Thoughts on English Teaching for Students Majoring in Molds in Vocational Colleges—Take Shandong Labor Vocational and Technical College as Example

The thesis discusses the necessity of learning English for students who major in mold specialty and current situation and restraint of vocational English teaching. Meanwhile, the author puts forward her opinions for innovation and development of teaching contents and methods.


Introduction
Under the background of vocational education in new era, comprehensive high-quality skilled talents are widely welcomed to better communicate with overseas. As the first language in the world and the tool to communicate with others, English is the integral subject to foster specialized vocational talents.
Good mastery of English at a certain level is a must for compound talents, it's not only the essential demand for reeducation but also the stepping stone for future careers.

Policy Leading
Ministry of Education of China and Ministry of Finance of China both come up with policies to put forth newest construction plan of vocational education in new era. The total goal is to build up about 50 high-level vocational colleges and about 150 high-level specialty groups, aiming to support national www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt Studies in English Language Teaching Vol. 8, No. 1, 2020 105 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
main industries and development of area backbone industries and lead the high-quality development of vocational colleges in other provinces and cities. Those colleges and specialty groups who are listed in this plan are supposed to have striking promotion in international influence and service capacity, playing a leading role in cultivating high-quality skilled talents.
According to the demands of national policies, the main vocational colleges should try their best to meet the standards of the high demands, the construction of majors and cultivation of students should support the development of area industries, improve the related international influence.

The Situation of Mold Trading of Shandong Province
China's mold manufacturing has a characteristic of regional development, Shandong is one of the six mold manufacturing areas, also one of the ten provinces that import and export molds. There are four mold industrial parks: Qingdao manufacturing base for mould equipment of home appliance, Zhongtian mold city in Zhoucun, Zibo City, Shandong (Linyi City) International mold industrial park and Shandong Linglong tire mold industrial base. Under such a wonderful condition of mold manufacturing, vocational college students in Shandong Province have a geographic advantage; As a province ranking the top ones in import and export profits, corporations also need specialized talents which master the basic English knowledge.

Shortage of Teachers
In recent years, teachers in vocational colleges have been promoted their teaching skills continuously, more and more post graduates join the huge teaching groups, their professional quality and basic knowledge can meet the demands for teaching in such vocational colleges, but firstly, most of them have neither mold-related knowledge nor vocabulary of related specialties, not to mention the training experience in enterprises. Secondly, some colleges have professional English courses, those who give lessons for students who major in mold manufacturing are mold manufacturing specialty teachers who don't have experiences of English learning and training overseas, thus they may have disadvantages in English basic skills, only to lay emphasis on vocabulary and reading comprehension in teaching process, lacking the attention on listening and speaking, so it's hard for students to improve English communicative skills.

Not Enough for Combination with Specialized Subjects
English for vocational colleges is one of the public elementary courses, adopted the basic English textbooks for vocational colleges, whose target groups are students of all specialties, but to a large extent, it lays particular emphasis on majors of literal arts, topics of the texts are always about business, marketing and brands, it rarely involves contents about mold and machine manufacturing and so on.
Therefore, students can just learn basic words, sentences and dialogues instead of the contents related to their own specialties, meanwhile, the contents can't build proper contact with specialized courses.

Single Teaching Methods
The teaching methods of higher vocational colleges are relatively traditional and relatively simple.
Because the students' foundation and feedback are different, it is not easy for teachers to apply some innovative teaching methods. Teachers' teaching methods are inherently teacher-centered, and students are still passive. The application of information technology is not very rich. It still relies on traditional presentation methods such as PPT and WORD, and the homework is also traditional written forms such as translation and transcription. A single teaching method is difficult to arouse students' interest in learning English. Teachers do not get good feedback from students, nor do they have the passion to reflect on and improve the teaching method, forming a vicious circle.

