College English Teaching Study Conducted by Discovery Learning Theory and Action Research——Take College English Ⅱ for Instance

The unceasing revolution of the global economy and culture boosts the revolutionary step of the educational circle.Combining the creed of The Guide of College English Teaching in 2016 with the results of investigation and survey in colleges, a research group in the Institute of Foreign Languages of Hankou University comes up with a revolutionary trial scheme on College English teaching conducted by discovery learning theory, as well as a research method of action research, which is in hope of mending the problems and shortcomings of current College English teaching.

A Brief Introduction to Action Research

This paper makes a brief introduction to action research, and it is hoped to be helpful for the English teachers.

Changes in Nurses'Ethical Practices in Organ Transplant Nursing Using Action Research

The purpose of this study is to investigate how participation in action research will change nursing activities in dealing with ethical issues experienced in daily nursing settings of organ transplantation. The action research here is comprised of four types of sessions: clarification of wishes (1st session), meetings to talk about matters experienced, study meetings, and reflections (final session). In the first and final sessions, group interviews about ethical practices were conducted. Recorded data from the interviews and 4th meeting to talk about experiences were analyzed using WordMiner1.5. Participants had the individual need, “wish to improve understanding of ethics in their own skills to promote ethical practices and ethical interests”. Then, they became aware of “ethical practice in placing importance on the relationship with patients/their families and ethics attitudes as nurses”. This awareness was connected to “sharing ideas and information with medical staff, awareness of and action suitable for ethics issues, and increased interest in ethics issues”. Like this, the awareness of ethical practices has expanded from individuals to the relationship with patients/their families and sharing ideas with medical staff, and this has developed into self-development. The findings suggest the importance of an organizational culture that addresses ethics to improve practical ethics skills. The findings also suggest that it would be necessary for an organization to take long-term actions to addresses ethical issues in wards or hospitals.

Integrating WeChat-based Autonomous Learning Community into Improving Speaking--An Action Research Study in EFL

The purpose of this paper is to share the findings of an action research aiming at helping college students to improve their speaking by applying a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.WeChat is the most wide-spread social media platform in China.In this 10-week action research,a total of 16 participants in a Chinese university were involved.After identifying the incentive of participating in this WeChat Group speaking activity,most of which were related with pronunciation and a lack of speaking fluency practice,an action plan was developed and implemented.In this WeChat group,the participants received weekly learning material about pronunciation and speaking assignments accordingly,then they had one week to learn the pronunciation independently and prepare the oral assignments.Following this,participants submitted their voice recording in the WeChat group and were given feedback by an instructor in this group.Observations,questionnaires,and surveys were used to collect data.The results show a positive feedback from the learners on a WeChat-based autonomous learning community.The study observes(1)college EFL learners have a strong motivation;intrinsic motivation especially has a positive relationship with participants’performance;(2)students have a positive attitude towards WeChat-based autonomous learning community;(3)timely feedback from instructors is highly valued by language learners.

An Action Research Focusing on the Improvement of Students' Writing Competence

Based on the theory of Consciousness- Raising( CR),this paper proposes a teaching reform in her class,aiming to improve students' writing competence.Activities have been carried out in their English study and different tasks have been performed at different stages to train the students to be more effective in writing.This paper has expounded the feasibility of this action research and carefully presented the teaching procedures,hoping to help teachers to become more reflective and innovative in their teaching.

Renovation of Teacher's Role in Action Research

under the present educational reform backgrounds,college English teachers are expected to re-examine their role,shift their mind-sets from the traditional passive position of acceptors of educational theory to creator of their own local teaching theories.

Action Research——the Way to Enhancing Teacher Professional Development

This paper introduces the notion of action research in its international academic context. Action research is potentially beneficial to both pre-service teachers and in-service teachers in their professional development and it should play an important role in the curriculum renewal of English teaching methodology in China.

An Action Research Project Aiming to Improve the Students' Reading Skills and Performance in an EFL Reading Class

As is universally acknowledged,educators have endeavored for ages to seek the more effective teaching method.Then action research has become a tool which is frequently applied to the teaching practice aiming to locate the teaching mode satisfactory to both teachers and students.The English majors are required to pass the TEM-4 exam when they are sophomores.It is essential for them to acquire the effective learning skills from reading classes.But it seems that vocabulary and grammar study—so called the traditional teaching method prove boring to students.Therefore,the tapestry approach is put forward.But the question is though the tapestry approach stimulates students’interest,can it can improve their English level?In order to figure out the result,two classes will be chosen in this research—one is controlled class,the other is experimental class.The traditional teaching method and the tapestry approach will be used in these two classes respectively.The experiment will last one semester.The students will be tested on two same TEM-4 papers at the beginning and at the end of the semester.The data will be collected for comparison.If the experimental class get the higher scores in the TEM-4 paper,it demonstrates that the tapestry approach is successful in balancing the need for interests and the need for English improvement.

Action Research on Lexical Chunks in Intensive English Teaching

English intensive teaching aims to improve learners'comprehensive application ability,and its key lies in fluency and authenticity of language expression.Lexical chunks are acquired and stored in memory as a whole so they shorten the thinking time and greatly improve language accuracy and fluency.This paper applies the chunks to intensive English teaching and carries out ac⁃tion researches.

Enlightenment of Action Research to English Teaching in Our Country

Action research is a new research method which is suitable for practitioners to do research and it especially has been popular in the educational field. In the case of new curriculum reform in our country, many scholars or teachers are exploring betterand more reasonable ways to improve English teaching. The appearance of action research means that a new method is provided tohelp scholars or teachers to study English teaching in our country. Therefore, this article will give a concrete introduction to actionresearch and also do some reflection on using action research to study English teaching in our country.

Action Research on Using Self-and Peer-assessment in Teaching of English Writing

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the perception of applying self-and peer-assessment in English writing,through an Action research process.The learning in the programme,the students have learnt translating Chinese into written English for first stage,and have learnt writing in English for second and third stage through self-and peer-assessment.The research result shows that the most students feel that the process of self-and peer-assessment are useful for improving their English writing skill and they feel that self-reflection and peer discussion around their English writing is helpful for promoting the development of self-and peer-assessment.Especially,key findings about four types of students are more important.Overall,based on student's perception about using self-and peer-assessment,learning written in English is also an ongoing research,it can develop the ability of students' ability to solve problems independently,and raise their language communicative competence gradually.