Cultivation of Vocational Students’ English Practical Ability based on

Multimodal Theory

Jingrong Shu

Hunan Railway Professional Technology College, Zhuzhou, Hunan, 412001, China

Keywords: Multimodal theory, vocational students, English practical ability.

Abstract: Disadvantages have been gradually exposed in the fixed mode formed by vocational English teaching

during a long period. With the deep exploration of teaching reform, educators continuously enhance

students’ practical ability for their value realization in future professional post. As an advanced element

with multi-angle and profundity in vocational English teaching activities, multimodal theory will provide

new ideas in aspects of teaching condition and network technique as well as college-enterprise combination.

Meanwhile, it can also significantly improve English learning of vocational college students.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the popularization of higher education,

teaching activities have widespread promotion in

various vocational colleges. They act as the bond of

schools and society, aiming to provide tremendous

young professionals for social production. However,

considering weak school condition and teaching

resource of most vocational colleges, there is a doubt

about the effect of vocational education as well as

the professional quality of their graduates, which

also concern students, parents and enterprises.

Although currently the government has increased

funding and policy support for vocational education,

more efforts of schools and educators are required in

complex teaching links in order to really turn the

input into reasonable educational output (Yang

Wenge, 2014). It is necessary to consolidate

vocational education advantages and introduce new

teaching concept and mode for the improvement of

teaching work and the quality optimization of talent

cultivation during the long-term practice and run-in

period. The teaching exploration, with social

responsibility and significance, needs front-line

teachers’ breakthroughs from fix thinking mode as

well as strong coordination and support of students

and their colleges (Liu Shuqi, 2014). These

measures will ensure smooth process of the

improvement activities and bring good

achievements.

2 STATUE OF VOCATIONAL

STUDENTS’ ENGLISH

PRACTICAL ABILITY

As a fundamental subject, English has a growingly

consolidated place in education field. Increasing

proportion of English course is considered in various

teaching reform and examination adjustment,

indicating the cultivation of students’ English ability

is still the key emphasis in future educational work.

It needs attention and more efforts from schools,

teachers and students. With the rapid

internationalization of society and economy, there

will be enormous job openings, which will give new

challenges for internal students’ English learning. In

the meanwhile, various industries require plenty of

special vocational employees with related

professionals knowledge, and more expect that these

employees can contribute for the perfection of

departmental work system and the internationalized

transformation with their stronger English practical

ability and high-level professional quality (Luo Ying,

2014).

Like most English major teaching, vocational

English education presents certain limitation with its

fast development in China. Seen from basic teaching

condition, there is a lack of normalization in English

textbooks adopted by vocational college students. In

the early days, these colleges with short running

time had no special English textbooks, adopting the

Shu J.

Cultivation of Vocational Studentsâ

Z English Practical Ability based on Multimodal Theory.

DOI: 10.5220/0006444600990102

In ISME 2016 - Information Science and Management Engineering IV (ISME 2016), pages 99-102

ISBN: 978-989-758-208-0

same textbooks of undergraduate education. This

behavior ignored the characteristic and special social

responsibility of vocational education, and caused

trouble to teacher-student English course activities

during the practice. Students failed to adapt course

difficulty and schedule, which influenced their

learning quality and the enthusiasm in English

subjects. In the next years, the government unified

teaching textbooks for the regulation of teaching

activities and teacher behavior in colleges. However,

there are cases where some colleges still use self-

compiled English textbooks to meet students’ further

demand of specialization. Only the complexity in

teaching textbooks, consequently, has already made

vocational education in trouble of management and

development. Meanwhile, with some colleges’

limitation in infrastructure construction as well as

teaching and teacher resource, it is worrisome for

English ability of vocational students. In addition,

teachers are helpless for cultivation of students’

practical ability due to the fixed mode of exam-

oriented education in schools. With monotonous

inflexible curriculum provision and traditional

lecture-based learning, students have become line

products of vocational college English major.

Lacking certain application and management ability

of English knowledge, they still stay at the initial

stage of English learning.

From the above situation, graduates, educated by

this vocational English education, is hardly

appreciated by employers and is difficult to realize

their career ambition. For economic specialty

students, they have to master English knowledge

related with commodity information, transportation,

trade negotiation, contract correspondence, etc., and

can apply the English ability of listening, speaking,

reading and writing to work. Only in this practical

way can vocational English embody its practical

significance and help vocational college students to

realize their career planning and life value.