Lack of Lesson Hours
Vocational colleges pay attention to practice, lay emphasis on training in enterprises, teachers and students spend most of their time studying specialized courses and ideological and political courses, Basic classes such as English math are compressed. English classes are offered only in the first semester of freshmen. There are only two teaching hours per week, and there are insufficient classes.
Some institutions set English as an elective course or even cancel English courses directly. English is a systematic subject that is difficult to crash. Due to the limitation of the language environment, English classrooms are also a rare opportunity for students to come into contact with the English environment.
If there are insufficient class hours or even no English courses, students will be allowed to study on their own. It may be difficult to meet the requirements.

Weak Basic Knowledge of Students
The composition of students in vocational colleges is diverse. There are students who pass the summer college entrance examination, students who pass a single enrollment in a technical school, and students who have advanced to high technology through their middle school skills. There are different levels of students and different levels of English. Most students have relatively weak English foundations and are not interested in learning the English language itself.

Teaching Practice for English of Mold Specialty in Vocational Colleges
Aiming at the problem that the traditional teaching method is single and inadequately integrated with the professional courses, taking the class 2 of the 2019 class in Shandong Labor Vocational and Technical College as an example, some classroom teaching method innovation practices are carried out.
The number of students in Mould class two is 35. Most of them are recruited by technical schools, among whom are there no more than 3 college entrance examination students. The results of the first lesson showed that the overall English level of the students was not high and was generally pyramid-shaped. Most students had English knowledge at the junior high school level or below. Very few students had a good foundation in English. In the actual teaching, the teaching content was updated to make it more closely linked with the mold specialty, innovative teaching methods, task-oriented, output-oriented, and practiced in the teaching of mold specialty higher vocational English.

Translate Product Instructions
Select the original English product manuals on the Internet with appropriate difficulty for students to read and translate. Product manuals can be obtained from the foreign trade promotion website of foreign mold companies, or they can be downloaded from the mold industry English learning forum. In the process of reading, students are required to find the words, analyze the meaning of the sentence, understand the functions, characteristics and uses of the product, and at the same time be able to translate into Chinese, in line with the Chinese product instruction manual. In the process, students get a lot of input, accumulate cognitive vocabulary, and enrich the word volume.

Write Product Introductions
Based on the format and content of the English product manual that I have read before, select a product that has been learned in a professional class, and write a product introduction book in English. Students are required to include a mold structure diagram and related data in the product introduction book, and introduce it in English. In this process, students can convert reading input into output, and transform cognitive vocabulary into active vocabulary that can truly master and apply.

Edit the Chinese-English Subtitle of Product Videos
Show English-speaking product introduction videos to students. It is known from practice that the network resources of English mold videos are not abundant, but the original English video resources of product production process on the Internet are still relatively easy to obtain. Divide the video into multiple parts, each part for 1-2 minutes, let students watch the video multiple times, the picture assists understanding, and requires students to match the video with English and Chinese subtitles. Then imitate the voiced intonation of the commentary, recite the commentary, and dub the video. This process has greatly enhanced the students' listening and speaking skills in an entertaining way.

Teaching Ways and Tasks Oriented
Classroom teaching is mainly student-centered and output-oriented. The teaching content is divided into tasks for students. The whole class is divided into groups and is completed by the members of the group. The members of the group are divided into different roles. Each member is responsible for a part.
Finally, a member makes a summary statement to complete the display. Practice has shown that this teaching method can effectively mobilize students' classroom participation, but must pay attention to the difficulty of teaching content, requiring students to summarize and present the process in Chinese, translate and write the results in English, reading materials and the video explanation should not be too difficult, it is slightly higher than the current level of the students, and it can be done by making some efforts.
To sum up, Shandong Province is in a leading position in the mold import and export and mold manufacturing industry in China, which will generate a large number of jobs, but the shortage is talented professionals with excellent English communication skills. At present, the problems in the process of higher vocational English teaching in mold specialty in terms of teaching content, teaching methods, integration of professional courses, objective conditions, etc. It can be improved to a certain extent through innovative teaching content and teaching methods.