A Study on the Ideological and Political Education of College English Writing Teaching Based on POA Theory ()
1. Introduction
College English cannot only embark the English language knowledge and cultivate the language ability, but also integrate the ideological and political education into language teaching to realize the function of educating students’ quality in language teaching. For example, the text My Mother’s Gift cannot only make students grasp the new vocabulary about family and love, six basic elements in storytelling and learn how to narrate the unforgettable experience with parents, but also know the significance of spending time together with family and the greatness embodied in the common people. Writing is an important component in language learning, so it is an unavoidable tendency to combine writing teaching with the ideological and political education in college English teaching and revolution. However, in English writing teaching, teachers usually lay special emphasis on writing patterns. Students are lacking in the deep exploration of the writing content and the expression of their real ideas. Before writing, students cannot get enough input materials, so that they cannot be enabled in the three important aspects of writing, namely content, language and structure. Students’ writing cannot be significantly improved in the topic content and ideological level. There are also the problems of imperfection of evaluation system and students’ lack of enthusiasm for writing.
Based on this situation, the author made a questionnaire investigation on freshmen from all non-English majors who have studied college English for one semester. The purpose of this research is to explore how to integrate the ideological and political education into college English writing teaching which is guided by POA (Production-Oriented Approach), as well as the ways of carrying out the ideological and political education in the enabling part of writing teaching in content, language and structure. After investigation, some applicable suggestions are put forward in order to realize the following three aims: 1) to accumulate a series of applicable resources for the ideological and political education in college English writing teaching guided by POA, form a complete set of teaching design and create some typical teaching cases featured by ideologically educational value; 2) to supply rich teaching materials for the ideological and political education in the first year College English writing teaching; 3) to construct the teaching mode of the ideological and political education in the College English writing teaching guided by POA.
2. Research Design
POA theory was put forward by Professor Wen Qiufang. The teaching process is divided into three stages: Motivating, Enabling and Assessing. In the part of motivating, teachers introduce the scenario of the production and students try to do the productive task to realize what they lack for the production. In the part of Enabling, teachers try to enable the students to possess the ability to finish the final task in terms of contents, language and structure. In the part of assessing, teacher-students collaborative assessment is made. Besides the flexible implementation of this teaching process, two teaching ideas, scenario-evoked output and input-in-service-to-output, are also the essence of this theory. (Wen, 2015; Qiu, 2020)
In the former related research, some scholars did research on POA teaching design of college English ideological and political education based on Mixed-Mode Teaching, critical thinking teaching or smart teaching (Leng, 2020; Zhang, 2020) . Some scholars also explored the integration of the ideological and political education with the specific course, such as the talent cultivation mode and mechanism and practical path in the combination of the ideological and political education and College English (Sun & Yang, 2020; Xia, 2020) . Until now the research on the ideological and political education of college English based on POA Theory that focuses on the specific field of writing teaching is rare. The teaching practice of the ideological and political education in writing teaching of college English still needs to be explored. Most teaching research of the ideological and political education is targeted on a certain subject, but only if the different parts of the subject can be studied in detail, the whole system of the subject can be achieved. This research is focusing on one of the division of the college English ideological and political education. This research tries to integrate the spirit of volunteer teaching in the west and the red culture of the school into the writing teaching. So this research can help to perfect and optimize the system of college English ideological and political education, and it can be a model for the innovation and research of college English writing teaching in universities of the same kind. So this research has its own unique value. In order to accurately investigate the ideological and political education of college English writing teaching based on POA Theory, find the problems and provide the solutions, the research is carried out in all the majors of the university. Students are from different colleges with different English levels, different interests and different thinking ways, which can make the investigation objective. In total, 317 non-English major freshmen finished the questionnaire at random.
The major research instrument is the questionnaire, which is divided into three parts. The first part is targeted on having comprehensive information about students’ understanding about ideological and political education. Specifically, the questions are from the following aspects, namely 1) the basic state of the college students; 2) students’ understanding of college English ideological and political education; 3) to what degree the college students think college English ideological and political education is meaningful. The answer to these questions can comprehensively and objectively show students’ mental state about college English ideological and political education, which can be the basis of the research. The purpose of the second part is to investigate the current situation of the implement of ideological and political education in English teaching. Specifically, the questions are from the following aspects, namely: 1) teachers’ content coverage in class; 2) whether college English teachers can combine values with teaching topic closely and harmoniously; 3) teachers’ ways of evaluation for ideological and political education. The third part is about the ideological and political education in writing field. It includes the content, ways and effect of the ideological and political education in writing field. In addition, some applicable and reasonable suggestions are put forward to deal with the problems reflected in the questionnaire.
