Research on the Impact of English Teaching Reform Based on the OBE Concept on the Cultivation of Vocational Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Vocational undergraduate education is tasked with cultivating high-level technical and skilled talents. However, its English teaching has long suffered from the tendency of “generalization” and the separation of theory and practice. The problem lies in the fact that there has been a persistent predicament. The concept of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and the ability-oriented training positioning of vocational undergraduate education are highly compatible. This provides a new path to solve this problem. The purpose of this study is to construct and implement an English teaching reform plan based on the OBE concept, and to empirically test its specific impact on the quality of vocational undergraduate education. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design and mixed research methods, with two parallel classes from a vocational undergraduate institution as the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group, based on the English application scenarios of job groups, reconstructed the goals, contents, methods, and evaluation system through reverse design and implemented output-driven project-based teaching; the control group maintained the traditional teaching mode. Data were collected through pre- and post-tests of English ability assessment, core literacy questionnaires, and in-depth interviews, and quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted using SPSS and NVivo. The results showed that the students in the experimental group had significantly better comprehensive application abilities in workplace English, professional communication and collaboration skills, and learning self-efficacy compared to the control group. Clear outcome orientation and performance-based evaluation are the key mechanisms to stimulate learning engagement and ability transfer. The study demonstrates that the OBE reform can effectively bridge the gap between learning and practice in vocational undergraduate English teaching and achieve synchronous improvement of language ability and professional accomplishment. This research provides an operational model and empirical support for the transformation of vocational undergraduate public English courses and has reference value for teaching reforms in similar institutions.