The Effect of Flipped Classroom Approach on Secondary Vocational School Students’ English Application Competence

吴晓霞

【Abstract】In recent years， the flipped classroom teaching model as an emerging new teaching model has soon spread all over the world. Compared with the conventional lecture-based teaching model， the flipped classroom teaching model makes a lot of changes in the roles of teachers and students， the class arrangement and so on. Many educators are interested in this new model and many of them have already tried to put it into practice. However， few of the researches are made in secondary vocational schools. The flipped classroom teaching model is put into use in a secondary vocational school class in this thesis. To testify whether its workable and its effects on students English application competence， an action research will be adopted. At the end of the thesis， discussion of the results as well as implications will be presented.

【Key words】Flipped classroom teaching model； English teaching in secondary vocational school； English application competence

1. Introduction

English as a major communication tool has been emphasized all the time in school or at work. According to the English teaching syllabus for secondary vocational school， students are asked to learn more English knowledge and skills during the school time. Teachers should also help students improve their English application competence in daily life as well as at work place. To be more specific， based on the nine-year compulsory education， students in secondary vocational school are expected to learn more English knowledge including listening， speaking， reading， writing skills and so on through English course. Besides， students are also expected to increase their English learning interests and become more confident through the English course.

Over the past decades， conventional lecture-based teaching model plays a very important role in Chinese class. It is a teacher-center teaching model which students are asked to absorb knowledge during the class and do homework after class.

In a conventional lecture-based teaching model English class， the teachers design the whole class， deciding the way of imparting the knowledge to students. Students are asked to listen to teachers carefully in the class and do homework accordingly after class. Teachers evaluate students work through the homework and fail to give students some feedback immediately in the class. Students also find that its difficult for them to concentrate on teachers lectures for 40 minutes in the class. Sometimes they may also face the peer pressure coming from the classmates in the same class because the teacher cant pay attention to all the students in the class. Students who are quick and talented are not adequately nurtured while some students find out that they are unable to keep pace with the teacher. When they do homework after class， they may come across some problems that they cant solve by themselves because they probably forget some details taught by the teachers. This is a typical conventional teacher-center class， which reduce the importance of the role of students in the English learning class.

Therefore， its necessary to look for a new teaching model to improve the role of students in class and test whether it can help improve students English competence or not.

Over the last decade， with the rapid increase in Internet access and advances in online technology， more and more educators come to rethink the way we teach and learn. In the year 2007， two high school chemistry teachers from Colorado， Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams began flipping courses in their class， which were aimed to help those students who missed class or couldnt arrive at school on time. Thats the beginning practice of the flipped classroom （also known as the inverted classroom）. Since then， the flipped classroom teaching model has spread to many schools and professional educators or teachers worldwide. The idea of flipped classroom is a form of blended learning which encompasses any use of technology to leverage the learning in a classroom， so a teacher can spend more time interacting with students instead of lecturing （Tucker 2012）. Instead of spending the class time lecturing in conventional lecture-based class， the flipped classroom teaching model provides students opportunities for absorbing knowledge before class in order to use class time for other activities instead of lecturing.

2. The Definition of the Flipped Classroom Teaching Model

As an exciting new topic in education research， there is a lack of consensus on what exactly the flipped classroom is. Many educators attempted to define it. Maybe the simplest definition of the flipped classroom is given by Lage. “Inverting the classroom means that events that have traditionally taken place inside the classroom now take place outside the classroom and vice versa”. （Lage， 2000）This definition captures the rationale of using the terminology flipped. It would imply that the flipped classroom merely represents a re-ordering of classroom and at-home activities. In practice， however， this is not the case. The other definition proposed by Day&Foley is that some amount of material is covered outside of the face-to-face environment， usually video， to “provide conceptual background knowledge to students before class， which is then reinforced and further contextualized through in-class discussion and application activities.” （Day&Foley， 2006）Another more basic definition was noted by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. They defined the flipped classroom as “that which is traditionally done in class is now done at home， and that which is traditionally done as homework is now completed in class.”（Bergmann， Sams， 2012）

Therefore， the reason why the teaching model is called “flipped” is because the conventional order of classroom teaching is inverted in it. To sum up， the flipped classroom teaching model is a fresh teaching model which course lectures are recorded or made into other teaching materials such as PPT etc. and posted online or sent to students for students access. Students spend their time outside of class absorbing the lecture content and preparing for in-class activities to deepen understanding primarily during class.

