Abstract

Against the backdrop of building a strong educational nation and promoting high‑quality development of vocational education, ideological and political education integrated into courses has become a key measure to implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. However, English teaching in higher vocational colleges generally faces practical difficulties such as rigid integration and weak value‑leading effects, which stem from the systematic lack of teachers’ cognitive systems. Traditional research has mostly focused on teaching methods rather than the internal logic of teachers’ cognitive awakening. Based on narrative research and the author’s teaching experience, this study analyzes structural problems in current teacher training and constructs a four‑stage endogenous growth model: autonomous learning, systematic cognition, classroom transformation, and value‑leading. The study argues that the core of teachers’ ideological and political competence lies in the collaborative construction of a civilization‑based historical perspective, dialectical thinking, and cultural self‑consciousness, realizing a paradigm shift from external skill training to internal cognitive awakening. This research not only provides a replicable practical path for higher vocational English teachers to solve the “two‑layered skin” problem but also offers a theoretical reference and practical model for the reform of university teacher training systems.