unsolved are waiting for researching, experimenting, and redesigning.Four decades ago two classical, and influential conceptions of language teaching were Grammar Translation and Behaviorism. Guided under these theories, language was taught in the same way as logic and literature, and the teachers' main duty was to impart knowledge to sometimes recalcitrant pupils. (Yalden, 1987) The relationship between teacher and learner was that of the traditional teacher-centered methodology. Teachers were expected to "know the grammar" of the second language (L2) and to be able to provide technical explanations, rules, and examples. They were not necessarily required to speak the target language, so their students were not obliged to do so either. In this case, no wonder a great majority of English earners in China were deaf and dumb even after more than 10 years of study. Then there was a period of quite violent change followed in the 1990s. Most EFL teachers spontaneously reacted against the teacher-centered classroom in L2 teaching and called strongly for the student-centered and learning centered classroom because "the spoon-feeding method does not guarantee students' communicative abilities in English,"(徐小贞，英语论文题目，2017) Now that EFL classrooms in higher education accommodate so many students how should teachers function efficiently to encourage students to participate in a large class? And how can the teachers get students actively involved and interested in the large EFL class? How should the students start to use English as a language for communication instead of just a subject to pass exams or get some crucial certificates? How should the students construct their own knowledge in a constructive learning environment provided and organized by teachers? With the development of computer technology, the advanced forefront tools of computer and Internet assisted language teaching may bring a brighter indeed for college large EFL classes in China. This thesis makes precise of suggestive research on this issue and tentatively introduces current teaching and learning strategies for large EFL classes. Hopefully, the final solution, aided by computers may eliminate some of the ineffective sections in learning and avoid the vitiation of college EFL education's quality in the face of rapidly increasing student numbers. |