3. Data Collection and Analysis
3.1. Students’ Understanding about Ideological and Political Education
Concerning the basic state of the college students, the survey result is as follows. 68.7% of students think the purpose of learning English is to pass English-related certification test to get a good job and 60.25% of students take passing final examination to get diploma as their purpose, but only 32.49% of students think their purpose would be having international horizon and knowing about the scientific, technological and economical development, and even less students (30.28%) think it should be spreading Chinese culture and letting the world know about China. 83.91% of students think they can express some of Chinese culture in English. 76.66% of students think they lack motivation for study; 48.9% of students think they are short of critical thinking ability; 36.59% of students think they are lacking in beliefs. From the data, it can be seen that the ideological and political education is very necessary.
As for students’ understanding of college English ideological and political education, the result is positive when the data is analyzed, as 69.72% of students think college English ideological and political education is the organic integration between college English and moral education, and only 11.67% of students think it is simply piecing together of the two things.
The following question shows to what degree the college students think college English ideological and political education is meaningful. 45.43% of students totally agree to the opinion that the moral education in College English can make them realize the spirit of Chinese culture and the core values of Chinese socialism, and help to build the cultural consciousness and cultural confidence. 41.32% of students agree to that opinion. The data show that majority of students accept this kind of moral education.
3.2. Current Situation of the Implement of Ideological and Political Education in English Teaching
As for teachers’ content coverage in class, besides English language knowledge, 81.7% of students think teachers will try to cultivate students excellent quality; 71.61% of students think teachers talks with values; 68.45% of students think teachers will guide students on their career life and future plan.
Concerning whether college English teachers can combine values with teaching topic closely and harmoniously, altogether 96.84% of students think their teacher can do this successfully. To the ways of evaluation, according to students’ choices, 77.6% of teachers will make teacher evaluation, 68.45% of teachers will let students evaluate by themselves, and 54.89% of teachers will use peer evaluation. It can be seen that teachers use Teacher-Students Collaborative Evaluation in moral education which in line with POA teaching mode.
3.3. Content, Ways and Effect of the Ideological and Political Education in Writing Field
The third part of the questionnaire is related to the content, ways and effect of the ideological and political education in writing field. The data is shown in the following tables.
Table 1 shows the teachers who teach the students surveyed mostly involve the ideological and political education in college English writing class. Because students surveyed are from every college in the university, that means most English teachers carry out moral education in writing class. But there are almost a quarter (24.92%) of teachers seldom or never do that.
According to Table 2, it can be obviously seen that teachers can integrate the ideological and political education into various parts of college English writing class, including the parts before, in and after class. They are apt to do moral education when they interact with students in class or when they expand the teaching materials by combining eastern and western cultures.
From the data in Table 3, it can be concluded that teachers use various kinds of teaching materials in college English writing class. The top one is “counterpart teaching materials”. The reason for that may be the easy access of this kind of materials. Teachers will not have to spend extra hours to seek teaching materials when using it. Moral education materials, media report, and literary film and television works are also materials which can be used often.
Based on the data of Table 4, majority (95.59%) of students think teachers will use the ways of making speeches, debating or role play to integrate ideological and political education in college English writing class. Through these activities, students can get prepared for the writing from the aspects of language, content and structure.
According to the data of Table 5, it can be seen that only 37.22% of students are really in the topic related to moral education in college English writing. So it is necessary for teachers to supply rich topic and teaching material to arouse students’ interest in ideological and political education in college English writing class.
Table 6 shows the effect of the ideological and political education in writing class. Students can achieve a lot through these classes. Naturally, they can improve their the knowledge and skill of English writing and the fact that 76.34% of students chose this point means students pay much attention to the writing knowledge and skills. In the meantime, students can also develop the patriotism, increase the social knowledge and form international horizon. These change can also deepen students thinking, enrich their language and make them think logically, which can improve writing reversely. This requires teachers to explore the ways to realize the enabling in content, language and structure in the moral education of writing teaching.
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Table 1. Involvement of ideological and political education in college English writing class.
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Table 2. Parts with ideological and political education in writing class.
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Table 3. Teaching materials in college English writing class.
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Table 4. Ways of ideological and political education in writing field.
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Table 5. Students’ attitude to the topic related to moral education.
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Table 6. Effect of the ideological and political education in writing field.
4. Findings and Suggestions
4.1. Findings
Based on the data of the questionnaire, it is found that the ideological and political education is very necessary. Most teachers are trying to use different teaching materials and teaching ways to make moral education in college English writing class. Some problems still exist in the college English writing teaching with ideological and political education. Firstly, how to involve as many as possible teachers to carry out moral education in college English writing teaching? Second, how should teachers supply rich topic and teaching materials to arouse students’ interest in ideological and political education in college English writing class? Thirdly, how should teachers realize the enabling in the aspects of content, language and structure in the process of writing teaching with ideological and political education?