3. The Advantages of Flipped Classroom Teaching Model

Compared with conventional lecture-based model， flipped classroom teaching model has many advantages. It puts more onus on students to actively learn and individualizes the experience so students can learn base on their own needs. Kathleen Fulton listed some benefits of the flipped classroom： （1） students move at their own pace； （2） doing “homework” in class gives teachers better insight into student difficulties and learning styles； （3） teachers can more easily customize and update the curriculum and provide it to students； （4）classroom time can be used more effectively and creatively； （5） teachers using the method report seeing increased levels of student achievement， interest， and involvement； （6） learning theory supports the new approaches； （7） the use of technology is flexible and appropriate for “21st century learning”.（Fulton，2012）

4. Research Design

The research is conducted in the work place of the author， who is in charge of the English teaching for the accounting major students. Teachers in this school are provided many opportunities to take part in kinds of training classes. The flipped classroom teaching model is a current trend in education. The teachers in this school have already received relative training about the flipped classroom teaching model for several times. Students in this school are required to buy a tablet personal computer when they enter into the school. The tablet allows them to do exercise set in the tablet by the tablet company which is cooperative with the school， or allows them to surf the internet if needed. Almost every student in the school owns a smart phone. Its very convenient for the communication among teacher and student through the smart phone or tablet or desktop after class. This also provides a precondition for the implementation of the flipped classroom

At the very beginning of the semester， a practice test for PETS-1 was taken in the first class. The mean score for the whole class was 53.96 points， while the mean score for the oral test for the first time was 2.33 points. Students should get 60 points for written test and at least 3 points for oral test. Thus， in order to help more students improve their English application competence and pass the PETS-1 exam. Teacher need to figure out how to help students learn more.

After the pre-test， the English course was then taught in a conventional lecture-based teaching model for a month which the teachers would write notes on the board and students would copy the notes into their notebooks. Communication during class time was mostly one-directional from the teacher to the student. Students would complete homework outside the class and pass it in before next class. The English course met twice a week over the semester （18 weeks）， with 80 minutes in each class.

Second practice test was then taken after one-month learning. The mean score for the second test was 55.98， which was a little higher than the first test. However， its still unsatisfactory. Through observation， students were not active enough in the class during this month. Its really high time that the teacher should take action to know more about the students and make some change.

Therefore， a questionnaire which aimed to realize the present English learning situation of the students was given. The detailed analysis of the questionnaire will be presented in next chapter. However， the author could draw a brief conclusion for the result of the questionnaire， which was that most students felt that they didnt enjoy the present English learning and its hard for them to concentrate all the time in a lecture-based class. They would like to try a different teaching model. Thats why the author carries out the following action research.

The research will be conducted for three rounds of action（plan， action， observation， reflection）， in hope of being clear about the steps and the teaching plans of the implementation of the flipped classroom in secondary vocational school English class. Besides， teachers should observe the whole flipping class carefully and make change if necessary. Last but not least， the evaluation for the students performance and the effect of the flipped classroom teaching model is also emphasized.

5. Discussion of the Results

Firstly， the purpose of this research is to learn the effects of the flipped classroom teaching model and to testify whether its workable in English class in secondary vocational school. The results of the pre-test and post-test indicate that the flipped classroom teaching model in English teaching has a positive effect on improving students English application competence. It could be observed in the process of flip teaching， the students became more interests in English learning and their independent learning abilities had also been promoted. All of these helped the students involve more in the English learning and achieved better scores for the test.

Secondly， the analysis of the pre-test， second-test and the post-test has testified that the flipped classroom teaching model helps to improve students English application competence more effectively than the conventional lecture-based teaching model. There was no significant difference in the students performance between the pre-test and second-test. While after the flip teaching， it was testified that there was significant difference between the pre-test and post-test. Therefore it can be concluded that the flipped classroom teaching model improves students English application competence more effectively than the conventional lecture-based teaching model.

To sum up， the flipped classroom teaching model in secondary vocational school is workable. Besides， Students who were taught by the flipped classroom teaching model have increased their learning English interests and improved their English application competence.

6. Implications of the Research

Based on the above discussion， implications of the research can be listed as follows：

Firstly， the thoughts which aim to innovate the current English teaching model are proposed again and again in different meetings for secondary vocational school teachers. Teachers are encouraged to innovate and try some new teaching models. Now that the results of this research testify the efficiency of the flipped classroom teaching model in English teaching， it is recommended to put the model into practice.

Secondly， the flipped classroom teaching model is a topical subject these years. From the research， it can be discovered that the model is a good way to increase students learning interests and encourage students to learn independently based on their own needs. However， since most of the teachers in the secondary vocational school teach in the conventional lecture-based model， they need more training to know about more innovative teaching models and make use of them in teaching if possible.

There is no doubt that the flipped classroom teaching model is becoming more and more popular nowadays. Many researchers have already tried and testified its feasibility in English teaching. However， most of the researches are conducted in primary school， middle school or junior high school. With the development of secondary vocational school， innovative teaching models are strongly recommended. Its hoped that this thesis can provide teachers， students in secondary vocational school an alternative teaching model in English teaching or learning， encouraging and inspiring them to think deeper and look forward to more effective ways. It is also believed that further researches on different subjects or different kinds of schools will bring more findings if the environment allows.

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