3 APPLICATION OF

MULTIMODAL THEORY IN

CULTIVATION OF ENGLISH

PRACTICAL ABILITY

Multimodal theory is modal symbols including

language, image, characters, behavior, etc. It is

applied in daily communication among social

members to optimize common knowledge

information transfer and feeling expression with its

meticulous quantized standard. The purpose of this

mode is to change traditional single-mode theory

and to fully explore individual inner potential in

senses of slight, smell, hearing and touch. With its

application in different practical activity, the more

scientific and reasonable theory can be generally

adopted in various fields.

3.1 Expanding teaching forms with

equipments

Today’s English education is more than words,

sentence pattern and grammar. In vocational fields

with high professionalism, especialy, corresponding

teaching activity reform cannot be limited to the

increase of teaching section or the adjustment of

teaching requirement. Pointed by On A Synthetic

Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Analysis,

multimodal exploration in aspects of culture,

language environment, content and expression is

influenced by specific behavior of educators. And to

some extent, it is also affected by non-language

teaching attachments and implements.

It is suggested that English education teaching be

a pioneer in utilizing various advanced technologies.

With certain material and economic basis, these

technologies from education are applied in education

for the huge demand of society. Diversified teaching

tools are necessary to keep teaching activities up to

date. Especially in the application of multimodal

theory to vocational English, schools and teachers

are more supposed to actively find various

possibilities with diversified equipments and

teaching form to realize multimode of students’

English practical ability cultivation.

Currently, widely used teaching tools have

possessed multimedia devices such as projector, PPT

and voice prompt system, helping students visually

see course content. Besides, vision-oriented teaching

form can easily present fuzzy language and ideology

with images or characters. This provides free

choices for students’ absorption and comprehension,

and further emancipates students’ mind. Students are

encouraged for the thought and attempt of practical

English in language, movement and expression in

order to arouse their stronger learning desire.

The breakthrough of traditional teaching pattern

provides teachers a greater unlimited space. For each

student’s professional English competence, teachers’

deep inquiry and survey can increase the pertinence

and effectiveness of their teaching activities. With

learning platform possessed high-tech elements,

students can clearly know basic information such as

major requirements of English competence,

emphasis of major-related jobs and their present

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English practical ability, and then rationally

schedule their school life. This reform is due to

teachers’ accurate choice of multimode as well as

their scientific control of sensorial utilization and

environmental factor. Consequently, the main idea

of multimodal theory is conveyed, which is

maximally beneficial to the teaching and learning.

3.2 Efficient teaching system formed by

network

Currently, work of various industries is widely

integrated into information network where data and

information can be easily collected and collated and

even be quickly called and conveyed if needed.

Education field, cradle of these knowledge and skill,

is more supposed to utilize integrated and networked

hi-tech tools for the upgrade of specific work.

Vocational English teaching can find the most

suitable curriculum provision and teaching content

with reference to network textbooks. According to

English learning effect of vocational students at

different stages, timely adjustment and upgrade of

such textbooks can avoid the discrepancy of

teaching activities and textbooks. Multimodal theory

emphasizes teachers’ cultivation of students’

practical ability in various English teaching forms.

Teachers are required to focus on whether students

have mastered enough practical English vocabulary

and grammar, whether they can skillfully apply what

they learned in reality and whether they can quickly

adjust to new environments and interpersonal

relationships. These proposed new contents and

standards, which are far beyond initial teaching

requirements, not only indicate more comprehensive

emphasis of modern society on talent quality, but

also can gradually adapt to the wide existence of

integration and network technique in daily life.

Teachers can properly balance and classify each

student’s ability of listening, reading, speaking and

writing and even their practical ability, creative

ability and divergent ability, and then integrate

related data into special information database to

form archives. The database is a direct record and

reflection of students’ English learning and can

effectively urge their active learning. Additionally,

the database also provides reference data for training

programs of vocational colleges, connecting

teaching activities with modern technology.