4.2. Suggestions
To solve the problems, this research carried out the college English writing class under the theory of POA. In the part of Enabling, teachers try to enable the students to possess the ability to finish the writing task in terms of contents, language and structure through the study of the text or other teaching materials. The texts on the books will be dealt with in a new idea-taking writing task as the main thread of the whole teaching design. At the same time, teachers will integrate the elements of ideological and political education close to the writing topic into each part of teaching based on the students’ interest and academic development to achieve the purpose of educating people through academic subjects. The specific suggestions are as follows.
4.2.1. Suggestions for Involving More Teachers to Make Moral Education
In order to involve more teachers to make moral education, teachers’ awareness of the importance of moral education should firstly be enhanced by training. Then, teachers should learn the ways of doing it autonomously and scientifically. After that, teachers should work collaboratively to accumulate the teaching materials suitable for moral education. Finally, the effective assessment for moral education should be developed gradually to strengthen the implement of it.
4.2.2. Suggestions for Supplying Rich Topics and Teaching Materials
First of all, the writing topic of ideological and political education should be extracted from the phenomenon or problems in the reality or it must be related to students’ personal life so that students’ thinking can be provoked and they can have the empathy for the topic.
Additionally, in the part of enabling, teachers should choose the teaching material containing value elements to give students enough input for their later writing. The teaching materials should be able to educate students in terms of culture, science, emotion or ecology.
Taking the unit “Pursue Your Dreams” as an example, the theme of writing is Failure and Success of the Dream. In the process of writing, the students would be able to think about the relationship between success and failure critically and understand failure also has positive influence on life, so that students’ critical thinking and ability to resist pressure and frustration can be improved.
In the motivating part, teachers can let students watch the video about J. K. Rowling, the author of the novel Harry Porter, which most students are familiar with and interested in. Through the video, students will know what hardships J. K. Rowling has suffered before this bestselling book came into being. In the contrast of the popularity of Harry Porter and the so many failures Rowling have experienced, students can deeply understand the role of setbacks in one’s life naturally.
In the enabling part, materials containing other examples of world-famous rebounders will be given to students, so that they can use them as supporting examples in their own writing. The materials also include some words related to failure, such as defeat, setback, blow, the words describing the feeling facing failure, such as disappointed, depressed, rejected, and the vocabulary about the reaction to the failure, such as get through, venture, persevere, rise above challenge, which can help students get prepared for writing in language.
4.2.3. Suggestions for Enabling Part in Content, Language and Structure
In terms of the teaching process, the moral education will exist in every aspect of teaching from the beginning to the end. The example sentences of the new words related to the topic will be chosen from the report of current affairs or the news, so that vocabulary learning can arouse the thinking of students. Teachers will not only focus on the writing strategies and skills, but also explore the content of the materials, especially the cultivation the qualities of students.
In terms of the teaching strategies, teachers should use various strategies to arouse students thinking and improve students’ critical thinking and dialectical thinking, such as question-leading and comparison making between the east and the west. In this process, students can use the language, writing skills and the content they have just learned to express their own opinions, so that they can get prepared for the later writing in language, content and writing structure.
Still taking the unit “Pursue Your Dreams” as an example. The scenario for the writing is set like this: To answer the question “Is failure success in progress?” your school newspaper is running a forum for discussion and has invited contributions from university students. You are encouraged to submit an essay. In the enabling part, in order to get students prepared in language, content and structure, the teaching procedure will be designed as following. First, students are asked to make fast reading about the passage “Failure: The secret to success” in this unit, so that students can quickly grasp the structure of the passage (introduction, body and conclusion) and understand the writing skill of supporting with examples. Then, through three inquiring questions (For example, what features are manifested in each example given by the author?) to make students think about the topic deeply, so that students can have something to say in their writing.
In addition, teachers will let students watch the video about the volunteer teachers in the west graduating from our university. Students will be asked to discover how the volunteer teachers overcome the unavoidable failure to be successful in strange environment, and think about how they should do in face of failures to realize their dreams. In the process of thinking, students will not be limited to the examples of foreigners, they can compare the success stories home and aboard to find the features of successful persons.
5. Conclusion
All in all, POA Theory is beneficial for college English writing teaching and following the above suggestions, the ideological and political education can be naturally integrated into the procedure of whole teaching procedure. Both of the two teaching objectives of developing students writing ability and educating students morally can be achieved at the same time.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the 14th Five-Year Plan Project of Educational Science in Baoding City: A Study and Practice on the Ideological and Political Education of College English Writing Teaching Based on POA Theory (No. 2201158).