独立学院中土木工程专业英语的教学困境及解决办法
2012-04-23王爰瑗
王爰瑗
摘要:在独立学院中,土木工程专业英语一般处于专业选修课的地位,在大学第五至第八学期开设,且通常为32或24学时。这门非主干课程没有得到足够的重视。一方面老师和学生对于这门课有很多、很高的期望值,一方面没有有利的环境和机制促进大家的专业英语学习。
如何培养能熟练掌握土木工程专业英语的优秀毕业生是当前高校急需解决的问题。独立学院要培养的正是应用型人才,能应用好土木工程专业知识和英语,这样的双重人才,也是我们该努力培养的。我们面临着特有的教学困境,其一,学生们的卷面分数对比差距大,其二,学生们有自己的英语词典和专业词典的人数不多,其三,学时分配不太合理,对于学有余力的学生来说,他们的学习热情和学习能力仍有提升的空间。
解决办法多种多样,结合独立学院的环境和学生特质,我们可以加强教学管理,严进宽出,优化教学组织形式,并且言传身教,给学生们树立一个好榜样,选择合适的专业英语教材也是有效的办法之一。土木工程专业英语今后仍是很重要、很必要的一门课,谁都不能忽视它。
关键词:独立学院,土木工程,专业英语,教学
Abstract:
Ordinarily specialized English for civil engineering is in the place of the professional elective courses in the independent colleges. It is offered in the fifth to the eighth semester, and usually for 32 or 24 periods. This kind of non-major course hasnt gotten enough attention. On one hand our teachers and students have very much and high expectation, on the other hand there hasnt been favorable environment and regime to promote our specialized English learning.
How to train the excellent graduates with skilled English in civil engineering? It is an urgent problem in universities now. All the independent colleges should cultivate practical students, so that they can apply both professional knowledges and English of civil engineering well. Such kind of dual talent is our training aim. But our peculiar teaching dilemmas are the following. First, there is a great gap between the students' scores on their test papers. Second, only a few students have their own English dictionaries and professional dictionaries. Third, the period of this course is not assigned reasonably, for the top students, their learning enthusiasm and abilities need more room to be promoted.
Well, the solutions must be varied and combined with environment of the independent colleges and the students' characteristics. We can make further teaching management to hold an easy exam with a strict class. Also we can optimize the organization forms. We could set a good example to the students during the teaching process. Then we may select the appropriate professional English textbooks. All above are the effective solutions. In the future specialized English for civil engineering is still a very important and necessary course, no one can ignore it
Key words: independent colleges , civil engineering , specialized English , teaching
中图分类号:G633.41 文献标识码: A 文章编号:
一 引言
在高等院校里,独立学院的生源通常是第二批、第三批录取的,他们的入学成绩与一本学生相比有些差距。随着扩招规模的增加,生源质量似乎一年不如一年,呈逐年下降趋势,这使得我们的教学困境越来越多,专业课越来越难讲,专业英语越来越讲不通。
在独立学院中,土木工程专业英语一般处于专业选修课的地位,在大学第五至第八学期开设,且通常为32或24学时,即2或1.5学分。与某些一本院校土木工程的该课程相比,还不及他们学时学分的一半。专业英语是大学英语学习的后半部分。前半部分的学习属于普通英语(General English),学时长,学分多。普通英语教学大纲中规定:“理工科大学英语教学的目的是,培养学生具有较强的阅读能力,初步的写和说的能力,使学生能以英语为工具”。
而土木工程专业英语则是结合土木工程的专业知识和信息,培养学生的实际运用能力,比如能看懂英语文献或专著,能自己翻译出小论文的摘要和关键词,能在日后的工作中以英语为主要载体,解决项目中的若干问题,等等。
我院的土木工程专业英语教学大纲规定:“通过专业英语的学习,使学生能掌握常用的专业英语词汇、专业术语的英语表达;提高阅读英文专业期刊、书籍的能力;了解科技英语翻译的特点,培养一定的专业文献翻译能力;在听、说方面有进一步的提高。”
这门中西合璧、承上启下的课程,在独立学院中却一直属于非主干课程,没有得到足够的重视。一方面老师和学生对于这门课有很多、很高的期望值,一方面没有有利的环境和机制促进大家的专业英语学习。任教几年后,我做了此方面的抽样调查,发现一些独立学院中特有的教学情况,准确地说,是教学困境。