As the core role in multimodal teaching pattern,

information concretely includes course content,

teachers’ language expression and students’

feedback and interaction. After the integration of

these activities into network system, it can be

qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated about

teaching results, input-output ratio and inherent

potential. And the pattern operation can even

provide reliable recommendations for teaching

improvement. Consequently, only the network of

teaching activities has already largely reduce

teachers’ working strength and decrease their futile

action in teaching process. Meanwhile, it forms a

virtuous circle between function and effect of

vocational English with high teaching standard. On

this basis, vocational colleges can expand network

technique to other majors in teaching reform, student

information management and teacher assessment

and even schools’ internal affairs management, to

realize the modernization transformation of

vocational college education as soon as possible.

3.3 Increasing students’ practice

opportunities based on multimodal

theory

Effective connection between teaching activities and

social positions determines the success of talent

cultivation in vocational colleges as well as the

realization of purpose to serve the economy and

society. “Cooperation of colleges and enterprises,

combination of work and study” is the personnel

training mode proposed by Ministry of Education

recently. It requires vocational colleges to adjust

traditional lecture-based teaching, and emphasizes

the consistency of society requirement and teaching

requirement in college-enterprise cooperation to

guarantee pertinence and effectiveness of students’

learning. The best method to practice multimodal

theory is to increase students’ practice opportunities

by all means. It will provide necessary reference to

students’ future career if they can comprehensively

know about position statement, job specification and

corresponding stimulation treatment of their major-

related jobs.

In Hubei Province, vocational unified

examination will retreat from its historical stage and

be replaced by knowledge & skill assessment. The

attempt to differentiate vocational education and

general education not only further emphasizes the

professionalism of teaching and learning in

vocational colleges, but also is able to realize the

important value of “From the society and to the

society”. With extensive use, vocational English has

rich content including business English, travel

English, scientific English, etc. It requires students

have sufficient ability in aspects of spoken English,

cultural background, reading and translation, daily

writing, etc. These skills can make students high

Cultivation of Vocational Students’ English Practical Ability based on Multimodal Theory

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Cultivation of Vocational Studentsâ

Z English Practical Ability based on Multimodal Theory

101

stadard technical employees who are qualified for

their future positions. And what’s more, good

English practical ability will increase additional

value for these young workplace freshmen,

providing them with more independent choice right.

With negotiation and contracts, vocational colleges

can establish stable and reasonable win-win

cooperation mode with work units such as

enterprises and departments. It is effectively helpful

to open students’ eyes by the organization visits of

specific workflow related to practical English, the

participation in lectures made by foreign specialists

and scholars and even the transportation of

quantitative outstanding internships to foreign

enterprises or famous domestic enterprises. Through

these measures, students will have a further and

comprehensive understanding of actual requirements

in own majors and realize the distance between their

learning effect and job requirements, which can urge

them to lay more emphasis on English competence

and self-improvement.

4 CONCLUSIONS

For the students in our vocational schools, both

schools and teachers should pay more attention to its

professionalism as well as students’ corresponding

practical ability and strain capacity considering

specific actual requirements in subjects of vocational

colleges. Multimodal theory, compared with

traditional teaching theory, has unparalleled

superiority due to its visible and comprehensive

perspective. Meanwhile, it has unique application

value to students’ different senses in teaching

activities as well as various fields related to

teaching. With the support of schools and related

departments, teachers can constantly expand

teaching forms in this mode and integrate diversified

teaching activities into network by information

technology. With these measures and further

college-enterprise cooperation, finally, students’

comprehensive quality including practical ability

will be improved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was one of periodical achievements of

Hunan provincial level project Cultivation of

Vocational Students’ English Practical Ability Based

on the Input and Output of Multimodal Theory (NO.

XJKO13CZY003) and one of initial outcomes of

Hunan Railway Professional Technology College

school-level course Connection of Public English

course and Professional Education in Higher

Vocational Colleges (No. K201414).

REFERENCES

Liu Shuqi. Preliminary Discussion on Employment-

oriented Vocational English Teaching. The

Merchandise and Quality. 2014 (3): 170-170.

Luo Ying. Application of Multimodal Pattern in

Translation Teaching of Vocational Business English.

Management & Technology of SME. 2014 (1): 277-

277.

Yang Wenge. Several Problems of Vocational English

Course Teaching. Time Education. 2014 (11):238-238.

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